[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2019
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
___________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas, Chairman
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
SCOTT TAYLOR, Virginia
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Frelinghuysen, as chairman of the
full committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Donna Shahbaz, Kris Mallard, Laura Cylke,
Christopher Romig, and Dave Roth
Subcommitte Staff
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PART 2
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
United States Department of Homeland Security................ 1
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border
Protection................................................. 57
Federal Emergency Management Agency ......................... 135
United States Coast Guard.................................... 169
Members' Day................................................. 201
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
30-212 WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
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RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey, Chairman
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky \1\ NITA M. LOWEY, New York
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KAY GRANGER, Texas PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
KEN CALVERT, California LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BARBARA LEE, California
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
TOM GRAVES, Georgia TIM RYAN, Ohio
KEVIN YODER, Kansas C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington DEREK KILMER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
DAVID G. VALADAO, California GRACE MENG, New York
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada PETE AGUILAR, California
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
DAVID YOUNG, Iowa
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
SCOTT TAYLOR, Virginia
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\1\ Chairman Emeritus
Nancy Fox, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2019
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Wednesday, April 11, 2018.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
WITNESS
HON. KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Carter. I will call today's hearing to order.
Welcome to the subcommittee's first hearing on the
Department of Homeland Security's fiscal year 2019 budget.
As we begin our oversight process to fund the Department
for fiscal year 2019, I would like to welcome all of our
subcommittee members back. Thank you all for being here and for
all the hard work you did in 2018. I also extend a special
welcome to today's witness, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Secretary Nielsen, thank you for your time today; more
importantly, for all that you and everyone at the Department
does for this great country. I look forward to hearing your
thoughts on the needs that need to be done to keep our homeland
safe, our borders secure. And as we look forward to working
with you on these challenges, we hope that you will know that
we are working together.
I am pleased to see continued investment in border
security. The President's budget request proposes $1.6 billion
for 65 miles of physical barrier. Additionally, the budget
request also proposes funding for 52,000 detention beds so that
we can continue to enforce our Nation's immigration laws.
We will use this hearing process to learn more about these
proposals and how things should be considered in the context of
the final 2018 appropriations.
Also noteworthy is the request for $1.5 billion to
modernize our Coast Guard fleet of vessels, including $750
million to construct a new polar icebreaker. This will be the
first of several needed to address the security challenges and
economic opportunities facing our Nation. I hope that this
hearing process will help us to determine the Department's
plans for continuing this effort and achieving the United
States' strategic goals in the Arctic.
Finally, I would like to welcome back my good friend, the
ranking member, Lucille Roybal-Allard. While we don't always
agree on policy, we do agree that, working together, we can get
and produce a better product. For that, I want to thank her and
recognize her for any remarks she would like to make.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Madam Secretary, and welcome to your first
appearance before our subcommittee.
While still relatively new, the Department has made
significant process in improving its operations and
performance, which is something that DHS personnel, all 240,000
of them, can be very proud.
While there is broad bipartisan support for the
Department's mission of protecting the homeland, there are
differences of opinion on some of the policies the Department
follows to achieve that mission.
I wish that today we were convening under better
circumstances. This would allow us to focus more on the
positive things the Department is doing, including significant
improvements over the last decade to our border security.
It would help if our country's immigration debate was on a
more constructive footing, one based on facts, our American
values, and compromise that could lead to a comprehensive
resolution to the immigration challenges we all face together.
Unfortunately, the path to a compromise solution by this
Congress and between the Congress and the President seems
steeper today than ever. This not only makes your job more
difficult, it also causes confusion, fear, and uncertainty
within our American immigrant communities, among our educators,
our business sector, and our nonprofit and social service
organizations.
Many have come to Washington to express their concerns and
to highlight the valuable contributions immigrants are making
to our national economy and American society as a whole.
Unfortunately, these contributions and the dire
circumstances that caused individuals to cross our border
illegally or appear at a port of entry without admissibility
documentation are too often ignored, and immigrants are broadly
characterized as criminals or opportunists trying to take
advantage of our American generosity.
Regrettably, the administration's rhetoric and aggressive
interior enforcement contribute to that perception and is
wrongfully demonizing the immigrant community, tearing families
apart, and upending the lives of millions of people.
Madam Secretary, you have the authority to help alleviate
some of this fear and confusion by using your discretion under
the law to prioritize how the Department enforces immigration
laws and carries out policies.
The vast majority of immigrants are good, hardworking
members of our community, with no criminal records. Many have
lived among us for years or decades, raising their families,
paying taxes, and contributing to our communities. Some came to
escape violence, others to seek a better life for themselves
and their family.
The fact that they arrived without permission, most out of
fear or desperation, does not mean we should systematically
ignore their plight and contributions to our communities and
automatically return them to the circumstances that brought
them here in the first place. And we most certainly can treat
them and their family humanely, with respect, understanding,
and compassion.
Another responsibility of USCIS is to conduct credible,
fair interviews of individuals arriving at our borders seeking
asylum. Under our laws, as well as under our international
agreements, we have committed not to return someone to a
country where their life or liberty would be threatened.
While not everyone who applies for asylum will receive it,
we have an obligation to make sure every asylum seeker gets the
opportunity for their case to be heard. And while we do not
have the capacity to help every deserving refugee, we can help
more than we do now, and we can treat them all humanely and
compassionately.
In closing, Madam Secretary, let me be perfectly clear. My
Democratic colleagues and I fully support securing our borders,
and we understand the need and the importance of enforcing our
immigration laws. Our objective is to ensure we accomplish
those goals in a way that is just and humane, reflective of our
American values and moral standing in the world. I look forward
to working with you towards those goals.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Roybal-Allard.
We are joined by the chairman of the full committee, Rodney
Frelinghuysen. I yield to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Well, thank you very much. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. It is good to get here under the wire.
Let me say on behalf of my ranking member, Mrs. Lowey of
New York, who I think will be joining us--we are running around
from hearing to hearing--it is a pleasure to welcome you, Madam
Secretary, and wish you, obviously, Godspeed in your endeavors.
We look forward to your testimony and any frank comments you
have.
I often say at every committee we represent and look after
and have the power of the purse. So while much time is spent
with the authorizers, we actually are the bill payers. So it is
important that you keep us posted. And as things accelerate and
focus on border security, it is better to be briefed than read
about in the newspaper some of the things that are happening.
I know you have a large and diverse portfolio under you. So
does the Department of Defense. But for Members of Congress, it
is good for us to sort of be well informed, hopefully, before
certain actions are taken so they are not misunderstood or
misinterpreted.
Just say on a personal note, I come from a 9/11 State.
Seven hundred New Jerseyans died on that day in September, many
of them my constituents. We continue to have a focus on what is
called UASI, the Urban Area Security Grants. I know that the
President may propose; we dispose. There is less money in that
account.
But for many of us in our neck of the woods, we take it
pretty personally, since those dollars have been used to
safeguard a lot of our infrastructure. They also have been used
to protect a lot of nonprofits and faith-based groups that are
subject to the type of terror that is all too common around the
world and around the Nation.
I want to wish you all the best in your efforts with the
Department of Homeland Security. It is amazing, since we have
watched your predecessors, how it all comes together, all these
different authorities and programs and departments that are
under your jurisdiction.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Madam Secretary, we are very happy to have you. We will now
hear you summarize your testimony. We have your written
testimony. At this time I yield the floor to you.
Opening Statement of Secretary Nielsen
Secretary Nielsen. OK. Thank you.
Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Roybal-Allard, it is my
pleasure to be here.
I just want to start by saying that you have my commitment
to work with you all. I agree with many of the comments that
you have made. It is very important for us to brief you and
give you the information that you need to do your job as
directed by the Constitution and the expectations of all of our
constituents. So I look forward to doing that.
I am honored to present the President's 2019 budget request
for the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] and to discuss
how that budget will keep us and the American people safe.
Let me first take a moment again to thank the subcommittee,
particularly for the $48.2 billion provided to the Department
in the recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act. The
support of this subcommittee, as you know, is critical to
advancing the many DHS missions, and I truly thank you for your
continued support.
The President's 2019 budget builds on the 2018 budget and
requests $47.5 billion in net discretionary funding for the
Department of Homeland Security. It also includes an additional
$6.7 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund for response and
discovery to major disasters.
Today, I would like to outline several core missions
empowered by this budget and quickly walk through how the
budget matches our needs. First, securing and managing our
borders, enforcing our immigrations laws. Two, protecting our
Nation from terrorism and countering threats. Three, preserving
and upholding the Nation's prosperity and economic security.
Four, securing cyberspace and critical infrastructure. And
five, strengthening homeland security preparedness and
strengthening resilience.
Within all of these missions, we are aiming to put our
employees first and to empower our frontline defenders to do
their jobs. This is of particular importance to me. We recently
celebrated our 15th anniversary. It was a time to reflect and
thank those who have worked every day to protect our country,
but it is also a very sobering time because of why we were
created.
At this level and this need for the addition to mature our
Department, it is very important that we empower those
frontline men and women, and I know you share that goal, and I
thank you.
For border and immigration, first, we are focused on
securing and managing our borders and enforcing our immigration
laws. Although we have made vast improvements in border
security over the last 15 months, we continue to see
unacceptable levels of illegal drugs, dangerous gang and
transnational criminal organization [TCO] activity, and illegal
immigration flow across our southern border.
I take the ranking member's opening comments to heart. I do
not believe that there should be a choice. We should be able to
protect those who need asylum, as well as prevent those who
seek to do us harm from crossing our border.
The current statistics from March 2018 tell a dangerous
story. Overall, the number of illegal aliens encountered at the
border increased more than 200 percent when compared to this
same time last year.
Perhaps more troubling, the number of unaccompanied alien
children encountered has increased more than 800 percent and
the number of families encountered increased more than 680
percent. We also have seen a 37-percent increase in drug
seizures at the border in March alone.
Although these numbers are at times higher or lower than in
years past, it makes little difference. They are unacceptable,
and they must be addressed. We must do more to secure our
borders against threats and illegal entry and close dangerous
loopholes that are making our country vulnerable.
We have been apprehending gangs, TCOs, and aliens at the
border with historic efficiency, but illicit smuggling groups
understand that our ability to remove those who come here
illegally, unfortunately, does not keep pace. They have
discovered and continue to exploit legal loopholes to avoid
detention and removal and have shown no intention of stopping.
These legal loopholes are strong pull factors that entice
those looking to circumvent our laws, in particular, the
smugglers. For border security to work, violation of the law
must have consequences. As I have said many times, interdiction
without the ability to promptly remove those without legitimate
cause is not border security. It undermines our national
security.
This budget would invest in new border wall construction,
technology, and infrastructure to stop illegal activity.
I also would be remiss if I did not say that one of the
greatest investments is in our people: recruiting, hiring, and
training additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, additional U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] officers, and,
additionally, enabling personnel to help carry out these
important missions.
Second, we must protect our Nation from terrorism and
decisively counter threats. This is the reason the Department
was created, and it remains a cornerstone of our work.
Terrorists are adapting. They are taking an all-of-the-
above, do-it-yourself, learn-it-on-the-internet approach to
spreading violence. This includes promoting attacks on soft
targets using homemade weapons, and it includes crowdsourcing
their violence through online radicalization, inspiration, and
recruitment.
But they also remain focused on conducting sophisticated
attack methods, including concealed weapons and weapons of mass
destruction, and modifying new technologies, such as drones,
into deadly weapons.
This budget ensures that our defenses keep up with the
innovation of our enemies. For instance, it allows TSA
[Transportation Security Administration] to deploy advanced
tools to detect threats, it funds new CBP [U.S. Customs and
Border Protection] initiatives to identify high-risk travelers,
it ramps up our defenses against weapons of mass destruction,
and it provides vital funding to protect soft targets, from
concert venues to schools, against attack.
Third, we are focused on preserving and upholding the
Nation's prosperity and economic security. On an average day,
to put this in perspective, the Coast Guard facilitates the
movement of $8.7 billion worth of goods and commodities through
the Nation's maritime transportation system.
At our Nation's 328 air, land, and sea ports of entry, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection welcomes nearly 1 million
visitors, screens more than 67,000 cargo containers, arrests
more than 1,100 individuals, and seizes nearly 6 tons of
illicit drugs.
Annually, CBP facilitates an average of more than $3
trillion in legitimate trade while enforcing U.S. trade laws
and processing more than $2.4 trillion in international trade
transactions each year.
The President's budget helps to provide critical resources
to these efforts to keep our country competitive and to advance
the prosperity of our people. The budget also will help us to
continue efforts to keep foreign adversaries from stealing our
trade secrets, technology, and innovation.
Fourth, we must secure cyberspace and critical
infrastructure. This has much been in the news. It will
continue to be in the news. It is a very important threat that
we face.
Our networks are under attack constantly from all corners
of the physical world. That is why DHS is taking historic
strides to address systemic cyber risks, secure dot-gov
networks, and strengthen the security and resilience of
critical infrastructure, in coordination with our partners.
The budget would also enable DHS to support State and local
election officials in defending the integrity of our election
systems. As you know, the Department's mission is to provide
assistance to election officials in the form of advice,
intelligence, technical support, and instant response planning,
with the ultimate goal of building a more resilient and secure
election enterprise. We must do this.
Through investing in hardware, software, intrusion
detection, and analytical capabilities, we are better able to
secure the digital ecosystem that makes our American way of
life possible.
Fifth, and finally, is a core mission of DHS to strengthen
homeland security preparedness and achieve national resilience.
I look forward to working with you on this. In some of the
opening remarks, you mentioned some of our grant programs. We
must ensure that the grant programs meet the purpose for which
they were created and that they adequately support our State
and local partners.
Last year, our country experienced one of the most costly
and damaging seasons from natural disasters in its history,
with the cumulative cost exceeding $3 billion.\1\ Through the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and in cooperation with our
State, local, tribal, and territorial governments across the
country, we will devote the resources and attention needed to
ensure recovery. But we must also help communities across our
Nation create a culture of preparedness to be more resilient to
disasters.
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\1\ [Clerk's note: The correct amount is $300 billion.]
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A culture of preparedness is a national effort to be ready
for the worst disasters at the Federal, State, local, Tribal,
territorial, community, family, and individual levels. This
budget helps us with these efforts and supports the Disaster
Relief Fund, which, as we all know, is necessary to help State
and local governments respond and recover from catastrophes.
In short, we need to empower the men and women of the
Department to carry out these missions by giving them the
resources and authorities they need. We need a fully funded
budget that matches our mission, and I look forward to working
with you.
In addition to the various mission areas mentioned today, I
am also firmly committed to maturing the Department and putting
our employees first. I ask the committee to support this
budget, support our employees, support our missions, and help
us make our country more secure.
It is an honor to serve alongside the men and women of the
Department of Homeland Security who work tirelessly to secure
our country. They are often unrecognized. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank them for their service.
I thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
questions. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you.
[The information follows:]
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: VISION
Mr. Carter. Thank you very much for your testimony. We are
on timed questions, 5 minutes for each questioner.
I am going to start out with a pretty simple question. You
have been on the job for about 4 months. Been at the Department
for far longer than that. On the subject matter, working on it
longer than that.
I want you to tell us, what is your vision for the
Department of Homeland Security? What do you see as the
Department's biggest challenges? And how does this budget
request help meet those challenges?
Secretary Nielsen. So the five mission areas--and I will
add the sixth there, which is to support our employees and
champion them--form the basis of my priorities.
My vision for the Department is a department that is agile,
that can respond to the threats we face tomorrow and the next
day, not just the threats that we faced before.
To do that, we need to relook at our programs and make sure
that they are efficient. We need to leverage capabilities and
capacities across the Department. We have a variety of ways in
which we do that, as you know. Some of the task forces would be
an example.
Cyber is an area that I am particularly looking at. We have
wonderful capabilities within the Secret Service, within ICE,
NPPD [National Protection and Programs Directorate]. We must
bring them all together, including the research and development
angle, so that we can provide the best service to the American
people.
So in short what I would I say, sir, is I am looking at
maturing the Department. How can we do this better, faster,
smarter, and make sure that we stay ahead of the threats that
continue to evolve?
Mr. Carter. And in some instances you are going to have to
challenge implanted ideas and you are going to have to make
those ideas--because this is not an easy task. That is why I
asked about the challenges, because a lot of the departments in
our Federal Government are entrenched with, ``We have never
done it that way before, therefore we can't do it that way.''
And from the way you envision--and I commend you for your
vision--I am going to suggest to you those are going to be your
challenges. We will help you meet those challenges.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. You have got to be willing to shake them up.
And if you shake them up----
Secretary Nielsen. Sir, we certainly are.
Mr. Carter. You look like you might be able to do that.
I will now yield to Ms. Roybal-Allard.
DETENTION: PREGNANT WOMEN
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Let me begin by agreeing with the
chairman that we will work together to help you meet those
challenges.
As you probably know, in October 2017 I sent a letter
signed by 69 of my colleagues to then-Acting Homeland Security
Secretary Elaine Duke regarding our concerns about pregnant
women in detention facilities.
Reports show that ICE detained nearly 68,000 women in
fiscal year 2017, of whom 525 were pregnant. Our letter
included confirmed stories of women who suffered miscarriages
and received inadequate medical care while in detention.
Additionally, our letter asked for statistics on the number
of pregnant women in detention and asked about ICE and CBP
policies regarding the treatment of pregnant women.
We have yet to receive a response to our letter, but we
continue to hear reports about pregnant women who have been
transferred between facilities multiple times, with extremely
restricted access to food and restrooms, and who are denied
extra blankets, additional food, and adequate prenatal care.
It is my belief that no pregnant woman should be forced to
live in a facility that lacks adequate medical care or can
endanger their unborn child, which is what these women are
facing.
On March 29, ICE released a new policy on detaining
pregnant women. ICE's previous policy had a presumption of
release and detained women only if their detention was required
by law or due to extraordinary circumstances. However, ICE's
new policy detains pregnant women on a case-by-case basis.
Is any effort being made to look into alternatives to
detention programs that provide dignity and adequate care for
pregnant women and their unborn child?
And also are there any reporting requirements in place to
ensure that you are made aware of any rise in the incidence of
negative outcomes for pregnant women and their unborn children,
such as miscarriages, other pregnancy complications, or mental
health challenges related to detention?
Secretary Nielsen. First, let me just start by sharing your
concerns. There is no room in any enforcement agency to treat
anybody without the particular respect and care that they need.
So this is a high priority for me.
We have looked into the detention policies at CBP and ICE.
You would be surprised to learn that some of them are very
detailed. For example, CBP checks the temperature in all of its
detention facilities per hour.
So I suspect that some of these cases are outliers. It is
not an excuse. We must address each one. But what I would like
to offer is that my staff come and brief you comprehensively on
this.
When we get to ICE--let's start with ICE--we do screen any
female detainee ages 18 to 56 to see if they are pregnant. We
then offer them a variety of services, everything from
counseling to remote access to specialists. We certainly offer
them help with special needs that they might have, depending on
how their pregnancy is.
CBP, as you know, has them for a smaller amount of time,
generally speaking, before they are transferred to ICE. CBP has
similar standards.
But these cases concern me. What I would like to ask in
return is, if we could be provided specific examples, we would
like to investigate them. Our OIG [Office of Inspector General]
investigates any case that is brought to its attention, as does
the Office of Professional Responsibility.
But in short, I am committing to you that we will ensure
that any pregnant woman in our care in detention receives
adequate care.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Well, the fact is that there are
numerous cases that have been documented that show that there
has been either the mistreatment or the neglect of pregnant
women and in those cases have suffered from miscarriages, as I
said in my questioning statement.
So I would like to work with you on that, because there may
be policies in place that either are not being followed or that
in some cases the agents or officials aren't aware of. And
therefore it may be a matter of getting that information out.
But I think that one thing that would be very helpful is
if, in fact, there were reporting requirements that would keep
you currently informed of any problems that were happening in
the detention centers with regards to miscarriages or other
health issues of pregnant women. And would you be willing to
maybe put together that kind of a reporting requirement to keep
you and the members of this committee informed about that?
Secretary Nielsen. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Do you know when we can expect a response to that letter?
Secretary Nielsen. Yes. Let me commit that we will get you
a response to that letter by the end of this week.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK.
And also, Mr. Chairman, for the record, I would like to
submit a letter that is being sent to Director Homan with about
200 or more agencies who are concerned about the new detention
standard.
Mr. Carter. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
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Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
COUNTERING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION OFFICE
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, thank you for your service to this
critically important Department. And as our colleagues on both
sides of the dais have said, we look forward to working with
you in this very important endeavor.
As you might know, I represent a wonderful east Tennessee
district. The city of Oak Ridge is there. And as part of our
mission we do quite a bit of nuclear deterrence and the like.
That is one of our key missions there.
It is my understanding that last year, Madam Secretary, you
set up the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. I
want to thank you for that. I am wondering if you could kindly
walk us through where the office currently stands, what major
gaps in resources there might be, and what our greatest
challenges are, please.
Secretary Nielsen. I would be happy to.
So as you know, sir, we have begun the process of
integrating the various parts of DHS that will create that
office. We have not, as you have noticed, requested any
additional money in this budget to do so. We are pulling
together resources from what we have. We would like to work
with you on future requests.
Nuclear deterrence is one of the particular concerns to the
Department. We have done extensive exercising, modeling, and
understanding of related effects, such as electromagnetic
pulse.
We are also very concerned about the increased use of
chemical weapons by terrorists, whether they be in a particular
transportation mode or in mass gatherings. We actually have
piloted some detection devices out into communities to help
them understand early signal or early warning if there has been
any kind of chemical attack.
On bio, we continue to model. As you know, biothreats
change very, very quickly. So it is a constant concerted effort
to stay on top of them and then make sure that we have the
appropriate response.
We have gone to great lengths to update all of the
protective action guides for first responders to make sure that
State and locals are trained, that they have what they need not
only to understand the threat, but to have the equipment and to
counter.
My hope is, by creating this office, we can bring all of
this expertise to bear in a way that is much more efficient.
OPIOID DETECTION
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
Madam Secretary, we have seen a disturbing growth in
opioid-related deaths. Of particular concern is fatal overdoses
involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which have grown
over 84 percent every year between 2013 and 2016.
DHS agencies are the front line for the battle to stem the
tide of these deadly substances. I understand there are some
major challenges that will require new tools and sizable
investments.
Can you explain those challenges and your long-term
strategy for confronting this threat? Could you also go into
some detail on how you plan to utilize the $224 million
included in fiscal year 2018 for the opioid detection and
nonintrusive inspection equipment?
Thank you.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes.
The President has made clear that this is a very important
initiative of the entire government. I am happy to say that we
work very closely with my Cabinet colleagues. We all bring
something to bear.
Within DHS, almost every part of DHS is helping to fight
this, everything from TSA at the airports, to CBP to the land
borders, to the Coast Guard to the maritime borders, ICE and
HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] in the interior, and
then CBP also with the mail. So I appreciate Congress passing
the INTERDICT Act last year, which, as you know, gave us
additional authority to screen.
But the border is a very important part here, because we do
see the vast majority of drugs coming through our ports of
entry. So the nonintrusive inspection equipment that you
mentioned, the $244 million, will enable us to, hopefully,
detect even smaller amounts.
Fentanyl is, as you know, 50 percent more toxic than
heroin, but it is very, very, very small. So the technology
needs to be adjusted, the algorithms need to be adjusted to
ensure that we can detect it.
We are working with the international mail shippers, making
sure that we can collect data. We are using targeting, whether
it be in Mexico or China, to track packages and ensure that we
can bring those to justice, in conjunction with the Department
of Justice.
This will be a continued effort. I look forward to working
with you as we recognize any additional gaps that we might have
in capabilities.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I appreciate
your responses.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
BORDER SECURITY: IMMIGRATION JUDGES, BORDER PATROL AGENTS
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking Member, thank
you again, both of you, for your leadership.
And it is also a pleasure talking to a fellow Hoya.
First of all, I also want to thank the men and women that
work for you all. I know it is a difficult job, but it is a
very important job that they do.
Two parts. One is, I am going to ask if you can help me
applicate some ideas. And then the other one, I want to talk
about hiring processes.
First of all, catch and release. We are on the same page. I
think we need to have some sort of deterrence. But if we do
this, depending on what happens, that individual either goes to
an immigration judge or could go to a magistrate or a district
court, depending on the situation.
If it goes to a district court, what we call zero
tolerance, I would ask you that, as we provide more of those
cases to those magistrates or district judges, I would ask you
to advocate for making sure that--we understand you are a State
of Texas bar attorney also--that the caseloads that we have for
those district judges on the border are high.
So if you add more of those cases in the first time, under
the law it is a misdemeanor. If they are removed, they come
back, it becomes a felony.
So just to make sure that we advocate for either more
magistrates or judges, district judges, to handle that, along
with the U.S. marshals and the assistant U.S. attorneys,
because everybody talks about adding more Border Patrol, but we
have got to look at what the end of the judicial system. So I
would ask you on that to advocate for that as you are in the
Cabinet meetings.
The other thing is immigration judges. Another fellow Hoya,
James McHenry also, and I have sat down with him and Tom Homan
on trying to get more of those immigration judges. I don't see
John Culberson here, but we added 55 immigration judges. Then
we added 25 immigration judges. We have got 100 immigration
judges here.
The problem is everybody wants to have a judge in Houston,
and let's say in New York, Chicago, around the corner here in
Virginia, also. But I am an advocate to have those judges at
the border to make sure we give the people their day in court
as close as possible at the border.
One of the issues we are facing--this is what we talked
about to your ICE director and to McHenry, also--is to have the
office space for those judges. You might have those detentions,
but you have got to have those office spaces to meet the
requirement of the immigration judges.
So I would ask you, if you don't mind, following up with
them so we can have judges in McAllen, which is a high crossing
area--Laredo is another one--on the border, instead of Houston,
Dallas, New York, and the other places.
I know we use video conferences, but I am a big believer in
having those judges at the border. So I would ask you if you
can advocate those two points.
The other part I want to talk about is the hiring process.
Border Patrol one time I think was authorized at 21,370. Right
now, we are under 20,000. According to the Border Patrol chief,
we are actually losing more Border Patrol than we are hiring
Border Patrol.
A problem with the polygraph, and we have tried to work on
that. There is an issue with the polygraph exams. FBI, one-
third of them will pass. Border Patrol, two-thirds will fail.
So we have got to look at the polygraph.
But the issue that I want to bring up is if you look at the
scope and the objectives for recruiting, coordinating on
posting vacancies, applicant support care for hiring, there was
a $297 million contract awarded. Nothing against the company. I
know the company. They are a good company. But what do we need
to do to get your folks to do a better job in hiring?
I would rather use the $297 million in giving bonuses,
retain them, because sometimes we have Border Patrol folks that
might not like to be in Presidio, Texas, or some rural area.
They will get a job with ICE and they can be in New York or
Miami. I understand all that.
But we have got to be able to recruit Border Patrol better,
CBP better. And I would prefer to use the $297 million to give
them bonuses, overtime, whatever the case.
But the case is, they are here now. And I know ICE has put
out an RFI, also. So I am sure there will be a couple million
dollars also.
What do we need to help you where your own agency can do a
better job at recruiting and retaining those men and women,
instead of putting that money out to contractors? And nothing
against those companies, but I would rather give it to the men
and women on that.
Secretary Nielsen. Well, first, I just want to say I second
your belief that it is much more effective to have the judges
and IGs [inspectors general] at the border. I am working very
closely with the Attorney General to make sure that we deploy
sufficiently, if we interdict, but there is a backlog and if we
don't have the ability to put them through the process, nobody
wins.
So, first of all, you have my commitment to continue to
advocate on that.
With respect to hiring, this is a problem that has been
very difficult, as you know, for CBP, ICE, Secret Service,
other parts of DHS. We really have looked at this quite
carefully over the last year, the details of which, as many as
you want, we are happy to come share.
The short version is, what we need to do is decrease the
time to hire without adjusting the standards. We still want the
best and brightest and those who have the integrity that we
expect of law enforcement officials, but we do need to speed it
up.
So at CBP we have looked at their physical exam. We have
looked at streamlining their polygraph, as you noted. It was
out of synch with many of the other polygraphs, the ways in
which they are performed in other law enforcement agencies. We
have also moved the polygraph up to the beginning of the
process, which will be helpful. I thank you and others for
supporting that.
Mr. Cuellar. Something that Judge Carter and I have been
talking about.
Secretary Nielsen. I was going to say, I thank you for----
Mr. Cuellar. You go through the whole process, 18 months,
and then you fail the polygraph.
Secretary Nielsen. It doesn't make any sense. That is
right.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you so much for that.
Secretary Nielsen. So we appreciate your support on that.
And we also appreciate your support on the waiver
authority. So there are certain people, veterans in particular,
who have very high security clearances and who have served our
country honorably. They would like then to serve honorably in
CBP. It does not make sense to put them through a 100-day
process. So we are working on that, as well.
The intention of the contract specifically is to help us
make our hiring practices match the needs in environments
today. What we have found is we were not reaching all of the
communities that would like to serve this country. We were
reaching the communities that would like to serve our country
10, 15 years ago, which are not the same.
So the idea is to come up with a much more comprehensive,
holistic approach for hiring, but that also includes that very
important retention piece that you mentioned to get the
attrition down.
Part of that is a concern about mobility, which you also
mentioned. So we have pilots working on that to make sure that
the officers and agents have the ability to move around. We are
seeing great success in that pilot, and we hope to expand that.
But you are hitting on all of the things that I agree with.
We just need to keep after it. It needs to be a concerted
effort.
Mr. Cuellar. Well, thank you. We want to be supportive of
you.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Harris.
SANCTUARY STATES: FEDERAL PREEMPTION
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Secretary, for coming before the
committee. I have just two issues I want to talk about.
The first one let me just dispense with fairly quickly. It
surprised me that my State, Maryland, is second only to
California in the number of--in MS-13 activity, which is just
amazing. Maybe that is because Maryland has a reputation of
also being a sanctuary State.
I just want to get your assurance that your Department is
going to assert Federal preemption on immigration enforcement
issues. The fact of the matter is, these are not State issues.
These are not local issues. The Constitution gives immigration
enforcement authority to the Federal Government, uniquely to
the Federal Government.
Are you willing to assert Federal preemption over
jurisdictions that claim to be sanctuaries?
Secretary Nielsen. As you know, sir, this is a great
concern to many of us in this administration. There are some
lawsuits underway to make that point against some States that
have chosen not to comply and that actually to provide
penalties for those that try to assist us in doing our job. You
do have my commitment that we will do everything to ensure we
can enforce the laws.
Mr. Harris. OK. Thank you very much.
Secretary Nielsen. We would like to do it in partnership
with State and locals. It works quite well when we are able to
do that. But we do owe it to the people of this country to
protect them from things such as MS-13.
H-2B: NUMBER OF VISAS, APPLICATION PROCESS
Mr. Harris. I agree with you, and I think we have to return
to the rule of law. If we don't like the laws, let's change
them, but the laws are pretty clear.
Now, the other issue that is an issue very important to my
district, I have the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland, is
the H-2B visa issue.
Over the weekend, I visited Smith Island, an island settled
in the 17th century by folks from England. The population is
240 now. It used to be 600, 700 people. It is down to 240
descendants of the original English who settled there. It is a
45-minute boat ride there. I mean, it is literally out kind of
in the middle of the Chesapeake.
And for the hard-working men and women on the island, the
median family income is $26,000, and they make a lot of it by
catching crabs. And they have to bring those crabs to be
processed somewhere, they have to be picked, because when you
eat a crab cake, believe me, you are not eating the whole crab.
You have to pick it.
The fact of the matter is that although in the past we had
Americans who do it, that generation is not with us anymore and
they depend upon H-2B visa workers. And as you know, the second
half cap was reached very quickly. There were almost 100,000
applications for 33,000.
The men and women on the island who depend upon this
industry, who take their work boats every day, they work all
day, they take them to the processing plant, they have got to
have people there to pick that crab. Otherwise, their income
goes away, and that would be a shame.
I also met with another person up in the northern end of
the Eastern Shore who is the largest exporter of canned corn
from the United States. Exports are an important industry.
Agriculture is an important industry. They depend upon H-2B
workers for only an 8-week period in the summer.
And that is significant because their work period is July
and August. So by the 90-day rule, they can't even apply until
April 1, unless they want to pay for people for 3 months not
doing work. So they just applied for their summer workers, but
the cap is already exceeded.
So the omnibus bill gave authority--the way we read it--the
Labor Department has already certified 80,000 workers for the
second half of the year, and now it rests, I think, on a
decision of, I think, by your Department as to how many H-2B
visas are going to be issued. And I think, clearly, the need
has been demonstrated. Our unemployment is a historic low 4.1
percent, modern historic low. We are just not going to find the
American workers.
And more importantly, whether it is Smith Island or whether
it is that cannery or those farmers who grow the corn for that
cannery, having temporary workers provides downstream jobs for
a lot of Americans.
So, Madam Secretary, what can we expect? I mean, it has
already been a few weeks since this has passed. The summer is
approaching very quickly. In the case of the crab industry,
these men and women are going out on their boats in 2 weeks. As
soon as the bay warms up, they have to begin catching crabs.
And it is getting to the point where a lot of the houses,
the processing houses, say: Look, if we don't get our visas, we
just have to close. And, you know, once they close, they are
gone. This is an industry that doesn't work on large margins.
Once they close, they never reopen. An entire industry in my
district is threatened.
So, Madam Secretary, how quickly can we come to the
decision of the number of visas? And then how quickly can we
reopen the process of working on those Department of Labor
certifications or processing new applications for the late
summer?
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
First, let me just say the concept of limitations on H-2B
originally was to protect American workers. If, however, we are
in a situation where the way in which we administer the program
legally actually puts American businesses out of business, that
is clearly not the intent.
So what I would ask is two things. First, in response to
your first question, I will be consulting with Secretary Acosta
in the next few days here, as required by the law. We would
like to get some additional input from some other
constituencies. I would be happy to discuss this with you
further. But the intent is to make a decision soon so that
those who can take advantage of the program are able to do
that.
But my request is that we work together this next year.
Congress really, in my opinion, is best situated, given your
constituencies and your understanding of the employers within
your districts, to know the right number of H-2B. It is very
difficult when the discretion gets kicked back to the Secretary
of Homeland Security, it just is.
So I would like to work in this next cycle in a way where
Congress decides the number. We will implement the number that
you provide. But it is very difficult for us to get all of the
information that we need to do that.
The third thing--I know I said there are only two, but let
me add one more--the seasonal way in which we split up these
visas doesn't work, and that is what you are describing. So as
we look at this program again, we need to make sure that it is
meeting the intent of the program, which is to allow employers
to provide
H-2B. If the timelines are such that it is past the season, if
it is past [employers'] ability to utilize them, we are not
meeting the purpose. So I would also ask you to work with me on
that.
Mr. Harris. Thank you. I couldn't agree more.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. The first thing is I agree with Andy
Harris. I don't represent the Eastern Shore. I have spent a lot
of time there and I have worked with the seafood industry. It
is a unique industry, and we need that priority.
I also might want to point out that Congressman Taylor was
homegrown and grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
I know you represent Virginia. So you understand the
situation.
If you have had a Maryland backfin crab cake, you will know
what I mean.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes, sir.
CYBERSECURITY: WORKING WITH STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Mr. Ruppersberger. OK.
First thing, your Department was stood up after 9/11. In my
opinion, you have got a lot of challenges. You have too many
missions, but you are doing the best you can.
When you sit here and watch these department heads come and
go, I really am impressed with your resume, your experience,
the fact that you worked with Kelly. I think you are the right
person at the right time.
So with that said, I have long been involved with
advocating for all Federal agencies and departments to have the
resources they need to succeed in their role securing our
Federal networks and working closely with the private sector.
I was the former ranking member of the Intelligence
Committee and I have actually represented NSA for 15 years. So
I deal with them, I work on their budget, and I think they are
probably one of the best in the world. We have more
mathematicians there than anyplace in the world.
But as far as Homeland is concerned, we need more. We have
threats and attacks on a regular basis, both major attacks but
also unsophisticated attacks. And our country is being attacked
every day, as you know, and we are not where we need to be.
Part of the reason I joined this subcommittee was to focus
on the cybersecurity mission at the Department of Homeland
Security and help you and your people succeed where in the past
we have really fallen short, and not because of their fault. We
have been underfunded. We don't have the manpower to do what we
need to do, is my opinion.
I am going to be providing you a copy of a report I have
been working on for about the last 6 months for this committee
in maybe the next couple weeks, and this report summarizes
meetings and roundtables that I have had over the last 6 months
to get a better understanding of the state of the homeland
cyber mission.
These roundtables have been people formerly in your job,
people who I respect in this field, because there are not
really a lot of people, including on the Hill, that really
focus. We talk a lot about cybersecurity but not a lot of
people know about it or really deal with it.
Now, these recommendations include holding a cyber-specific
hearing before this committee focusing more on the Department's
efforts to protect against leaked cyber tools, getting a better
foothold on the threat landscape to industrial control systems,
and improving information sharing and other issues that are out
there. Even though it is GSA's budget, we have a long way to go
in our gov network, too. It is just not where we need to be. We
have spent $2 billion dollars. We have a long way to go there,
too.
Now, two questions, basically. The first thing, I would
like your commitment to work with me and with members of this
committee. I have talked to the chairman and ranking member
about having a hearing specifically on cybersecurity. I would
hope that you would work with us. I will get you my report on
the issues that we need to deal with, which also include
funding. If you could give us that commitment. I am sure you
will.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes. I look forward to the report and
absolutely look forward to any opportunity to explain our needs
and gaps.
Mr. Ruppersberger. When I was Gang of Eight on the
Intelligence Committee, people would say: What keeps you up at
night, because you have got the most sensitive? And I would
say: Well, the Russia, China nuclear threat. I would say: Spicy
Mexican food. Levity. The issues of terrorism and that. But
really, more importantly, the cyber threat, in space, in
homeland, wherever we need to be.
So we really need to roll up our sleeves and focus in this
area and get the funding and the manpower necessary to do what
we need to do in your field. NSA is another issue, but we can
learn from NSA and use their help to gear up where we need to
be.
Secondly, we recently approved over $380 million for the
Election Assistance Commission in the omnibus to be used by the
States to bolster their election systems and process. Can you
expand on how the Department is working with the States to
ensure that they are leveraging the Department's expertise and
that these funds are being effectively used and will produce
real security gains? How confident do you feel with your
current level of engagement with the States and local
governments? What more needs to be done? And are the tasks
properly resourced there?
Secretary Nielsen. Well, thank you very much, and thank for
your focus on this issue. This is also an issue that keeps me
up at night. It changes quite quickly. It is prolific. It is
nonstop. And it is from many, many, many sectors.
Unfortunately, once a vulnerability is found, as you know,
anybody can exploit it. So you can't really match an adversary
to a particular vulnerability.
With respect to the election, I truly cannot underscore
enough the importance of us working with States and locals to
secure our election structure. This is the heart of our
democracy. Every American has the right to know that his or her
vote is counted and counted correctly. And we need to all work
together to ensure that that trust is there.
What we have offered is everything from penetration testing
to vulnerability assessments, exercises, and training. We are
working very hard to provide additional threat information with
partners such as NSA [National Security Agency] and the intel
community to quickly declassify, tailor, and then provide that
information to those network defenders who can best utilize it.
The States themselves have taken, in my opinion, a lot of
good steps over the last few months to organize themselves from
a governance perspective. This is not a traditional homeland
security interaction, as you know. We have not in the past, at
least at DHS, worked, for example, with State election
officials. We normally work with owners and operators of
critical infrastructure.
So bringing them into the fold, helping them understand how
to work with their own homeland security advisers, with the
governors, with others in the States, has been an important
part.
What I ask all States to do is take us up on our offers of
assistance. They are free. We can help you build capacity. We
can help you build capability. We can check your systems. We
can help you with realtime response. We can, very importantly,
monitor and help flag any nefarious activity. And we can give
you the coordination mechanisms to work with other States to
find the patterns of attacks.
So I do feel that we are doing a tremendous amount. Can we
do more? I hope that we can. We have a huge focus on it. As you
know, we are pulling resources from security of other sectors
to make sure that we are doing and offering all that we can.
But this is a partnership. So we continue to reach out to those
at the States and localities weekly, if not daily, to ask them
to work with us.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. I look forward to meeting
with you and your staff to go over the report.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Newhouse.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Chairman Carter, Madam Ranking
Member.
Secretary Nielsen, welcome.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
DEFERRED ACTION FOR CHILDHOOD ARRIVALS
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your
thorough update and also your service. It is my humble opinion
in the short time you have been on the job that you have done a
great job, and I appreciate that hard work.
I just want to ask you about a couple of areas. First is
the DACA program. I have been an advocate in this Congress, as
have many of my colleagues, to find a solution. I appreciate
the administration's help there and the President's
determination to do this as well. It impacts a lot of
individuals in my district, and not only those individuals, but
my communities and our Nation. I think it is a very important
issue that we need to solve.
Secondly, I wanted to discuss the work your Department
engages with the Department of Energy and the national
laboratories, of which I am very proud to have one in my
district, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
So as far as DACA is concerned, interestingly, the State of
Washington, we have got about 18,000 of these individuals.
About a third of them are in my district.
One of those lives in the northern part of the Fourth
District in Okanogan County. He was brought to the United
States at a very, very young age by a single mother who was a
victim of domestic abuse.
As he grew up in our communities, he became a part of the
community. He developed a deep appreciation for the
opportunities provided to him and wanted to give back. So he
did that by fulfilling his dream of becoming a firefighter. And
as you mentioned, the catastrophic incidents around the Nation
have been growing. In my district, we have had two record-
setting forest fires in just the last couple of years.
Unfortunately, for this individual, his work permit
expired. So simple question: Is this the type of person, this
young man the type of person that your agency will be listing
as an enforcement priority for deportation?
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you for the question. I know there
has been a lot of confusion on DACA [Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals], so I appreciate that.
Let me just start by saying you continue to have my
commitment both personally and as the Secretary of Homeland
Security, to help find a permanent solution to the registered
DACA population. We are continuing, restarting conversations
with leadership in both Houses. We would like to get this done.
We should get this done. We need to get this done.
In terms of enforcement, what I have decided is, given the
court cases and the questions that remain while we are waiting
to work with Congress on a permanent solution, anybody who is
currently registered, is legally registered and has a legal
status within the system.
I have also taken the step, though, that anybody who has
submitted an application also will not be an enforcement
priority. They will not be deported. So if this young gentleman
were to reapply for status, assuming there isn't any derogatory
information or he hasn't become a felon at some point here, he
would be protected, as long as we are in this phase while we
are working through the court case and waiting for Congress to
act.
But I think it is important to be clear that those who are
registered have legal status. Those who are attempting to renew
their status will be treated as such, as well.
Mr. Newhouse. That is very helpful. This question, after
your response, may not be quite so important, but that
information, the personal information of individuals like this
young man, would that be shared with other agencies to target
for deportation enforcement?
Secretary Nielsen. The only time that we would share that
information is if there is a question of public safety,
national security, or if the person has committed a serious
crime. At that point, the person is no longer a DACA recipient
by virtue of the program.
But those are the instances in which we would share
information. But, again, they are not an enforcement priority.
They have legal status. So there would be no need to share the
information.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate that clarification, and I know
the fine line that you have to maintain.
Secondly, as far as the national laboratories, since
Homeland Security was created Congress has made sure that the
Department has equal access to that world class Department of
Energy asset.
In recent years, the Science and Technology Directorate
cybersecurity program enabled multiple technical solutions
developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to be
transferred to the private sector, which directly improved the
security of our Nation and economy.
I am curious to know how your Department views the DOE
national labs and how you intend to leverage the unique
capabilities that they have to fulfill your mission, the
Department's mission, especially when those capabilities don't
exist in the private sector.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes. Thank you.
I myself am a fan of leveraging what DOE [Department of
Energy] and DOE labs have learned. We have active agreements
with 13 of them, as you know. I have had the opportunity to
visit some of them: Sandia, Los Alamos, Pacific National Lab,
and Idaho. They all provide very important, scientifically
driven data, but they are able, as you know, to test different
defensive measures, protective measures within controlled
areas, which is very important.
It is not necessarily, as you say, capabilities that have
been developed by the private sector or, in some cases, they
are available to the government in a way that they wouldn't be
in terms of what the private sector offers. So it would be my
intention to continue that.
The S&T R&D [Science and Technology Directorate's research
and development] money within the Department, we have moved to
NPPD, and the reason for that is to ensure that it is directly
requirement-driven. So the network defenders and my folks at
NPPD day-to-day are fighting this battle and are very aware of
what they need. Putting some of the R&D money there enables
them to quickly translate that into requirements to make that
process more efficient.
Mr. Newhouse. OK. Thank you very much.
My time has run out, but hopefully we will have a second
round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
REFUGEES
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Madam Secretary. Glad to have you before the
committee.
I want to talk to you about refugees. As you know, the
administration announced a historically low refugee admission
ceiling of 45,000 for fiscal year 2018 last September, and this
was a few months after an executive order that had totally
halted the refugee program for 120 days.
This is a shockingly low ceiling for our country, what we
have done in the past, what we have stood for. But there is
more alarming news, because as of March, that is the halfway
point for fiscal year 2018, we have only admitted 10,548
refugees. That puts us on track to admit a total of 21,100
refugees in fiscal year 2018. That would be less than half of
that historically low ceiling that we pledged to admit.
Now, I have heard, I expect we have all heard reports of
countless administrative obstacles, a lack of adequate
staffing, bureaucratic rerouting of paperwork, drastic
reductions to the overseas interviews, and enhanced vetting,
enhanced security measures that together seem designed, I must
say, to prevent our Nation from accepting any more than just a
trickle of refugees. And we are doing this at a time when
deadly wars and persecutions continue all over the world and
they are producing a flow of desperate people.
In my district, there are organizations that do the Lord's
work, as far as I am concerned. They participate in these
refugee resettlement programs. They desperately want to fulfill
their promise. And yet, now in North Carolina, they are going
weeks without even seeing a refugee.
I mean, what is going on?
We have got to protect American citizens at home and
abroad, but shutting our borders violates our Nation's values,
undermines our national security, I would say, by diminishing
our standing in the world and making it more difficult for us
to confront violent extremism wherever it exists.
Conflating, as the President's rhetoric does, conflating
refugees, or immigrants in general, with terrorists doesn't
make us safer. It merely perpetrates an environment of
suspicion, anxiety, and it risks lending credibility to
terrorist propaganda.
So we have been a safe haven for refugees historically.
Regardless of a refugee's origin, they share a deep desire to
become a member of our communities. They are thoroughly vetted.
So I have to ask, what is happening? What on Earth can
explain the fact that we are over halfway through the fiscal
year and have only admitted a quarter of the refugees we
pledged to take in during one of the worst refugee crises in
world history?
Are you slow walking this program? Are there various bans
and administrative obstacles and duplicate waiting requirements
reflective of some increasing danger that these refugees
represent? Is there some history I have missed that refugees
are committing terrorist acts in this country?
Is there any indication that the procedures we have had in
place for years have been inadequate, have let in dangerous
people?
If these refugees are dangerous, why can't we--which I
don't think there is any evidence for--but if they are, or if
you fear they are, why are we unable to determine that danger?
Why don't we have an appropriate vetting system to deal with
this supposed danger and keep the commitment we have made to
the international community?
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you. There are a few things here,
so bear with me and let me try to answer the question.
First of all, in the United States, we have a very unique
situation in that we differentiate between refugees and
asylees. As you know, unfortunately, we have an unprecedented
but also unacceptable backlog in asylee cases. Those are men,
women, and children who are already present in our country and
are waiting to find out if they will be granted final asylum.
I think that the bureaucratic issues you mentioned at the
front end, unfortunately, apply here, which is that we have
made a decision to process those who are already here seeking
asylum as quickly as we can with limited resources. Not to say
we are not processing refugees, but the backlog of asylees, I
believe, let me get back to you on the record, but I believe it
is around 300,000. It is substantial.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Secretary Nielsen. On the question of vetting, we are doing
exactly what you are describing, which is we are trying to find
a better, faster way to vet those who are seeking refuge in our
country. Unfortunately, because of some of the areas in which
they are originating, the country itself is not able to provide
us any information on the refugee.
Further complicating the problem is that the refugee is a
refugee. In many cases, he or she does not have the paperwork
or other documentation to prove his or her identity.
The short answer to your question is, I agree, we must do
better. We must do it faster. We are looking at ways to get
additional information, to share it, and to work with the
countries.
The last point I would make, sir, is that we as an
international community, whether it is through the G7 or the
Five Eyes, have attempted to take care of refugees closer to
where they are leaving. The idea there is that when conditions
are safe, they can more easily return. We also are working with
international partners to ensure that together we are taking
care of them in the best way possible.
But I would be more than happy to come myself or have my
staff give you a more extensive brief on some of the
challenges. But we do need to process them faster, I agree.
Mr. Price. My time has expired. I will probably return to
this in the next round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Palazzo.
BORDER SECURITY: NATIONAL GUARD
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, thank you for being here today.
Last week, when President Trump announced the good news
that he is going to deploy the National Guard to the border, as
a National Guardsman myself, I was elated. Since I have been in
Congress, I have been calling for similar actions, take the
National Guard, use them as a multiplying force, and help
secure our border, because border security is absolutely in
correlation with national security. It is extremely important.
If you could, could you take a few moments and expand on
what you see the administration's role of utilizing the
National Guard on the border?
Secretary Nielsen. Yes, I would be happy to.
First and foremost, it is to work in conjunction with the
governors and the TAGs [Adjutants General] within the different
States. At the moment, we have the National Guard deployed from
Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. California already had some
National Guard guardsmen deployed. We continue to work with the
Governor there to see what else might be needed or available to
supplement.
What we are looking to do is to supplement what the Border
Patrol does so that the Border Patrol can be on the border and
do what they do best. We are looking at everything such as
support for aviation, vehicle maintenance, and surveillance
monitoring; intel sharing; and things that the National Guard
is particularly trained to do. We would like to utilize their
expertise to help get more of our men and women back on the
front lines to protect the border.
Mr. Palazzo. Does the status of the guardsmen make a
difference in their mission? Say, for example, if the Guard was
activated under Title 10 versus Title 32, does that limit what
roles they can have on the border?
Secretary Nielsen. It does. Title 10, obviously, does limit
it. There are other things that come into play there, such as
posse comitatus.
What I would say about Title 32 is that it is very
important from a Department of Homeland Security perspective to
do this in conjunction with the governors. The governors are
there. They know what they need. They know what works. They
know what their constituents need. We are really approaching
this at this time as a partnership in every way possible.
Mr. Palazzo. Is there going to be an opportunity for other
States to allow their guardsmen to basically be called up and
work with the border State guardsmen and their governors or are
you just limiting the guard personnel to the States on the
border?
Secretary Nielsen. We have had some offers and calls from
other governors who are not on the southwest border that are
willing to deploy their guardsmen.
There are a couple of different things in play here. As you
know, unfortunately, we are heading into hurricane season. For
some of these States, particularly Texas, we are very aware
that if we get into a natural disaster, where the guardsmen
otherwise would be needed, we would look to supplement them
through other governors who are willing to supply guardsmen.
Mr. Palazzo. And I guess we have seen that in Hurricane
Katrina. We had guardsmen from all across the United States,
including the territories, come and participate in that massive
mission. And I know if Mississippi's Governor hasn't already
volunteered them, he would, but a majority of our National
Guardsmen are currently training for an overseas deployment.
But I am sure there are a lot of people back home that didn't
deploy who would love to be a part of that mission.
Now, because the Guard has a huge domestic role as well in
natural disasters, they can almost be used plug-and-play in any
environment. And we have seen what they have been able to do
overseas in the combat role. They were instrumental in the
surge and turning the tide in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Recently, I guess in their role as first responders in
natural disasters, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria they
participated, but they haven't yet been--I guess the funding
hasn't been given back to the States or they haven't been
reimbursed for the cost. So with us activating 4,000 guardsmen
to the border, what is your expectation, and are the States
going to be reimbursed for that cost, and when?
Secretary Nielsen. The current approach is that the States
will be reimbursed. We recently, maybe about a month ago, had a
meeting with the Council of Governors, the Department of
Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense and other
partners, and this precise issue was raised.
I know the Department of Defense [DOD] is looking at ways
to make that reimbursement process much more efficient. I am
happy to provide you additional information for the record. But
I would also defer to DOD because DOD is the one that regulates
that process in terms of reimbursement.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Palazzo. One last, basically a statement. DHS has a UAV
research facility at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. It is the
largest National Guard training site in the Nation. Hopefully,
you will find a way to utilized that facility and the great
resources that you have there in support of our border.
With that, thank you for your responses.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you for that offer.
Mr. Palazzo. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Palazzo.
I would now like recognize the fact that we have been
joined by the ranking member of the full committee, Mrs. Lowey,
my friend. At this time I recognize her for any statement or
questions she may have.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will get right to
the questions.
And I want to welcome you, Madam Secretary. I am very
impressed with your response to all of the questions. This is
an enormous responsibility, and I look forward to working
closely with you.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
ANTITERRORISM GRANTS
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
In the most recent omnibus bill we provided for the first
time funding for grants to nonprofits located outside of areas
designated for the Urban Area Security Initiative. This is $10
million in funding which will help those organizations improve
security, which is so important at a time that hate groups are
on the rise.
A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center reported
that neo-Nazi groups grew by more than 20 percent in the past
year, anti-Muslim groups grew by nearly 15 percent after
tripling the previous year, and, according to the ADL, anti-
Semitic incidents rose by more than 90 percent in New York in
2017.
Could you possibly let us know when you expect the grant
notice to be released and when you think the funding will go
out?
Secretary Nielsen. Yes. As I understand it, most of the
grants--and I will get back to you on this in particular--most
of the grants are to be obligated 60 days after the
appropriation goes through. But let me get back to you on this
one.
I do want to just echo your thoughts. Within DHS, we have
consolidated some of our offices into an Office of Terrorism
Prevention. It is certainly my intention to focus on all types
of terrorism, not just Islamic jihadism, but hate groups, white
supremacy. We must do more across the country. We are seeing
instances of all types of hate.
[The information follows:]
Response: The Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the
various preparedness grant programs were released on May 21,
2018. These included the NOFO for the Nonprofit Security Grant
Program, which includes the $10 million for support of
nonprofit organizations beyond designated Urban Area Security
Initiative (USSI) sites, as well as the $50 million to support
nonprofit organizations within designated UASI sites. Further,
as required by the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 appropriations act,
the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations were briefed
on the details of these programs on May 14, 2018, prior to the
public release. All FY 2018 awards will be made by September
30, 2018.
TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS: HAITIANS
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Also, Secretary Nielsen, last November the Department
announced that temporary protected status, or TPS, for
individuals from Haiti would end on July 22, 2019.
Approximately 59,000 Haitians have been living in this country
since at least 2010 under TPS, working, paying taxes, becoming
established in their communities, marrying, and having
children.
You may also be aware that the Department of State has a
Level 3 travel advisory for Haiti, meaning that people should
reconsider any plans to travel there because of the conditions
on the ground.
Specifically, the State Department cites political
violence, civil unrest. It says that violent crime is common,
including robberies, assaults, vehicle break-ins, and home
invasions. It also says the local police may not be able to
respond effectively to crime or emergency.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,
with well over half of the population living under the poverty
line.
Secretary Nielsen, how can we possible rationalize sending
59,000 people back to those kinds of conditions? And do you
believe that we should find a way to allow this group of
people, who in almost every respect are now Americans, to
continue living in the United States? And will the
administration support efforts to do so?
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you. As you know, there are about
400,000 people here currently under TPS [temporary protected
status], a large chunk from Haiti; and a much bigger chunk, I
think around 250,000, from El Salvador. I have testified before
that I am committed to helping to find a permanent status for
these TPS recipients.
I would say, ma'am, though, that the law really restricts
my ability to extend TPS. The law says that if the effects of
the originating event--so it is a causation issue--do not
continue to exist, then the Secretary of Homeland Security must
terminate.
The difficulty there is what you are describing. If the
underlying conditions in a country are themselves dangerous,
unfortunately, that is not something that I can consider in the
termination. I can consider that in the drawdown, the
additional time in which to work with the government.
I have pledged and will continue to pledge to work with all
the governments to try to help them repatriate. We are having a
variety of discussions with Haiti as well on how to do that.
But this is a very unfortunate situation, and so I would be
happy to work with you to find a better solution.
Mrs. Lowey. I thank you very much, because I think that a
better solution has to be the response, and I appreciate you
are willing to work together. Thank you very much.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Palazzo [presiding]. The chair recognizes Mr. Taylor
for 5 minutes.
H-2B: TIMELINE FOR CERTIFICATIONS
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Madam Secretary, thank you for being here today,
answering great questions, and having great answers. Thanks for
your service. I know you are in a tough job and wearing a lot
of hats. And certainly give our best and thanks to the many men
and women who serve under you for everything they do.
I would like to just touch really briefly, I want to foot
stomp on what Congressman Ruppersberger said and Mr. Harris.
Yes, I grew up in his district, but now I am in Virginia. And
in Virginia, of course, which I have been in many years, but a
third of the seafood plants won't be open for processing, and
they should already be at work. So ultimately this hurts income
and economic impact and ultimately American jobs, and not just
the seafood industry, but in tourism and many other areas
around the country.
So I guess I want to pin you down a little bit more on it.
I know that you guys are working on it. Have you spoken to
Secretary Acosta about it? Obviously, it was passed and signed
into law 3 weeks ago. You mentioned additional constituencies
that you need to speak to. Who are they and are they people who
are not in support of raising the cap?
I want to kind of pin you down on that, because we are
already behind the curve and we knew we had this problem last
year.
Secretary Nielsen.
The other constituencies are--two things. Trying to
understand as we do this that we do it in a way where we are
providing it to those who truly are seasonal.
As you remember, last year we did a rulemaking that
required a variety of certifications for the companies, first
of all, to say that they did in fact need foreign workers and
that they couldn't fill them with American workers, but also
moving toward what the program was meant to be, which is for
seasonal workers, not a worker who works all year round in a
certain industry.
Having taken all of that into consideration, I am
continuing discussions with Secretary Acosta. Yes, of course,
there are two sides of this, as you know. But as I said in
response to Congressman Harris, the intent here is not to put
American businesses out of business. That can't possibly be the
goal.
Mr. Taylor. If I may.
Secretary Nielsen. Please.
Mr. Taylor. But, again, this is something that it was last
year that we had this same conversation with then-Secretary
Kelly.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes.
Mr. Taylor. So this is not a new thing. And it is hurting
economic impact. It is actually hurting American jobs.
Understanding that we want to make sure that the process deals
with folks that shouldn't be here and all that stuff and make
sure it is responsible, but it was over a year ago we had the
same problem. It has been signed for 3 weeks. We want to get a
timeline on this, because it is hurting our businesses. So can
you speak to that, that timeline?
Secretary Nielsen. I believe it is Wednesday, I think,
Wednesday. So how about I get back to you on Friday with a
timeline? I just need to touch base with Secretary Acosta.
CYBERSECURITY: WORKING WITH PRIVATE SECTOR
Mr. Taylor. Perfect. And I would love to be a part of any
discussions.
Switching topics really quickly, sorry, because I don't
have a lot of time, to one that you like better, probably:
cybersecurity, which is a huge issue. And I echo what
Congressman Ruppersberger said about coming together. I want to
see your report, of course.
Ninety percent of cyberspace, of course, is in private
hands. And I know that we are working with the private sector
more, which, of course, we have to, now that targets aren't
necessarily military and civilian anymore. That is all gone.
Those days are gone.
How are we working with the private sector in a more
efficient way? And can you provide specific examples of sort of
how we are doing that? That is, obviously, that you can speak
about.
And then you mentioned maturing the Department, which is
great in some areas, not necessarily in cyberspace, of course.
We want to disrupt it, right, because that is what is happening
with the increasing amount in computing power, of course, with
individuals, with terrorist organizations, with transnational
actors, and, of course, nation-states.
So, again, how are we working with the private sector to
better protect the homeland? And then also how are you and the
Department disrupting yourselves to figure out ways to be able
to be more effective and efficient and not have silos, which
has obviously been a problem that I have seen with
cybersecurity, not just in Homeland, but in DOD and other
places?
Secretary Nielsen. Yes. Thank you. The jokes about hacking
never cease. So, yes, we are trying to hack ourselves to make
ourselves more efficient.
On the critical infrastructure side, as you know, we have
an extensive partnership that is very efficient. We are really
focused on getting more threat information into their hands
much more quickly and in a tailored way.
At the beginning of all of this, we were able to tell
sectors, all 16 at the same time, there is a heightened threat
of X. But that is not very useful. The energy sector is very
different than the water sector, which is different than the
financial sector.
The ISACs, the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers,
are a very important role here. We can take in information in
an anonymized way, do the pattern analysis, and push it back
out. That is another way that we have matured our interaction.
We also are working with other partners, the intel
community and FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. As you
know, we just put out a guidance memo recently about hacking
into industrial control systems, everything from energy to
water and which is completely cross-sector, to give them more
not only understanding of the threat, but protective measures,
what they need to do to protect against this.
We also have been working to expand our Automated Indicator
Sharing program. This is one that works best as sort of a
Costco model. The more people who join this program, the better
information that we can give out.
We have asked companies who might not necessarily need it
because they themselves are very mature to join anyway so that
we can use them to help raise the level of the weakest link of
everybody else.
What I would say is that it is a constant communication.
When we see anything suspicious, we have the ability now, we
have the points of contact. Sometimes it is almost that easy,
as you know, and that hard to make the phone calls, to work in
a collaborative way. We have the private sector represented in
our ops center. It is a true partnership. We also have brought,
of course, in the FBI and the IC [Intelligence Community].
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I look forward to
working with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BORDER WALL DETENTION BEDS
Mr. Carter [presiding]. Thank you.
We have completed one round here. You are planning on
leaving about 12:30. I would like to ask one more question--it
will actually be two but I will put them together--and then I
will let Ms. Roybal-Allard take one, and then we won't have
time to do anymore. I promised to get her out at 12:30. It will
be a little after that. Not much.
Mine is real simple. Historically in this subcommittee you
have had two issues that have been at odds and they have been
difficult to deal with. We deal with them because, as Ms.
Roybal-Allard said, we work well together. The issues are on
the front page of every newspaper. The border wall is one issue
and detention beds is the other.
I would like to know your thoughts on border walls or
border barriers as a necessity on the border and your thoughts
on the number right now proposed, it is 2,000 beds, and what
you see that to be as it helps to solve our problem.
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
As a person who myself has not been part of CBP, that is
not a part of the Department where I have ever worked, I
suppose I have a particular understanding of recognizing that
those on the front lines are uniquely positioned to tell us
what they need.
And those on the front lines in CBP, whether they be the
Office of Field Operations or the Border Patrol, have
consistently said that from an impedance and denial
perspective, it is very important to have physical
infrastructure as part of a broader layered system of border
control.
We have seen this work. We have seen this work in Yuma. We
have seen this work in San Diego. Instances of illegal entry in
both cases went down 95 percent. That is a very difficult
number to argue with that is factual.
Do I believe that we need to do border infrastructure at
every place on the border? Absolutely not. Do I believe that
the border is the same in every place? Absolutely not.
What I think we need to do is to listen to the operators
who are there. They understand the threat. They understand the
trends. They understand the environment. In some places, as you
know, we have walls that move with the sand. I mean, we have
some very unique requirements on some parts of the border.
Pulling all of that together in the great analysis that
they have done through the Border Security Improvement Plan
really lays out a very technical and tactical way forward with
respect to a toolkit and having the wall system.
I also would say quickly that the wall system is not just
the infrastructure. That is very important. It is also the
technology and it is also the personnel. CBP will tell you
about four core capabilities. It is the impedance and denial,
it is the surveillance, it is the access roads, and it is the
personnel. Together, that gives us what we need and the right
mix to prevent illegal entries.
There is, if I could, a lot of talk about why a wall
between ports of entry, why not just focus at ports of entry. I
don't think it is an either/or. We have talked about
nonintrusive detection equipment. We need to be better at the
borders to detect drugs and other nefarious activity.
Between the borders, what we see is this great increase in
traffic. The problem with that is once smugglers have developed
a network, they can smuggle anything through that network. It
could be drugs, it could be guns, it could be terror. It is not
just illegal immigrants.
There is a possibility now for the numbers to increase
more. About two-thirds of people whom we interdict are between
the points of entry, not at the points of entry.
This one last thing I will say about drugs is, although we
continue to have more drugs or see more instances of drugs at
the ports, there are two very important caveats with that. One,
we don't know what we don't know between the ports of entry.
And two, what we see are those who facilitate the drug trade,
the drug traffickers and the smugglers. They are going between
the ports of entry.
So if you want to fight the drug problem, you have to fight
it both ways. There is the product and then there are those who
sell it and who enable the illegal activity.
With respect to the beds, as you know, we base that on a
modeling tool that ICE uses on daily population, on trends. We
do it 2 years out. We refine it as we go. We then multiply the
cost out by the daily direct cost, which is everything from
medical care to food and clothing for those who are detained.
The numbers can change a bit. So sometimes there is room,
when we have an amount appropriated, to work within that
appropriation on the number of beds we need. But the current
ask is based on solid modeling, solid increases in numbers of
both enforcement and those we interdict and what we see coming.
Certainly, at any time, I am happy to come give you an in-
depth brief on why we believe we need 52,000 beds.
Mr. Carter. Thank you very much.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It has been very difficult to decide which one question I
am going to be asking because I have several concerns about
unaccompanied children, about TPS, as well as sanctuary cities.
Because I do believe there is some kind of misunderstanding, at
least as it pertains to California, about what it means to be a
sanctuary city, and maybe we can follow up later.
Very quickly, I just want to add to an issue that Mr.
Cuellar brought up. I agree that we need more judges, but I
also believe that we need to find a way for those who
particularly are seeking asylum to have more access to counsel,
to attorneys, and to advocates.
Also, with Dr. Harris, the concerns that he raised. I just
think it is another example of the need and the value of
immigrants to sectors of our American economy.
And then finally, when it comes to DACA, I just want to
point out that while DACA recipients are protected, the fact is
there are probably about 100,000 Dreamers who currently are
barred from applying for DACA who are vulnerable to
deportation. And I hope that we can work together to address
that issue.
Lately there have been several stories in the press about
the separation of families by CBP and ICE. Given the traumatic
and truly irreparable harm, as many experts have told us, that
this separation has on children, what are the justification and
the circumstances under which departmental components can
separate minor children from their parent or their guardian?
And if the Department has concerns about the validity of a
claimed familial relationship, what is the process for
verifying or debunking that claim?
Secretary Nielsen. Thank you.
The current standard at CBP--and as you know, often if we
are talking about the border, CBP, the Border Patrol, are the
first to encounter a family unit--the standard is, in every
case, to keep that family together as long as operationally
possible, first of all. That is the presumption going in.
When we separate, we separate because the law tells us to,
and that is in the interest of the child. If we cannot confirm
that the adult who is accompanying them is either a legal
guardian or parent, we do seek, as you say, to verify that, and
I will talk about that in a second.
Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, it tells us
that we need to prevent trafficking. Unfortunately, we have
seen instances where traffickers have used children to cross
the border and gain illegal entry. So when we do separate, we
do it to protect the child. The child [Department of Health and
Human Services] as you know, or unaccompanied alien, then goes
over to the care of HHS as we determine what to do with the
adult.
I have talked a lot with Commissioner McAleenan about this
and Director Homan. What they do, in general, is that they
reach out to the consulates. They look for paperwork.
Unfortunately, in an increasing number of cases, we encounter
migrants who do not have paperwork, for whatever reason. We, of
course, look to see if they have paperwork to validate that.
We work with the consulates. So we do interviews. In some
cases, HHS, as I understand, it will do a DNA check, voluntary,
of course, to try to prove that there is a relationship there.
This is an area where I think a lot more clarity would be
very important. I also have asked those to our south, partners
that we have worked with at the consulate level, to make it
very clear that the paperwork is very important to prevent
these type of issues. We really are trying to protect the
children when we do this.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Now there are stories that have been
validated about a mother, for example, the Congolese mother
being separated from her 7-year-old child and was not given an
opportunity to either have a DNA test or anything for months,
and was separated for months. And then finally those tests were
given and it determined that she was actually the mother of
this child. And I am just wondering if anything is being
considered or being put in place to avoid those kinds of things
from happening.
And secondly, if any thought has been given to perhaps
maybe do some of what under the previous administration was to
work with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees to
identify refugees in the Northern Triangle region so that they
would not have to make that dangerous journey to the United
States to claim asylum. Instead, they could travel to refugee
processing centers in the regions where they could live safely
during the vetting process before being settled in the United
States or in another country.
I am just wondering if any consideration has been given to
looking into that as a way of protecting the children and those
seeking refuge, as well as it would alleviate a lot of the
challenges that we have at our border currently.
Secretary Nielsen. In the Congolese case that you
mentioned, it took too long. We are working through that. As
you know, it is a case of ongoing litigation, so,
unfortunately, I am prohibited from giving you additional
detail at this time. It took too long. So we are looking at
that particular case and learning from it.
I actually have planned an additional conversation with the
UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] in
upcoming weeks. That is an important partnership.
What I have asked of the office as well as those to whom we
speak at the embassies and my counterparts is exactly what you
are describing. Could we better educate the public in these
countries so that they can go to the consulate, they can go to
the embassy? There are other ways to find safe haven without
taking this dangerous journey and then putting themselves at
further risk by coming here illegally.
So, yes, I think we need to do more education to help them
understand their options.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. But also have to make sure that they
would be safe in their country----
Secretary Nielsen. Understand.
Ms. Roybal-Allard [continuing]. And the reason why they are
leaving while they are going through the process.
Secretary Nielsen. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Secretary Nielsen, thank you for your
testimony. I commend you for being very well prepared. We have
learned a lot from you today.
As I have told you when I talked to you on the phone--Ms.
Roybal-Allard feels the same way--we are part of the team here
to help you. Keep us informed. If you need our assistance, let
us know. This committee and every member of it is pledged to
try to do the mission you are trying to do: make this country
safe.
Thank you for being here. We missed our time by 6 minutes.
Secretary Nielsen. Well, sir, thank you so much.
And thank you to all of you. I look forward to working with
you.
Mr. Carter. And we are in recess. Thank you.
[Clerk's note: The Department of Homeland Security did not
supply answers to submitted questions in time for inclusion in
the record.]
Thursday, April 12, 2018.
U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT AND U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER
PROTECTION
WITNESSES
HON. KEVIN K. MCALEENAN, COMMISSIONER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
MATTHEW T. ALBENCE, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR ENFORCEMENT AND
REMOVAL OPERATIONS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
DEREK N. BENNER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY
INVESTIGATIONS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
Mr. Carter. Good morning. We have one more coming in right
now and we are going to get started.
I want to welcome our panel of witnesses. Today we have
Kevin McAleenan, the Commissioner of the CBP. We have Matthew
Albence and Derek Benner, Executive Directors for ICE
Enforcement and Removal Operations and ICE Homeland Security
investigations.
Commissioner, we visited yesterday. It was a good visit.
And while we have known each other for a while, today is the
first time that you have appeared, I believe, as the confirmed
Commissioner of CBP. Congratulations on your confirmation.
The subcommittee is holding a hearing on the budget request
for two DHS components, ICE and CBP, for a couple of reasons.
First, it is practical. Given the late start for the fiscal
year 2019 budget hearing cycle, we are operating on a
compressed schedule in order to meet this committee's objective
of completing the Homeland Security appropriations bill in
July.
Second, having ICE and CBP testify together provides an
opportunity to hear how they operate jointly and how those
operations informed the budget request.
The fiscal year 2019 budget request for CBP is $14.2
billion, an increase of $218 million above the amount provided
for fiscal year 2018. This includes $1.6 billion for new
physical barriers.
There are legitimate questions about the request that
require answers. For example, spending is proposed for various
types of barriers, but it is unclear where they will be located
or if they can be executed in fiscal year 2019. Likewise, we
need to understand how this budget request supports security at
the ports of entry.
The fiscal year 2019 budget request for ICE is $8.8 billion
in discretionary spending, an increase of $1.4 billion over
fiscal year 2018. The largest share of the increase supports
the hiring of 2,000 ICE agents and 52,000 detention beds.
The subcommittee needs to understand how fiscal year 2018
appropriations may be impacted by these requests. We want to
work with you and make sure that the fiscal year 2019 funding
builds on the work we will accomplish this year.
Before I turn to our witnesses for their statements, the
text of which is included in the record, I would like to
recognize my distinguished ranking member, Ms. Roybal-Allard,
for any remarks she may wish to make.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome, Commissioner McAleenan, Associate Director
Albence, and Associate Director Benner.
I will make my opening statements very brief so that we can
maximize the time for questions.
Commissioner McAleenan, congratulations on your recent
confirmation. We have spoken about the significant challenges
you and CBP face, and I want to reaffirm my commitment to
helping you address those challenges.
As you know, I disagree with the approach of the current
administration in some areas. But there is no disagreement on
the need to continue building on the significant progress made
over the last decade in border security, both between the ports
of entry and at the ports. And there is a broad consensus on
continuing to invest in improvements at the ports that will
better facilitate the flow of commerce.
Mr. Albence and Mr. Benner, I regret that Mr. Homan was
unable to join us this morning, but I am glad to have you both
here to answer our questions. Director Homan and I have had
frank, respectful discussions about our disagreements on ICE
policies and priorities. And while we won't resolve those
disagreements this morning, I appreciate his willingness to
maintain open lines of communication.
A high priority for me is ensuring that individuals in the
custody of your agencies are treated fairly and humanely and
according to appropriate standards. No matter the policy
disagreements we have, I hope we can work constructively
together in that area.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to our
discussion this morning.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Roybal-Allard.
We are joined by the ranking member of the full committee,
Mrs. Lowey. Mrs. Lowey is recognized for any statement she
wishes to make.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would like to thank Chairman Carter and Ranking
Member Roybal-Allard for holding this important hearing.
And thank you to each of the witnesses for being here this
morning.
I want to be very clear. Your agencies are critically
important to the security of this country. Ensuring the
integrity of our borders and enforcing immigration laws are
difficult but necessary jobs, and we appreciate the hard work
and dedication of the thousands of personnel at both CBP and
ICE. Congress must carefully prioritize efficient use of
taxpayer dollars to protect our security, grow the economy and
facilitate trade and safe travels.
Democrats fundamentally disagree with this administration's
politicization of border security and its often heartless
decisions and priorities on immigration enforcement.
Longstanding practice has been to prioritize removal efforts on
those convicted of serious crimes, not our neighbors who have
lived here for decades, working hard, contributing to our
economy, and raising families. Yet, for CBP the budget request
includes $1.6 billion for 65 miles of border wall and $164
million to hire 750 new Border Patrol agents and 153 support
personnel.
CBP has not yet explained why these funds are needed at a
time when apprehensions at the border are still historically
low and many of those apprehended are surrendering themselves
to Border Patrol. The President's obsession with fulfilling his
campaign promise for a border wall remains deeply concerning.
The deployment of the National Guard is yet another
misguided and impulsive decision that the Department is being
forced to justify while other national security priorities are
being stretched thin.
For ICE, the budget requests an increase of 11,500 beds and
the hiring of 3,300 new personnel, including 2,000 new law
enforcement positions. Those increases are clearly included to
support the administration's overly aggressive and unacceptable
interior enforcement policies.
Finally, the administration proposes to change the law to
tie the hands of State and local law enforcement on how best to
police their communities and to authorize DHS and DOJ to
condition certain grants on a jurisdiction's cooperation with
ICE. This runs contrary to Federal court precedent, could
result in victims of crimes staying in the shadows, reduces
trust between law enforcement and the public. Quite simply, it
will make our communities less safe.
President Trump continues to speak and tweet extensively
and inappropriately, often outlining his draconian plans to
detain and deport as many people as possible. The most
prominent increases in this budget are rooted in that ugly
sentiment. It is unconscionable and unacceptable.
This budget request does not reflect the serious nature of
the threats we face. Well over a year after the 2016 election,
it is time we move on from empty campaign threats and start
focusing on what is needed to keep American families safe.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you again.
Mr. Carter. Well, thank you.
I think that concludes our opening statements. We will
allow to hear your testimony at this time.
Commissioner.
Opening Statement of Mr. McAleenan
Mr. McAleenan. Good morning. And thank you, Chairman
Carter, Ranking Member Roybal-Allard, full committee Ranking
Member Nita Lowey, and members of the subcommittee. I really
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today.
I have had the chance to engage with this subcommittee many
times in many different capacities over the years, and I have
always appreciated the deep expertise and commitment to support
our critical mission from both members and staff.
As you noted, Mr. Chairman, this is my first chance to
appear as the Commissioner of CBP, and it is a sincere honor to
represent the 60,000-strong men and women of U.S. Customs and
Border Protection in that role.
CBP carries out three core missions critical to our
national security and economic prosperity: counterterrorism,
border security, and securing and facilitating international
trade and travel.
The President's fiscal year 2019 includes a total of $16.7
billion to enable CBP to achieve our complex mission with the
right combination of dedicated personnel, risk-based
strategies, collaborative partnerships, advanced technology,
and tactical infrastructure.
Before discussing the fiscal year 2019 budget, I would like
to briefly address the recently passed Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2018. I would like to thank the
subcommittee for your support of CBP's mission, including the
largest investment in border wall in more than a decade. We are
already putting this funding to work on behalf of the American
people.
CBP has worked closely with this committee in recent years
to continually improve our ability to support our budget
request with operator-derived, data-supported, and rigorously
analyzed requirements. I look forward to continue working with
you to ensure that the funding we request supports our highest
priority needs.
BORDER SECURITY: WALL
The fiscal year 2019 budget request includes continued
investments in key mission areas. With regard to border
security, the President's budget requests $1.6 billion to be
applied toward the construction of 65 miles of border wall
system, a need identified by the field and supported by CBP's
full-spectrum requirements analysis process.
In conjunction with the border wall system, technology is a
force multiplier in the border environment that increases
situational awareness and decreases risk to the safety of our
frontline personnel.
The budget request proposes investing $220 million in the
sustainment and continued deployment of technology to
strengthen border security operations between the ports of
entry and the land, air, and maritime environments.
CBP: HIRING
The budget also recognizes--and this is, obviously, a
critical topic for our hearing today--that the men and women of
CBP are our greatest assets. I am very proud of their
dedication, integrity, and commitment.
But CBP has faced challenges in meeting our hiring goals in
the past several years. However, due to 40 individual
enhancements to CBP's hiring process, we have seen improved
results, despite record low unemployment around the United
States and intense competition for highly qualified, mission-
inspired people.
Several key indicators are moving in a positive direction.
CBP's hiring totals last year surpassed the prior year by 14
percent, and we estimate that we will increase the number of
Border Patrol agents and CBP officers hired in fiscal year 2018
as well. The total number of frontline applicants has
increased, and we intend to make progress with targeted digital
recruiting.
Further, attrition dropped last year. Our applicant-to-
successful-hire ratio has improved significantly and we are
making improvements to our polygraph process. I am keenly aware
that we are not where we need to be in this area, and hiring
and sustaining a world class law enforcement workforce will
continue to be my highest mission support priority for U.S.
Customs and Border Protection. There is simply no area where we
are working harder.
We want to build on this momentum in 2019 by requesting $46
million for recruitment and applicant processing
transformation. This will support the requested increase of
$164 million to hire, train, and equip an additional 750 Border
Patrol agents from the fiscal year 2018 requested levels.
Importantly, this budget also includes an additional $45
million to continue to support the operational mobility program
that helps reduce Border Patrol agent attrition and staff hard-
to-fill locations.
CBP: FACILITIES
The 2019 budget request also supports critical investments
in facilities that our agents operate in every day, including
$33 million to construct a new Border Patrol station in Freer,
Texas.
At our Nation's ports of entry, the men and women of CBP
present dangerous people, contraband, and plant, pest, and
animal diseases from entering the United States while
facilitating the flow of lawful trade and travel.
NON-INTRUSIVE INSPECTION TECHNOLOGY
The budget request includes $44 million to build upon and
recapitalize CBP's Non-Intrusive Inspection technology. NII
helps CBP interdict illicit narcotics, including opioids and
synthetics like fentanyl, at our ports of entry and our
international mail and express consignment facilities.
NATIONAL TARGETING CENTER
Additionally, the budget proposes an increase of $27
million for improved intelligence and targeting capabilities at
CBP's National Targeting Center. The NTC works to effectively
identify and interdict travelers and cargo that may pose a
threat to the United States.
TRADE FACILITATION/ENFORCEMENT
CBP's trade facilitation and trade enforcement role is
critical to our Nation's economic security. The budget request
includes $2 million for 26 positions to support CBP's ongoing
implementation of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement
Act. The request also includes an increase of $5.5 million to
develop and deploy additional functionality in our Automated
Commercial Environment, or ACE, the single window for
submission of trade data to the U.S. Government.
With the ongoing support of Congress, CBP will continue to
secure our Nation's borders while facilitating international
trade and travel.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
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Opening Statement of Mr. Albence
ICE: ENFORCEMENT AND REMOVAL OPERATIONS
Mr. Albence. Good morning. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member
Roybal-Allard, Ranking Member Lowey, and distinguished members
of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today to present the overall President's fiscal year
2019 budget for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and
specifically to discuss Enforcement and Removal Operations and
my role as the executive associate director of ERO.
ICE's mission is to protect America from the cross-border
crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security
and public safety. To protect the security of the American
people and the homeland, ICE vigilantly enforces the Nation's
immigration and customs laws by focusing on immigration
enforcement, preventing terrorism, and combating transnational
organized crime.
In the face of heightened scrutiny, I am extremely proud
that our men and women continue to operate with professionalism
and honor and do so at the risk of their own safety and
security.
The President's fiscal year 2019 budget request for ICE
includes $8.3 billion to meet our diverse mission requirements
and to make much-needed investments in immigration enforcement,
criminal investigations, workforce expansion, and training.
These requested enhancements continue our fiscal year 2018
efforts to control illegal immigration, enhance interior
enforcement, particularly against criminal aliens and habitual
immigration offenders, combat the growing national opioid and
other dangerous drug epidemic, and increase our ability to
detect, disrupt, and deter human smuggling and child
exploitation operations so often associated with transnational
criminal organizations.
ICE appreciates the continued support of Congress in
building a stronger ICE, one that can meet the myriad critical
operational responsibilities necessary for the safety and
security of our country.
ICE: WORKFORCE
To accomplish this, it is imperative that ICE is properly
resourced to support these diverse mission requirements, making
the need for additional funding and personnel more crucial than
ever.
That is why our fiscal year 2019 budget makes a significant
downpayment on ICE's workforce, requesting $571 million for an
additional 2,000 law enforcement officers and vital support
personnel impacting all aspects of our mission space.
ICE: ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS
In particular, ERO operates in an incredibly challenging
environment. What ERO, and ICE in general, does not do is
conduct indiscriminate raids or sweeps. We conduct targeted
enforcement operations across the country every day that are
based on intelligence-driven leads and detailed investigations,
prioritizing our resources on identifying and removing public
safety and national security threats.
We also prioritize fugitives and aliens who have illegally
entered the United States after having previously been removed,
a Federal felony, and one that ERO prosecuted over 4,200 times
last year.
But to be clear, entering the United States illegally is a
crime in and of itself, and ICE's congressionally mandated
mission is to enforce immigration law as enacted by Congress.
To that end, last fiscal year ERO made substantial progress
in focusing its limited enforcement resources on arresting and
removing public safety threats from our communities and
restoring fidelity to the immigration system, especially for
those aliens with orders of removal issued by an immigration
judge.
In fiscal year 2017, 89 percent of the aliens arrested by
ERO in the interior of the United States had a prior
interaction with the criminal justice system, with 74 percent
of them being convicted criminals. In real terms, this means
that nearly 11,000 more criminal aliens were removed from the
street last fiscal year than in fiscal year 2016. These
positive trends have continued into fiscal year 2018 with
criminal alien arrests up over 8 percent and overall arrests up
nearly 30 percent.
Also, despite the challenges faced in some jurisdictions,
ERO has continued to strengthen its relationship with the State
and local law enforcement community. For example, the 287(g)
program has increased from 32 to 76 partnerships, with
continued interest from other jurisdictions.
Further, working cooperatively with our tremendous partners
at the National Sheriffs' Association and Major County Sheriffs
of America, we have established a new process that affords our
local partners an additional legal basis to defend themselves
when they faithfully execute their public safety duties by
detaining aliens at ICE's request.
ICE: WORKFORCE
To continue to build on this significant progress, ERO
needs the resources requested in the fiscal year 2019 budget.
Recent statistics and our own staffing model indicate that a
substantial increase in deportation officers is required to
respond to manage the more than 2.5 million aliens on the
detained and nondetained dockets, manage an increased detainee
population, and address the over 540,000 immigration fugitives,
aliens who have had their day in court and have failed to
comply with a judge's removal order.
Further, due to the challenges facing some of our law
enforcement partners inhibiting their ability to honor ICE
detainers or even share information, it is necessary to place
more ICE officers within State and local jails, as well as
augment our fugitive operations teams, in order to ensure that
dangerous criminals are not reintroduced into American
communities where they can further victimize our law-abiding
citizens.
Additionally, more attorneys are needed to support an ever-
increasing caseload and to meet the Department of Justice's
planned national expansion within EOIR.
ICE: DETENTION BEDS
The increased immigration enforcement workforce requests
also necessitates a commensurate increase in detention beds to
process the identified illegal immigration population and
detain CBP apprehensions of illegal border crossers. While the
fiscal year 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act provided ICE
with funding for 40,520 detention beds, the requirement remains
almost 11,000 beds higher in fiscal year 2019.
Through the use of the ICE statistical bed model and
associated operational factors, ICE estimates the need for
detention beds at 52,000 for fiscal year 2019. This is a
sophisticated model that has previously been shared with your
staffs and has proven to be highly accurate at forecasting
detention needs.
ICE: TRANSPORTATION AND REMOVAL
The fiscal year 2019 budget also includes an increase in
funding for expanded transportation costs related to both
domestic and international movement of aliens. ERO has worked
diligently to obtain greater cooperation from foreign
governments to accept their citizens, with the number of
recalcitrant countries dropping from 20 to 9, and those at risk
of noncompliance dropping from 55 to 36.
However, the cost of removing these aliens is extensive,
and ERO requires additional funds to ensure that these and
other illegal aliens, many violent criminals, are removed from
our country.
Overall, the resultant fiscal year 2019 ERO budget request
is $5.1 billion to identify, arrest, detain, and remove illegal
aliens.
Since its inception 15 years ago, ICE continues to be a
preeminent Federal law enforcement agency with a unique and
critical role in the national security and public safety of the
United States, as well as an invaluable partner among the
international law enforcement community. With a diverse and
dedicated workforce and a wealth of experience throughout our
ranks and on the front lines, we are 20,000 American patriots
in proud service to our country.
Many of our personnel put their lives on the line every day
to protect our Nation, despite the innumerable challenges they
face, and I could not be more honored to represent them here
today.
With your support, I believe ICE is well-positioned to have
an even greater impact on the safety and security of this
country, and we will continue to execute our sworn duties with
integrity, courage, and excellence.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and
for your continued support of ICE. I look forward to answering
any questions you may have at this time.
[The information follows:]
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ICE: HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Benner.
Opening Statement of Mr. Benner
Mr. Benner. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Roybal-Allard,
full committee Ranking Member Lowey, and distinguished members
of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to present the President's fiscal year
2019 budget for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but
specifically for Homeland Security Investigations' portion of
the request.
The ICE Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI,
directorate is a critical asset in the ICE mission, responsible
for investigating a wide range of domestic and international
activities arising from the illegal movement of people and
goods into, within, and out of the United States.
HSI uses its legal authority to investigate issues such as
smuggling of narcotics, the smuggling of weapons, financial
crimes, cybercrime, trade enforcement crimes, export
enforcement, human rights violations, and human smuggling. HSI
special agents also conduct investigations aimed at protecting
critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to
sabotage, attack, or exploitation.
In my limited time today, I want to highlight several
priorities within HSI's broad mission set that we believe are
relevant to our discussion of the fiscal year 2019 budget and
HSI's contribution to the administration's and Congress'
priorities.
COMBATING OPIOIDS
First and foremost, HSI's strategy to address the smuggling
of fentanyl and other illicit opioids focuses on working at
every level of the illicit supply chain. HSI's investigations
focus on the point of foreign manufacture, the dark net and
illicit marketplaces, and the payment mechanisms used by buyers
and sellers throughout the smuggling pipeline, and, most
importantly, with our State and local partners, tying overdose
deaths to smuggling networks that supply the illicit substance.
HSI has seen a rapid growth in our fentanyl-related
investigations and seizures in just the last 2 years. For
instance, between fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2017
fentanyl seizures and investigations have increased from 69
pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2015 to 2,400 pounds in
fiscal year 2017. We anticipate this increase in seizures and
investigations will continue in fiscal year 2018.
The Border Enforcement Security Task Forces, or BESTs, are
ICE's primary platform to investigate opioid smuggling
domestically. ICE currently operates BESTs in 62 locations
throughout the United States, an increase of 30 percent in
fiscal year 2017 in response to the President's executive order
on transnational criminal organizations.
BESTs leverage the participation of more than 1,000
Federal, State, local, and foreign law enforcement agents and
officers representing over 100 law enforcement agencies that
target opioid smuggling.
Similarly, HSI's cyber investigations related to fentanyl
and other illicit opioids have increased by 400 percent between
those two fiscal years, 2015 and 2017.
In response to the executive order and to improve our
ability to tie overdose deaths here in the United States to the
smuggling networks, HSI has developed a dark web and
cryptocurrency training program for State and local law
enforcement, training for those investigators and officers that
are involved in drug and suspicious death investigations.
So far in 2018, HSI has delivered training to more than
1,200 investigators from State, local, Tribal, and Federal
agencies.
COMBATING MS-13 GANG ACTIVITY
Secondly, combating MS-13. In addition to protecting the
homeland from illicit opioids, HSI further enhances public
safety by targeting transnational criminal organizations and
criminal street gangs that operate in the United States.
HSI has been laser-focused on MS-13 for more than a decade
and through Operation Community Shield, the primary platform
through which HSI executes its anti-gang initiatives. In
October of 2012, for example, HSI worked with the U.S.
Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to
designate MS-13 as the first transnational criminal street gang
identified as a TCO.
As a result of this designation, any property or property
interests in the United States, or in the possession or control
of a U.S. person in which MS-13 has an interest, are blocked.
One of our most important partners in our fight against MS-
13 is the Government of El Salvador, who we partner with daily.
And I just returned from El Salvador last Friday, and I look
forward to discussing that later in my testimony.
HSI has established a Transnational Criminal Investigative
Unit with the Government of El Salvador and National Police,
which makes it possible to extend the reach and impact of our
domestic investigations into El Salvador, ensuring that gang
leadership in El Salvador is also held accountable for the
gang's criminal conduct in the United States.
From fiscal year 2005 to present, HSI has effected over
57,000 criminal arrests of gang members, including over 7,300
MS-13 members.
The DHS efforts to secure our border will not be effective
unless we simultaneously focus on the magnets and the pull
factors that are drawing people to cross our borders illegally
at the same time that we focus on physical border security.
WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT
Acting ICE Director Homan has set a high bar for HSI's
worksite enforcement efforts in 2018 and going forward.
Consistent with his public statements that ICE will no longer
exempt any industry or business sector from worksite
enforcement, HSI focuses on the entire economy and geographic
area of the United States.
Our strategy incorporates a multiprong approach to utilize
enforcement, criminal arrests of employers and administrative
arrest of employees, compliance, employment verification
inspections, civil fines and debarment, and outreach, the ICE
mutual agreement between government and employers, to instill a
culture of compliance and accountability.
In support of our efforts to instill a culture of
compliance among employers, HSI has developed a plan to expand
the Employee Compliance Inspection Center. The new center would
allow for the centralization of worksite audits at one location
that would ensure a standardized audit process and uniform
application of the civil fine matrix.
We believe that it would also represent an orderly and
efficient way to build a culture of compliance with employers,
and at the same time, identify the egregious violators on a
national level for referral to the HSI field offices for
criminal investigation.
Without the proper resources dedicated to these criminal
investigations, the ramifications of illegal activity will
continue. To ensure enforcement efforts increase, ICE requests
over $1.9 billion in discretionary fee funding to support
illicit trade, travel, and financial investigations.
ICE: WORKFORCE
As my partners have pointed out, our diverse workforce
remains our priority to ensure that the mission is executed
properly. HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, of which
6,700 are special agents assigned to more than 200 cities
throughout the United States and 50 countries around the world.
Funding for additional special agents and support personnel
is critical for global deployment to ensure the safety of our
Nation.
ICE: INFRASTRUCTURE
We are extremely appreciative of the additional support
that the subcommittee provided in the fiscal year 2018
appropriation to invest in the ICE infrastructure. Critical
investment in infrastructure and information technology
continues to be necessary to sustain ICE operations and to
ensure that we can provide our workforce with the necessary
tools to complete the mission.
HSI also continues to support the executive orders laying
the ground work for ICE to carry out the critical work of
ensuring our national security and public safety.
HSI welcomes the additional resources requested in the
President's fiscal year 2019 budget request, including 300
special agents and supported mission support personnel,
allowing us to better fulfill our mission.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today and
testify and for your continued support of Homeland Security
Investigations. I look forward to answering any questions you
may have at this time.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter. All right. We are going to have a 5-minute
rule.
BORDER SECURITY: BARRIER PROTOTYPE
I am going to start off with something that is a very hot
topic: border security and physical barriers. In fiscal year
2017, Congress provided $20 million to begin planning and
design for a new barrier, to include funds for prototypes,
which were built in southern California last year. We all saw
them on television.
What have you learned from the prototype process? How will
it inform you of what to construct in the fiscal year 2019
funds?
Congress provided funds for 40 miles of replacement fencing
in 2017, over 95 miles of wall in fencing in 2018. Where and
when will you begin construction with these funds?
If the fiscal year 2019 budget includes $1.6 billion for
planning, design, and construction of 65 miles of various-type
barriers, then tell us what your plans are for border
infrastructure, what type of structures do you propose with
these funds, and where will they be located.
From the time you get funds, how long before you can start
putting steel in the ground with the funds from fiscal year
2019.
Something of very big interest to me as a Texan, the wall
goes through the land acquisition process associated with the
timeline. What are the obstacles of obtaining land?
Can the entire $1.6 billion be put on contract by September
30, 2019? Please be specific to those projects that will be put
on contract and address the situation in Texas where most land
is owned by landowners, private landowners.
A lot of issues there, but we have got to get a clear
picture because we have a short-spinning process here in this
2018 budget, and we are still not doing 2017 yet. So we want to
find out how we are going to get this thing moving.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Important set of
questions.
First, let me just acknowledge our appreciation for the
reprogramming approval in 2017 to get started to learn some
additional lessons with this prototyping process that will put
us in good position for execution in 2019, as you suggest.
Very quickly, a summary of that effort. We had some
important lessons learned. We built four concrete prototypes
and four prototypes with other materials in a section of border
in San Diego where we have a lot of crossings in that secondary
area.
After construction, we performed a test and valuation, both
for issues like countering breach of the barrier itself,
anticlimb features, antidig features, as well as the
construction techniques and space required. And so we learned
several key things.
One, we validated the notion that see-through fencing is
the most important factor on primary for our agents' safety. So
if we are going to have a fence or wall right on the border,
our agents need to be able to see through it for security.
Secondly, concrete has some valuable attributes that could
be used in other areas, including potentially in a secondary
context.
So in terms of the key lessons from these eight prototypes,
one, we learned important things about the best combination of
materials for antibreach, both for the bollard wall format as
well as the concrete.
We applied anticlimb features in different configurations
at the top of those barriers. You mentioned seeing some of them
on TV. Both a flat face and the tube structure showed
significant anticlimb capability for us.
We learned a lot about the constructability and speed on
the techniques, including the footing of concrete barrier and
how much space is required, and the ability to add sensors.
So we want to add these to our current border barrier
toolkit, right? We have 654 miles out there already. We have a
lot of experience, over 25 years, building barriers on the
border. These features are going to be added to that design
toolkit and then applied to specific geographic areas of the
border with different terrain in packages by segment.
In terms, of your questions on 2017, 2018, and 2019, we are
building replacement wall as funded in 2017 today. In El Centro
Sector we started in February. That 2-plus miles of replacement
wall is going up in southern California.
BORDER SECURITY: WALL REPLACEMENT
We also kicked off Monday of this week our El Paso Sector
project with 20 miles of replacement vehicle barrier in terms
of the construction. The notice to proceed was back in
February. It required a significant mobilization given the
extent of that project.
We will be continuing that replacement wall with 40 miles
that were funded in 2017 in El Paso with another 4-mile
segment, and Rio Grande Valley, importantly, with gates that
will close gaps in the existing barrier and wall in Rio Grande
Valley, and then a replacement project in the San Diego Sector
of 14 miles.
All of that will begin by summer into early fall. So that
funding has been obligated and will be applied effectively to
start construction.
BORDER WALL: CONSTRUCTION
For the 2018 border wall program, we have jumped into that
fully for the approximately 95 miles that we will be building.
That will cover multiple sectors. First of all, our highest
priority sector in Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.
That is where the last several years we have seen 50
percent of traffic crossing our border. As alluded to in the
opening statements, both an increase of family units and
children. But also hard narcotics, a 25 percent increase in
smuggling of hard narcotics, and also a significant increase in
criminals and hardened smugglers that we are encountering. So
it is a dual traffic there.
So we will building 25 miles of new levee wall system and 8
miles of border wall system in Rio Grande Valley. And then we
have a separate San Diego project of 14 miles of replacement
wall and secondary, and then we have identified four or five
sectors for replacement wall with the funding that was granted
in the 2018 budget.
We expect to do awards starting again this summer, August
23 for the San Diego Sector project, Rio Grande Valley in the
August-September timeframe. So we will be moving out smartly on
those projects. We were preparing for that in anticipation of
funding in 2018.
For 2019, you asked specifically would we be able to
obligate those funds within the fiscal year if appropriated by
Congress. And, yes, we would. Our efforts with the Army Corps
of Engineers to identify property acquisition in south Texas
are well underway.
BORDER SECURITY: PROPERTY PROCUREMENT
The key thing, as you noted, is how do you work through
that process of obtaining that property, private property in
Texas on the border. In other States it is a little bit
different. That is a multistage process of real estate
planning.
You mentioned that we do have to go, unfortunately, to
court proceedings in some cases. Often that is just to
determine clear title. It is not necessarily that we are having
trouble agreeing with a landowner on a fair price for that
property. So it is often just to find out who owns it. Some of
these deeds go back to Spanish land grants and are very complex
to really figure out who owns the land.
So that is a multistage process. We try to do it in a
collaborative and open, consultative manner. We are able to
reach an appropriate price with most landowners. And then we do
have to go through courts just to clear title in some other
cases. But that is going to be underway with the $38 million
authorized in 2018 to do real estate planning in advance as
well.
So we will be pursuing this effort. We have got a great
partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers, great support
from our leadership in the Department of Homeland Security,
including in management and their procurement expertise. And we
intend to do it right and expeditiously.
BORDER SECURITY: GATES
Mr. Carter. OK. A couple of questions.
Those gates. We had an existing border wall, fairly
substantial, but there were no gates. Have we got those gates
in place now or are there still gaps?
Mr. McAleenan. There are still gaps today. They are going
to start going in place on October 5, 2018. It is not a
challenge of actually buying and installing the gates. Again,
that is the property acquisition challenge, because once you
have those gates in, you have to fully acquire all the land
south of the levee wall to the border. But that is underway
now. We are going to be beginning installation in October of
this year.
Mr. Carter. Well, one of our sales pitches we made to the
landowners is the levee is going to protect your other property
from flood. And with those holes in it, it is not. And we could
have a lot of egg on our face, since those have been up now for
about 3 years and we still have gigantic holes in it.
Fortunately, we haven't--at least I am not aware of the
fact--that we have had any major flooding down there in that
period of time. But we are in a hurricane alley. When those
things come we will be asking, you did all this construction,
we all cooperated, why did our land flood? We don't want to be
in that business.
I have been warning people since day one, you are dealing
with a different world in Texas than you are dealing with the
rest of the world. It is all private property except the Big
Bend.
And some of it, you are right, goes back to the Spanish
land grants. And I have had to pull those titles apart. Even in
my part of the world, I used to try these dang things, and I
hated them, by the way. But I did. And they can be really time
consuming.
You are going to have to really get, high demand, get a lot
of lawyers working, or you are going to be forever on doing the
Rio Grande Valley. Just a friendly warning, because I tried way
more than those than I ever want to try and there are problems.
All right. Well, I have used up my time.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
ICE: PARENTAL INTEREST
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Associate Director Albence, it currently
came to my attention that on August 29, 2017, ICE finalized a
new directive on detention and removal of alien parents or
legal guardians. This supersedes the August 23, 2013, directive
on facilitating parental interests in the course of civil
immigration enforcement activities.
Just a month earlier, the House Appropriations Committee
reported the fiscal year 2018 DHS Appropriations Act to the
House, along with House Report 115-239, which included the
following language: ``ICE should ensure that field officers are
appropriately trained on the requirements of ICE's parental
interest directive and on mechanisms to reunite family units.
ICE shall not rescind or change the policies contained in this
directive.''
While it is true that the House report language was not
legally binding, can you explain to this committee the
following? And I have three questions here.
Why would ICE take this action just over a month after the
committee made clear its interest in the parental interests
directive?
Second, why would ICE take this step without any kind of
notification to the committee?
And finally, can you describe the parts of the parental
interest directive that were eliminated in the new directive
and explain why they were not included?
Mr. Albence. Thank you for your question.
A lot of policies, obviously, when the executive orders
were passed, required revision in order to align themselves
with the requirements of the executive orders from the
President. So we looked at all of our policies on a wholesale
basis to determine which ones were in conflict with the
executive orders and needed to be rewritten, which ones just
needed some revisions, and other ones which needed to be done
away with altogether.
With regard to the parental interest directive, what we
found during the review was that there was a lot of information
in there that was duplicative of information that was in other
policies that could cause confusion among our officers out in
the field that actually have to apply those policies.
So what we were doing, in addition to looking at the
policies and making sure they are consistent with the executive
orders, is to also ensure that the guidance that we are able to
give our employees is clear, concise, and is able to be
followed without confusion or conflict with other existing
policies.
So with regard to the policies, let me say what is the same
in those policies. Both policies address the initial detention
and placement of transfers. Both policies address visitation
requirements and the processes for that. Both address
coordinating the care of the minor children pending the removal
of the alien parent, and as well as the recordkeeping
requirements that are through this process.
As always, the primary focus will be the safety and well-
being of that child. One thing that we added in this policy,
which was not there previously, which we think is important, is
how do we handle children and others that we come across during
enforcement actions on the interior of the United States when
we arrest a parent, taking enforcement action, how do we handle
those children that may not have an appropriate parent or
guardian that is able to be remaining at that residence to take
care of this child.
So we work very closely, and it lays out in that policy the
directions that their officers must take to establish alternate
accommodations for that child, generally with family members,
friends, somebody that the parent--and the parent is involved
in that process, is telling the officers who they want their
children to go with.
Only as a last resort would we have to go to something
like, you know, a Department of Children and Family Services
when there is no adult that the parent is comfortable with and
that we are comfortable with from a safety perspective to place
that child.
Again, the Immigration and Nationality Act clearly
recognize the heightened role of the parent and the
responsibilities and sensitivities surrounding that, which is
why the INA provides provisions for relief from removal for
individuals that are parents. So an immigration judge can find
and issue a cancellation of removal on an alien parent in
removal proceedings, even if that individual has been found
removable, to be in violation of the immigration laws.
So we certainly throughout the immigration enforcement
continuum understand and respect the parental rights. We have
policies, and this policy in particular. We allow parents that
have been removed, if they need to be paroled back into the
United States, to attend a court hearing with regard to custody
or other child welfare issues.
Our parole policy already covers how that is done. So that
was in the old policy. It specifically laid out what was done.
It was duplicative of what is in our existing parole policy. So
in order to streamline things and make it more user friendly
for our officers, that part was taken out.
It didn't take away their right to have parole or their
ability to have parole to come in for one of these hearings. It
is just covered by another policy, so it is duplicative in this
policy.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Let me just suggest that perhaps in the
future when a decision is being made, even if it is a directive
from the President, and it is not consistent with language and
directives from the committee, that I would recommend that you
at least contact the chairman of the committee and inform them
of decisions that are being made that do not reflect what has
been put into report language.
CHILD SEPARATION
And just very quickly, as a follow-up to what you were
mentioning with regards to the children, there have been
several stories in the press lately about the separation of
families by both CBP and ICE. And I asked Secretary Nielsen
about this during yesterday's hearing, and I want to raise it
again here today.
I understand that one of the reasons for separating minor
children from a parent or guardian is the concern about the
validity of a claimed familial relationship that traffickers
may use to enter this country.
What I would like to know a bit more about is the process
for verifying familial relations or debunking these concerns,
and what are the weaknesses in the process that have caused
unjustified separations of parents from their children, as was
the case with the Congolese mother that was separated from her
7-year-old child for 4 months. I believe the mother was sent to
San Diego, and the 7-year-old child was sent to Chicago.
And it would be both for you, Commissioner, and for Mr.
Albence.
Mr. McAleenan. I can start, Matt.
Thank you, Ranking Member.
First of all, for CBP, the separation of a group that
presents as a family unit is right now a very rare event. It is
about 1.4 percent of all of these groups that show up at our
border.
And the first question you ask is, how do you determine
family relationship? So this is done very carefully based on an
interview of the individuals, based on processing with
fingerprints, looking at records in our system, coordination
with the consulate, coordination with other authorities in the
United States.
So when we make a determination to separate family based on
the fact that we don't believe there is a familial
relationship, it is generally based on admitted or clear fraud,
from a CBP perspective.
The other cases where there is separation when it is a
family unit is if there is a criminal issue with the adult
parent that needs to go through the DOJ process for
prosecution. And that is, again, a very rare circumstance.
So we have careful policies, supervisory approval, and it
doesn't happen very often.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. I know I have run out of time, so I am
really more interested in understanding better what are the
weaknesses in the process that would cause cases--because this
isn't the only case we have heard of, of this Congolese mother
being separated, where in fact at the end she was finally given
a DNA test, 4 months later. What can be done to better ensure
that these things do not happen?
Because one of the big concerns is that psychiatrists and
psychologists tell us and experts in this field tell us that
the trauma that is caused to the child is very often not
reversible. And so that is my concern. What can be done to help
ensure that these things don't happen at the onset?
Mr. Albence. Thank you.
We obviously share your concerns. Our concern always is the
health and well-being of that child, especially when they are
in a position where they, themselves, did not choose to make
that journey.
One of the difficulties that we experience, and the
Commissioner's officers experience it, but also comes on us, is
that individuals don't have any documentation. They have
managed to travel around the world with documentation, but by
the time they come to us, that documentation has disappeared or
has been thrown away or not used.
So there is always concerns that somebody is trying to
obfuscate their relationship or their identity when they appear
without any sort of identification documents, which is why we
work very, very closely with the consular officers.
Without getting into any one case in particular, a lot of
that hinges upon the cooperation with the consular officers. If
we have an individual that presents themselves as a parent and
there is questions with regard to that relationship and they
refuse to speak to a consular officer from their home country
for an extended period of time, it makes things difficult for
us.
Not only that, it raises a red flag. If this individual is
generally this individual's parent, why would they not be
taking every affirmative step to make sure that they could be
reunited with that individual.
So, unfortunately, it is a balancing act sometimes where we
have to err on the side of the safety of that child. God
forbid, we put them in the hands of a trafficker or somebody
that is not their parent and they become victimized from that.
That said, we are always looking at our policies and our
procedures to ensure that they are as efficient and effective
as possible.
You mentioned DNA. That is something that we are looking at
from a DHS-wide perspective as to how we can better utilize DNA
in this process as well as our other enforcement processes that
we have. And we would be glad to come back and give you a full
briefing on that at another time.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you.
Mr. Albence. Absolutely. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Dr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank all of you for the job you do in
enforcing the law.
ICE: IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
My first question, to the Commissioner and to Mr. Albence.
Your agents are sworn law enforcement agents, is that
right?
Mr. Albence. Yes, they are.
Mr. Harris. They are. So they believe, as every law
enforcement officer I have ever talked with, they do believe
they are actually--they exist to make America safe, to make
communities safe. I imagine that is the way they feel.
So I am going to apologize for the left-wing attacks that
your officers had today on them. You know, you heard today that
somehow their law enforcement effort is to make communities
less safe.
And I have got to tell you, those kinds of attacks on
American law enforcement agents and officers has to stop
because it doesn't lead to good things, as we are experiencing
in Maryland where, of course, some of our police officers have
come under attack and where we now have record murder rates in
one of our cities, because, honestly, law enforcement officers
get discouraged when that is what they hear from public
officials. So I am going to apologize for that.
Because what is really heartless would be letting MS-13
terrorize Maryland communities. To my surprise, Maryland is the
second most common active place for MS-13. Literally within 30
miles of where we sit today, MS-13 runs rampant because we have
not enforced our immigration laws in the past.
CBP: BORDER CROSSINGS
Now, Commissioner, we heard there is no need for increased
border funding because border crossings are down. But in fact--
are historic lows, I think that is what we heard today, are
historic lows. But actually I think the border crossing in the
past, in February and March, actually were higher than in two
of the last 6 years. I think that we are actually seeing an
increase in border crossings above levels that we have seen in
the past decade. Is that correct?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Harris. OK. So, in fact, we are not at historic low
border crossings. We are actually seeing a resurgence in border
crossings, which I believe is because we are talking about
amnesty once again. And believe me, look, I understand the
economics of it. If America has open borders, you freely cross,
you come here, you get citizenship, why wouldn't you cross our
borders?
So I personally feel that we not only need the $1.6 billion
in that budget, we need far more to do it, including a wall.
ICE: IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
Now, Mr. Albence, your agents don't remove people who are
here illegally, do they, unless they have committed a crime? Is
that right? I mean, you don't go find people here illegally and
remove them? I mean, my family is here illegally. I don't think
you come knocking on our doors to remove us, do you?
Mr. Albence. Correct. Our officers----
Mr. Harris. OK. That is what I thought. I mean, look, these
are simple questions. The fact of the matter is your law
enforcement officers enforce the law.
Now, people may disagree on what the law ought to be. That
is fine. We live in a democracy. We disagree, we just go ahead
and we make changes to the law if we need to. But we have to
trust our law enforcement officers and support them when they
enforce the law.
Now, we heard about an impulsive decision on calling out
the National Guard. The last President also called them out,
but I don't recall the word ``impulsive'' being used then.
Because ``impulsive,'' honestly, is a personal attack on our
President. I get it. I fully get it. It doesn't belong in the
national conversation. It doesn't do anything for us.
ICE: SANCTUARY POLICY
Mr. Albence, do sanctuary policies which let local
jurisdictions release prisoners knowing there are detainers--I
have read that that could threaten the safety of your agents.
Now, your agents have to go out, and instead of taking them
into custody in a jail, which is a safe environment, they have
to go into the community. Is that correct? Is that the
impression of your officers?
Mr. Albence. Yes, it endangers the safety of our officers
and it especially endangers the safety of the community that
they are being released back into.
Mr. Harris. Absolutely.
So talk about trauma, I mean, you know, and talk about
trauma and who elicits trauma. I mean, my understanding is
there is a Dreamer called Ivan Castaneda in Colorado last month
killed a 57-year old. Now, that is real trauma. Then gets held
in a Denver prison, and they don't contact ICE, and they
release him into the community. That is the potential for
trauma.
ICE: OPIOIDS
Mr. Benner, did I hear you right that you have seized 2,000
pounds of fentanyl last year?
Mr. Benner. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Harris. 2,000 pounds.
Now, I am an anesthesiologist. I know what fentanyl is. And
I used it in the operating room last week. Most people don't
realize that one-quarter of a milligram can kill you if it is
injected IV, a miniscule amount. And I just did the
calculation.
I want to thank your agency for doing this because that
amount of fentanyl, given as an intravenous bolus incorrectly,
can kill 4 billion people. That is the amount of fentanyl we
are talking about, that potentially crosses our borders. And
you are the thin blue line that helps separate us from that.
Literally, you have seized enough to kill 4 billion.
This has got to end. And one of the ways it ends is through
law enforcement.
I just want to end by saying, look, thank you all for
enforcing the law, and in the instance of seizing dangerous
drugs like fentanyl, finding where they are coming from, saving
potentially thousands of American lives. So thank you very
much.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. The chair recognizes Mr. Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One good thing about this committee, we do have different
perspectives. I think we are all trying to reach the same
thing, but we do look at things a little differently.
CBP: BORDER SECURITY
For example, when we talk about crime, everybody points out
to the border. But I think if you look at the latest FBI
statistics, the crime level at the border is lower than the
national crime rate. I don't have the exact number of Mr.
Harris, but I can bet you that my city of Laredo has less
murders per hundred thousand, less rapes per hundred thousand,
less assaults per hundred thousand.
In fact, if you look at Laredo compared to Washington, DC,
the murder rate is much higher here than we have. And I think,
lately, we have had more people jump the White House fence than
some of the other fences that we have down there.
So we do have different perspectives, and I appreciate that
we are looking at it, but you just can't blame the whole fault
on the border itself. And this is the point that we want to
make sure that we understand.
And I appreciate everything that you all do. I have been
very supportive of the work that ICE does. And please say hello
to Tom for me. And, Commissioner, again, congratulations on
your appointment.
But we do disagree on a couple things. I am happy that we
got another, I think, 326, 328 CBP officers, and hopefully, you
put them in the areas that we need them, the high traffic areas
that we need them.
When you are trying to stop drugs, understand that
according to DEA most of the drugs come through ports of entry.
So the moneys that we added for technology will be good for
ports. The new CBP officers will be good. So we can stop the
drugs coming in.
They don't come in through--in between the ports of entry.
I mean, the majority of them will come through the ports of
entry. And we need to make sure we stop them other places.
If we want to stop people from coming in, keep in mind that
over 40 percent of the people that came in came through legal
visas. So even if you put the highest wall or fence, they are
either going to drive through a port, they are going to fly on
the airplane, or they are going to come in by ship.
So, again, we have to look at this comprehensively and not
think that the wall, which is a 14th century solution, is the
solution, the magical bullet, to everything that we are looking
at.
The reason I am against the wall is, one, the cost. It is
expensive. One mile of technology compared to 1 mile of fencing
is a big difference, maybe a million to one. It used to be $6.5
million per mile of fencing. Now it is a lot more, depending on
what prototype you want to follow.
Private property rights. I am amazed how some of our
friends have fought for private property rights, but it comes
to the border, it is a different double standard itself. So I
am a big believer on standard rights, on the private property
rights.
If you look at the terrain, we know--and I think all of you
have been down to the border--it is hard. And sometimes you
have to put a fence or a wall a mile away from the bank because
of the terrain, the International Boundary and Water Commission
standards, so you give away that.
People have talked about the gates. What are you going to
do about cattle and wildlife? Are you going to give them an
automatic gate opener so they can go ahead and open the gate
themselves?
So there are a lot of issues we have to look at. But I
think one of the most important things that we have to look at
is what the Border Patrol chief has said, Bush, different
chiefs under him, Obama, and even under the current one, under
Trump. How much time does the fence actually buy you? The
Border Patrol chief under Trump said, quote, ``A few minutes or
a few seconds,'' unquote.
And, again, I would rather have an awareness where you can
have aerostats, cameras, sensors, enough Border Patrol.
And as you know, Commissioner, we are actually losing more
Border Patrol than we are hiring Border Patrol. We just put out
a $296 million contract. I wish we would have used that to give
our men and women a bonus or retention instead of losing our
men and women that we are losing right now.
So, again, we are all trying to do the right thing. We just
have different perspectives. And, again, I don't want to get
political, but November, we might have a different perspective
after the November elections. We just don't know. So I just
want you all to be flexible.
And when you talk about those 8 miles in Starr County, my
district, or you talk about the levee wall--and the levee wall
is one of the issues that Senator Cornyn and myself and the
county judge, we came up with that compromise under the Bush
administration.
The only thing I would ask you is take local input in
consideration. I know we did the wildlife exemption. There is
still a Bentsen Park that we like to look at. And, I mean, I am
just saying, let's just take the local input, because the last
time Washington came down marching through a wall back under
the Bush Administration they were looking at cutting the UT
Brownsville University in half. My joke was, are you going to
take English and Spanish or English depending on where your
classroom was at?
So we just have to be a little bit considerate of the local
population input as we put some of this security.
Again, I have always said, I support security. I have got a
border sheriff who is my brother down in Webb County. I
appreciate the Hector Garzas and the Cabreras and David
Higgerson, Jason, Mr. Owens down there, Manny Padilla. You have
got a lot of good people. Janice, Eliza. You have a lot of good
people.
All I am saying is you have got to take some of our
communities into consideration as you do this. We just can't
have Washington, big government, come down and say: We know
Starr County better than you do. We know this better than you
do. Just take the local communities in consideration.
I will come back on the second line of rounding so I can
hear your answer.
Mr. Carter. I would have given you more time, Mr. Cuellar,
but you never asked a question.
Mr. Cuellar. Well, Mr. Harris got----
Mr. Carter. But you preached a good sermon while you are at
it.
Mr. Cuellar. Harris has a way of getting people excited.
Mr. Carter. He is a good guy.
Mr. Newhouse.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I will try not
to make that mistake. Thank you for having this hearing, both
you and the ranking member.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here with us this morning. I
have got to say that you are tasked with one of the most
difficult and most important jobs that we have in this country,
keeping our homeland safe. And I just appreciate very much all
of the efforts that you and the people that you represent that
stand behind you make on our behalf. So thank you from the
American people.
Director Albence, I represent the State of Washington, part
of the State of Washington, in the central part of the state,
which is a rich agricultural region. Agriculture is the biggest
economic driver in my district. We pride ourselves on the
number of different crops we raise and the variety of different
things that we raise.
ICE: WORKFORCE COMPLIANCE TARGETING
Just in the last couple weeks, I held a farm bill listening
tour, tried to touch base with as many of my producers as I
could in every single county. And the conversation quickly went
to probably one of the issues that are at the top of their
mind, it has to do with our labor force and the severe crisis
that it is in.
One of the solutions that has been is to utilize the H-2A
program, the agricultural guest worker program. And just the
last couple years H-2A workers, not just in my State, but
throughout the country, are record numbers. I think that the
numbers have nearly quadrupled. I think we are bringing in
something this year over 30,000 just in the State of Washington
alone. But it is still, interesting, not enough to meet the
needs of the agricultural economy.
So let me just relate to you some of the things that my
producers are telling me. Because of the broadening enforcement
efforts by ICE, ``targeting'' is the word used many times, even
legal workers and legal farmers, people are in a place where
they think they are being targeted.
And I have continued to work with my colleagues in the
House of Representatives and the Senate to try to find
solutions to our immigration issues. That is on us. And we
fully accept that responsibility and we continue to work with
the administration and others to fix that.
But, like I said, growers in my district, as well as around
the country, have said that even with a legal work force they
are feeling that they are being unfairly targeted and become
ground zero for ICE raids because of their workforce, which
makes it tougher to grow the food and fiber that we need.
So with that premise, the continued targeting of
agriculture, it is not going to fix a system that is broken,
which has truly become a bureaucratic nightmare. It is not
going to address the needs in farm country. If you added
enforcement actions to existing delays in the H-2A program,
which is outdated and bureaucratic, along with food and labor
shortages already, just more problems are added on to an
already dire situation.
Many in AG see that ICE is looking for a pretext by
targeting agriculture. And true or not, I wanted to express
that to you. We can't see another year of crops going unpicked.
It is costing agriculture millions and millions of dollars
around the country.
Now, I fully appreciate the work that you do, and I
listened intently to the comments that you made as far as your
mission, in fact, and I read with great interest the mission
statement that is in your biography, too: ``Identify arrest,
remove aliens who present a danger to national security or a
risk to public safety.'' And I applaud that. And we want to
give you every single resource that we can to make sure that
you can fulfill your duty and your mission. But we have scarce
resources.
Could you explain to us what your priority is? And help me
understand the dynamic here, the feeling in AG country versus
your stated mission of finding those that are a threat to
national security and a risk to public safety. Could you talk
to me about that, and maybe your view, is the administration's
enforcement policies, are we fighting against ourselves when we
don't have a comprehensive immigration reform system?
Mr. Albence. I will briefly answer your question, then I am
going to pass it over to Mr. Benner here, because he controls
worksite enforcement. And I think that is kind of where you
were going with that.
I will tell you from the ERO perspective, we do do targeted
enforcement operations. We don't do raids. When we go out to
make an arrest, we know who we are going to arrest, we know
where we expect them to be, and we also, when we have the
available intelligence, also know who else might be there with
them.
So we exercise all due diligence to ensure that if we are
going after an aggravated felon, somebody who has a weapons
violations or an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or is
a pedophile, that we make sure that the other individuals that
might be present in that residence are not also posing a risk
for the safety of our officers as well as the community.
So we don't engage in raids. We do targeted enforcement
operations, as I mentioned the statistics in my opening. And we
can certainly provide you more.
Mr. Newhouse. Yes, 74 percent have criminal records.
Mr. Albence. No, 89 percent have criminal records; 74
percent are actually convicted.
Mr. Newhouse. Oh, very good.
Mr. Albence. And then, absent those that are criminals, the
other largest bucket of the individuals that we arrest are
individuals that are fugitives, meaning they have been through
the immigration court process, have had their day in court,
have availed themselves of any appellate process they may
choose to do so, but at the end of that process, they have been
ordered removed by an immigration judge. We are going have to
execute that removal order.
And then those who have actually been removed and then
illegally reenter the country, which, again, is a Federal
felony, one that we prosecute significantly. And Commissioner
McAleenan's people prosecute that case heavily along the border
as well.
So I will leave at that, and I will pass it over to Mr.
Benner to talk about worksite.
Mr. Newhouse. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Benner. Thank you, sir, for the question.
I want to be kind of clear in terms of the fiscal year 2018
priorities and the worksite efforts that we have had this year.
And we have said clearly that no industry is off the table by
itself.
And as a matter of fact, the surge operations that we have
done in 2018 have not included the agriculture industry at all.
We have actually been looking at, in Operation Backtrack, we
have been looking at previous audits where we had some
significant findings at that time. So we are looking to make
sure that there is not a kind of a culture of illicit
employment occurring again.
ICE: COMPLIANCE CENTER
We have looked at, in particular, some of the building and
trade industry at the smaller level in communities.
One of our goals in talking about this compliance center,
this centralized center, is to bring a sense of orderliness and
efficiency to the audit process and centralize it for the whole
country, so that we are actually able to create more of a
culture of compliance through audits and fines as opposed to
enforcement action.
And what we want to do is have a regularized, reasonable
expectation, similar to the IRS, that people, business owners
could feel that we are going to look at their I-9 eligibility
documents and we are going to audit them.
And then from that, at the national level, we will be able
to distill the actual most egregious violators on the national
level and not on a town-by-town or county-by-county or
industry-by-industry. We can actually look at the national
level, like who are the worst. Because one of the top
priorities for us when it comes to criminal investigations is
the exploitation of unauthorized workers.
Mr. Newhouse. So you are talking about worst employers
versus employees, right?
Mr. Benner. The worst employers, that have built a business
model on unauthorized workers.
And, typically, I will tell you my experience, is in many
criminal investigations with these types of employers, the
unauthorized workers are exploited in terrible ways. Wage
earnings. Safety. Improper training. Improper equipment. They
are treated completely differently than the authorized workers
in all of those areas. And many of them will not come forward
to report unsafe working conditions or injuries because there
would be the fear of being let go and terminated.
So that is one of the top priorities for HSI, the
exploitation.
I also want to remind, we have to remind ourselves, I
think, too, is when we talk about worksite, is the collateral
crimes that occur around an illicit employment scheme. Tax
fraud. Identity theft. Bank fraud. The exploitation crimes that
I just mentioned. The OSHA violations in terms of unsafe
working conditions for employees. And the illicit payment
methods that the most egregious employers use to pay the
unauthorized workforce in cash.
So our goal is to, having 10 years of experience kind of in
the worksite realm, our goal is to take that work out of the
field offices, create a centralized process that uses smart
automation and uses auditors to execute that audit function on
a national level and a risk-based model.
Mr. Newhouse. All right. Thank you very much.
I have gone way over my time. I apologize for that, Mr.
Chairman.
But thank you for your answers.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And let me add my welcome to all of you. Thank you for
appearing before the subcommittee.
I want to pick up on Mr. Newhouse's line of questioning,
actually, and maybe put it in a broader context.
I have been on this subcommittee a long time. I have worked
with Mr. McAleenan and other career employees for many years,
been chairman, been ranking member. And so I am very familiar
with this debate about enforcement priorities.
ICE: REMOVAL ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIZATION
So I am going to turn to you, Mr. Albence, and ask you to
hopefully help me understand what is going on. I have supported
efforts like the Priority Enforcement Program in the last
administration, the idea being to prioritize the enforcement
efforts on dangerous people. It is very straightforward and
very simple. The best way to utilize limited law enforcement
resources is to prioritize those who truly provide a threat to
public safety and national security.
Now, this isn't providing anybody a free pass, but it does
assume that discretion must be exercised, will be exercised by
enforcement authorities.
Now, President Trump has claimed that he focuses on
dangerous criminals. In fact, sometimes he seems to regard most
immigrants as dangerous criminals. But he has made that claim.
But it seems to me his enforcement efforts have been unfocused
and sometimes arbitrary. And I will just give you a quick
example.
Inexplicable decisions regarding constituents that have
little to do with any understandable exercise of discretion. I
just have to say, in January, for example, during a regularly
scheduled check-in with ICE officials in Atlanta, one of my
constituents was arrested. He had been in the U.S. for 14
years, had built a life in North Carolina, a prominent member
of a local church, living with HIV, chronic kidney failure and
diabetes. His only crime was overstaying his visa because he
had a credible fear of political retaliation in returning to
his home country.
He checked in regularly with ICE for over 8 years under his
order of supervision, was still fighting to receive asylum, but
when he went to his appointment in January, he was arrested,
and now he has been shipped out. He was an upstanding member of
the community. Now he has been deported.
The specific combination of medicine that he needs to fight
his HIV, his diabetes, his chronic kidney disease, is not
available, I promise you, in his country of birth.
I contacted the Department and talked to someone,
supposedly, in a position to do something about this. I fear
ICE gave him a death sentence. And that was very clear at the
time, I assure you. It is not something I am saying in
retrospect.
This is just one example. I can promise you that nearly all
of my 534 colleagues could give you similar stories.
ICE: ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION
Now, let's talk about discretion. Even at an accelerated
rate, deportations are only a fraction of millions of
immigrants here illegally. There will always be that situation.
Therefore, there is always going to be discretion required
in terms of immigration priorities. The President has said
there will be priorities. Yet, sometimes Director Homan talks
as though there is no alternative, no discretion. He once said
he is simply following the law.
We have all been around long enough to know that that is
simply not the situation. There must be discretion. You are
always going to be shipping out only a fraction of those who
are here illegally.
So the question is, what kind of discretion are we using?
On what principle, on what basis are we doing this? I want to
know that. I think we are entitled to know it. Isn't it true
that discretion is inevitable? And what can you tell us about
your current granting criteria in the administrative exercise
of discretion? What is your order of removal strategy?
Mr. Albence. Thank you for your question. And I appreciate
the opportunity to get some facts out there about how we
actually do our business, because I think there is a lot of
misconception, especially in the press. There is a lot of
sensationalization about what we do and how we do it.
Mr. Price. Let me just assure you, I am not relying on
press accounts. I am relying on firsthand experience. I am
relying on an attempt to work with your agency in getting facts
brought to attention that I thought warranted attention. So
press accounts, whatever they may be, that is not what we are
talking about here.
Mr. Albence. With regard to how we conduct our operations,
as I have mentioned, we do targeted enforcement operations.
That does not mean that those individuals that are here
unlawfully in the country that are either encountered during
the course of those operations or at some point in the past
were encountered at the border and placed into removal
proceedings are not going to have the law enforced equitably
against them. In order to establish fidelity to the immigration
system, there has to be a consequence at the end.
When an individual goes through the immigration court
process, and if the individual claims credible fear, that is
just the first step. They go in front of an immigration judge
to make a determination as to whether or not an asylum is going
to be granted.
If the judge grants that asylum, that individual goes and
gets their benefit and is never bothered by ICE again unless
they commit some sort of criminal activity because they are
here lawfully.
We respect the decision of the judge in those cases. If
that individual is denied asylum and ordered removed by an
immigration judge, we also respect that decision. We have to be
equitable in the way we do our business.
So if we are going to respect the decision when an
immigration judge finds in favor of the alien, we also have to
respect the decision when the immigration finds in favor of the
government when we prosecute that case. And if we don't execute
that order at the end of that process, then we don't have a
process.
Mr. Price. All right. There are 11 million people who are
vulnerable in the respect you are describing. Are you or are
you not exercising discretion in choosing whom to detain, whom
to deport in that large universe of people? Are you in fact
prioritizing dangerous people? You claim to be doing that, but
then turn around and also claim that you have no discretion.
Mr. Albence. We are certainly prioritizing individuals that
are national security and public safety threats, repeat
immigration violators and immigration fugitives. But we are not
doing so at the sole exclusion of other immigration violators.
We are not going to turn a blind eye to somebody that we end up
in contact with that has violated the immigration laws.
Again, most of these individuals in these cases that have
been here for a long time were arrested entering the country
illegally in the first place. That is how they ended up in the
immigration continuum.
So we are just merely following through on the processes
that have been established. And when the process is that an
individual receives a removal order and we are required to
execute it, we will do so.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, gentleman.
COMBATING OPIOIDS
I have a two-part question. Yesterday, I asked Secretary
Nielsen about the challenges fentanyl and other synthetic
opioids are presenting to this country.
First off, I would like to ask you, Commissioner McAleenan,
how you are planning to utilize the $224 million for opioid and
Non-Intrusive Inspection equipment. Specifically, what
investments and technology are you wanting to prioritize?
For Director Benner, I know Homeland Security
Investigations has played an integral role in current
interagency efforts for disrupting and dismantling TCOs. Our
intelligence and situational awareness for cocaine is
impressive. Are our efforts as mature when it comes to the
organizations involved in opioid smuggling? And where do
further investments need to be made?
And, gentleman, I will ask for the most concise answers
because I have two other questions.
Mr. McAleenan. We have a robust, multifaceted effort
against fentanyl, but I will focus on your question given the
time.
We really appreciate the boost in funding for Non-Intrusive
Inspection technology. Fentanyl is coming through ports of
entry on our land border, as well as through international mail
and express consignment facilities. So we will be applying this
funding on two types of technology.
One, increasing our ability to detect it, especially in
vehicles or in small packages. We want to increase the amount
of vehicles that we are sending through inspection and increase
the fidelity with which we can detect concealed narcotics in
those vehicles, as well as small packages.
The second side is the testing. The good doctor alluded to
the high potency and risk of fentanyl. We want to be able to
test it carefully to protect our officers, but also, as soon as
we find out what it is, prioritizing those for controlled
delivery with our investigative partners at HSI, U.S. Postal
Inspection Service, and State and local, so that we can arrest
the people on the U.S. side receiving those dangerous drugs and
take effective criminal arrest and prosecution action.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir.
Director Benner.
Mr. Benner. Thank you for the question, sir.
So we are grateful for the resources, the special agent
resources that we got in fiscal year 2018 as an addition. And I
can tell you that those resources are going directly towards
the fight in fentanyl.
For example, in certain parts of the country where we have
the Border Enforcement Security Task Force, in partnership with
the Commissioner's team, Ohio Border Enforcement Security Task
Force and the one in Memphis at the mail hub, we are in
lockstep with CBP in terms of the interdiction piece and then
taking that next step, the investigation piece, to identify the
illicit supply chain, and actually the other bad actors that
are out there.
Some of the investigative techniques we use lead us to
additional criminal activity, and in certain cases, I am
thinking of a case in Pennsylvania, one of the largest pill
mill manufacturing operations in the State's history of
synthetic drugs, of which the very high purity levels of
fentanyl coming from China is an ingredient. And I can assure
you, these aren't chemists that are making these pills there.
The scariest part about this is, so we fight it on the
border front, but we also fight it on the dark web and the
illicit marketplaces.
And the scariest part about this issue is, you don't need
to know a drug dealer anymore. You can sit in your home, at a
computer, download the onion router, get on the illicit
marketplace, order these substances, pay for it using
cryptocurrency or other forms of money service businesses and
transfers, have it shipped to a PO box or an address, and wait
for it to show up.
The days of knowing a drug dealer on the street and
conducting hand-to-hand deals, unfortunately, that is not
prevalent in fentanyl. So we have to be laser focused on the
cyber aspect as much as we do the border aspect.
And I can tell you that, based on our resource
prioritization model, for fiscal year 2019 we plan on
dedicating, if the committee sees fit, a substantial number of
those 300 special agents to the fentanyl fight and the MS-13
fight.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
Well, it looks like, Mr. Chairman, my time is about up. I
had a couple other questions, but I will pass. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Are we having a second round, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Carter. I hope to.
Mr. Ruppersberger. OK.
BORDER SECURITY: NATIONAL GUARD
Well, first thing, I want to make a statement first. This
is not going to be a question. And I think it is relevant
because it is an issue now, that the President has ordered a
certain amount of National Guards to go to the border.
I have been working on national security now in Congress
for the last 15 years, and in my opinion, it is a waste of
money for the National Guard to go to the border. And they are
going to be just backup. That is not really where the issues
are. Of course, we need enforcement, we need Border Patrol.
And I believe very strongly that securing our borders
should be a top priority. As a matter of national security, we
should know who is coming in our country and who is not. But
just as important as who, we need to know what is coming into
our country.
COMBATING OPIOIDS
As you know, Customs and Border Protection plays the lead
role in stopping the importation of contraband, such as
prescription painkillers, opiate analogs. These drugs are
pervasive in all of our districts.
I want to share with everyone on the committee and to you
all, and you know these numbers, I am sure, how much worse the
problem is getting.
In 2013, Customs and Border Patrol seized 2.4 pounds of
fentanyl. That is--4 pounds, whatever. In contrast, just last
year, CBP diverted over 71,000 pounds throughout the country
from the black market. And for this reason, our priorities in
this budget should be stemming the flow of illegal narcotics,
especially fentanyl.
Dr. Harris stated how serious it is. As we know, it can
touch your skin and affect you. Very serious. And especially,
as it relates to our agents. It is 10 times more potent than
heroin. So it is something we have to deal with.
My question, and I will get to more specifics the second
round, if we have it, Mr. McAleenan--and by the way, you have
had a great future so far, and I am glad you are in your
position. And you all have tough jobs.
When you make the comment about you have to follow the
order of the judge, that is very important and relevant, but we
have a lot of issues here with 11 million people. And what
Congressman Price was saying was very important.
But you have certain jobs and we understand that. But we
also ask for discretion and training to deal with the issue.
First, my question is simple in this one, and then I will
get to the facts later. What steps is DHS taking to stop the
importation of highly potent, highly concentrated fentanyl?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Congressman, for an opportunity
to elaborate on our strategy.
At CBP, I commissioned a counter-opioid strategy early last
year to really make our efforts more comprehensive and
integrated across the agency. And so we are pursuing this along
multiple lines. The first, I mentioned the two vectors for
fentanyl, the land border ports of entry and the international
mail and express consignment facilities.
COMBATING OPIOIDS: MAIL
On the mail side, that growth has been explosive with e-
commerce, five-fold increase in the last 6 years in
international mail facilities. That means at JFK, we can get a
million parcels a day coming in through that mail facility.
So the first thing we need to start with, as we do all of
our enforcement and risk management at CBP, is good data, good
information on what is in those shipments. So we have been
partnering with the U.S. Postal Service to increase the amount
of information on mail parcels coming into the U.S. And I am
talking from under 10 percent a year-and-a-half ago to 65-plus
percent now, thanks to U.S. Postal Service engagement with
China, in particular, which is the primary source of fentanyl.
And we are putting that to good use. We have already
tripled our fentanyl seizures in the mail environment in this
fiscal year from last year and that is based primarily on these
targeted efforts with good data coming in.
I mentioned in the response to the last question, the
technology, being able to inspect it and test it better, and
then partner with our investigative partners to actually do
that controlled delivery to understand who is receiving it and
then target the network and see what else they are trying to
order from abroad.
So we are trying to hit it from all of those angles--the
information up front, the analysis of what is coming in, good
technology to inspect an increased number of vehicles and
shipments, and then good partnership with investigators.
BORDER SECURITY: NATIONAL GUARD
Mr. Ruppersberger. We know the President has made it a
campaign promise of securing the wall. But we also, and I think
Congress understood it, he didn't get the money he needed, that
it is more important to have technology working with the wall
and the manpower to deal with it.
Now, I only have like 20 seconds, so I am not going to get
too far into this. But I started out by talking about having
the National Guard, for whatever reason, and all the support,
that they are just going to be support.
Would it be better to have more DEA agents, since really
drugs and fentanyl now and the problem of opioids is where we
are, than it would be to have more National Guard? Or would you
rather not comment on that?
Mr. McAleenan. I think both investigative partners and
extending our capability with increased surveillance by the
National Guard is important. HSI is our primary partner for
drug investigations on seizures at the border. DEA is a
tremendous partner for us as well.
But what the National Guard is going to do is bring in
significant aviation assets that can close our gap for that
surveillance piece at the immediate border. It is supportive,
but it also tells us what is crossing so that we can interdict
it more effectively.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I just came from another hearing where
we had the head of the National Guard and asked what the duties
were going to be. It seemed to me that they are more
administrative or support than anything.
Is my time up or do I have 30 seconds?
Mr. Carter. You are over.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I am over. All right. I yield back. I
will get into more detail on the second round.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here today.
Border security is absolutely national security. Thank you
for protecting America, trying to keep our communities safe,
trying to stop the flow of the drugs, the human trafficking,
the gun trafficking, the foreign nationals from coming into our
country.
And so thank you. Thank you for doing your duty. The
majority of the American people appreciate you following the
rule of law and trying to protect our communities, States, and
our Nation.
I had another question, I hope I get to it. I am a member
of the Mississippi National Guard. I am chairman of the
National Guard Caucus. And I think the National Guard, as you
mentioned, is going to be a huge multiplying force for your
agency and for securing the border. Our national defense, our
Active-Duty military could not do anything without our Guard
and Reserves. I mean, they can, but to sustain operations.
And so they are great for plug and play. So be creative on
how you use them. Don't just have them guarding fences, doing
fire watch, and things of that nature.
I participated in joint task force missions on the border
in the 1990s, doing just surveillance, communications, using
our eyes and our ears and our brains and reporting back, and so
feeding you the data to hopefully make intel out of it.
CBP: WORKFORCE STAFFING
So with that, I would like to jump into some quick
questions. CBP has two key missions: securing the border and
facilitating cross-border commerce that powers the Nation's
economic growth. And U.S. CBP officers are the most important
border security and trade facilitation resources we have.
However, to accomplish their mission, CBP needs enough
agents and officers to be able to screen cargo, interdict
illegal drugs and contraband, and make arrests, while moving
legitimate commerce and passengers through our air, land, rail,
and sea ports of entry.
We have sat through many of these hearings together, and we
know for a variety of reasons that the CBP officers are in
short supply these days, which has created a national security
and economic vulnerability that this Congress must address. CBP
is critically understaffed and remains well below its
congressionally mandated staffing levels by about a thousand
CBP officers and nearly 2,000 Border Patrol agents.
So I am curious if you have given any thought to
potentially leveraging the private sector to alleviate some of
the manpower shortages by allowing qualified private sector
security screening experts to carry out day-to-day scanning and
screening functions and image analysis, which would free up
your officers to concentrate on their law enforcement and
oversight missions. And I will leave that open to whoever wants
to answer.
Mr. McAleenan. I will specifically answer that question.
And, obviously, happy to talk about many aspects of our hiring
effort to get the right workforce out there.
We have made progress. Last year, we hired almost 200
additional CBP officers, and we expect to increase our
performance this year through a number of efforts.
NON-INTRUSIVE INSPECTION TECHNOLOGY
But in terms of your specific question, how are we
leveraging private sector assets for functions like effectively
reviewing scans from Non-Intrusive Inspection technology, we
are actually leveraging the private sector heavily in this
area, both to provide an ability to do an automated analysis of
the vast majority of scans, that capability is increasing due
to artificial intelligence techniques, but we have also been
able to partner with industry.
And we are currently rolling out an integrated viewer that
can combine images from a variety of different technologies,
produced by different manufacturers, and present a consistent
picture for our officers and analysts. You are right. It
doesn't have to be an officer or an agent to review that
technology. It could be an expert hired for that specific
purpose or contracted out, in some cases, to do a good analysis
of that image.
That is absolutely something we are pursuing. And we are
going to have, if we have the appropriate specialties in our
National Guard partners, we have requested support in some of
those areas to help extend our capabilities as well.
Mr. Palazzo. I mentioned to the Secretary of Homeland
Security yesterday that DHS actually has a research, an
experimental UAV facility at Camp Shelby, which is our Nation's
largest National Guard training site in America.
And so, this is one fight. Multiple agencies are going to
be participating. You all are obviously the lead agency, but we
have got the Coast Guard in South and Central America trying to
interdict drugs and bad actors before they make it into Mexico,
into the drug and whatever, the highway. Because if it is still
correct, I mean, if it makes into Mexico, it is going to make
into America. I mean, the resources that they have are huge.
And I am just glad this President and this Congress and the
American people are supporting us in investing in your agency,
investing in your resources, which are your people and the
equipment that you need to do your job and to be successful.
The American people are with you.
Good luck. And just let us know how we can continue to help
you do your job.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
COMBATING OPIOIDS: DARK WEB
And thank the three of you. I appreciate you being here. I
appreciate what you are doing for the Nation. And please give
our best to the men and women who work under you that are out
there every single day for us. So thank you.
I want to focus in on the dark web really quickly, you
know, with Tor servers and things like that, of that nature, of
course. How are you in terms of resources and personnel and
technology and training to be able to combat illicit sales on
the dark web? Are you hiring graduates through the HERO program
to supplement the cyber workforce? And are you piggybacking and
partnering with other agencies that may have better expertise
in that regard?
Mr. Benner. Absolutely. We are very proud of the HERO
program. We have offered positions to over 100 of the graduates
of the HERO program. We have two classes that we will be
executing on in 2018, and we thank the committee for the 10
positions, additional positions that we receive to place the
HEROs into full-time positions.
Here is the challenge. These are some of our best and most
passionate mission executors that we have in HSI. And it is my
belief that working in the child exploitation field is not
something that we should expect them to do for a long period of
time. We need to develop a career path for them to serve in
that cyber world in another function.
So what we would propose, and what we would like to work
with the committee on, is positions such as a cyber
investigator or a cyber intelligence analyst to continue to use
the training that they have, which is up here, I mean they are
certified forensic agents at that point, and to give them the
career path to continue to serve in areas of high priority,
which there is really no other higher priority than fentanyl in
terms of the dark web. So that cyber investigator position, I
think, would be a great career path for the HERO program.
In addition, because of the direct hiring authority that
ICE has and that HSI has, we would look to expand our cyber
portfolio in terms of the cyber investigator position that is a
non-law enforcement, non-6C position, but a full-time dedicated
support kind of investigator that could add capacity and value
to the ongoing investigations in the field.
The second part, sir, which I am glad you mentioned, was
the face of mission support to special agents and criminal
investigators has changed. Obviously, we have gone well beyond
the kind of clerk typist, data entry, technical enforcement
officer to some degree. Now our agents actually need computer
scientists and data scientists to work side-by-side with them
when they are doing these dark web, cryptocurrency
investigations, because of the sheer amount of data.
So that would be another area where we would like to come
back and talk to you about what that looks like for our cyber
program.
Mr. Taylor. Two things. And I am time constrained. But on
that note, are there partnerships with other agencies that may
have an expertise already that you can piggyback on?
Mr. Benner. So we are continually--we had a great meeting
yesterday with NPPD. Obviously, part of DHS, very engaged in
the cybersecurity and the cyber intrusion work. They have a lot
to offer our cyber program as well.
So we are continually working with assets within the
Department. You talk about working together. We have launched a
training program to take the dark web and cryptocurrency cyber
training on the road to our State and local partners.
So we have trained over 1,200 State and local officers
since the President announced the executive order on the opioid
crisis back in October, I believe. That is going to continue
throughout the year. We are going to move across the country
and keep working with our partners.
The goal there is to build capacity and share expertise in
cyber investigations and dark net investigations.
Mr. Taylor. One other quick thing, I think, on a note on
that. Thank you. And I would love to work with you guys, if at
all possible, if there are necessary authorities or the need to
be able to help deal with any silos that might be there in our
whole apparatus.
COMBATING OPIOIDS: CHINA PARTNERSHIP
Last thing. You guys do a great job in places like Latin
America and going past the border, of course, where the start
of some of this stuff is coming, as opposed to just trying to
get it when it is here, which you do that as well.
On the fentanyl and on the opioid--and, of course, like you
said, the partnership that you have with the U.S. Postal
Service, and what is it, three times the increase of seizures,
if you will--are you talking and having partnerships or is it
happening at all in China with their authorities as well to be
able to deal with the fentanyl where it is coming from, in
China, like we do in Latin America?
Mr. McAleenan. I can comment. And if Derek, to the attache
there, wants to add a point.
I have talked to Ambassador Branstad about this issue. He
is obviously on board with the President's focus on countering
fentanyl. It is one of his top three priorities in engaging the
Chinese Government.
We have seen at our level the customs-to-customs
collaboration increase given the growth of e-commerce. We are
sharing information, where appropriate, on illicit fentanyl
distributors so that we can address that with the Chinese
Government.
Mr. Taylor. So they have been cooperative?
Mr. McAleenan. Increasingly. That data increase, that 65
percent, that is coming from China post and increased
electronic information sharing.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. OK. We are going to start a second round. We
are going to be on a pretty tight rein on this, although I am
going to give everybody a chance to go one more time.
ICE: TARGETED ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS
I have just a personal comment. I was sitting here thinking
about the comments about when you run across somebody in a raid
that has violated the law or failed to appear for a hearing.
Every criminal day I ever held over a 20-year period of time, I
forfeited bonds and issued alias capias warrants, pick up
people who had failed to appear. And if I had ever had heard
that one of my officers that answered to our court had failed
to, when he stumbled across one of those people, to arrest
them, I would have been extremely unhappy with them.
You can't expect people to make a choice as to which laws
they are going to obey and not obey. And I think it is not even
an argument that the highest no-show rate of any courts in
America today are at our immigration courts. It clearly wins
the world championship for no-shows. So I think it is
appropriate when you run across those people who have been a
no-show for officers to do their duty.
ICE: DETENTION BEDS
I want to talk about ICE detention beds. We have been
trying to keep up with ICE detention beds. I totally support
ICE on detention beds. I think it is a deterrent. I think it
serves a lot of purposes besides deterrence.
But we look at it, right now this would be an increase,
what you propose is an 11,480-bed increase of adult detention
beds. And I support your mission. And I had a number higher
than we came up with in the 2018 election, but through
negotiations that changed.
Now, you have developed, I think, a pretty good model. You
have told us about it. Does your model indicate 52,000 beds is
still a correct number? Because we had that number last time as
a suggested number. Why are you confident that the associated
costs are accurate for the fiscal year 2019 budget? That is
important. And we need to know how much this is going to cost
us.
Please explain the assumptions used to develop the
apprehension numbers and whether they are still valid today.
And please explain the policy changes you have or will put in
place and the assumptions used to develop this number and are
they still valid today.
Mr. Albence. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to explain our forecasting model.
We have worked very hard over the past couple of years with
this committee, and especially your staffers, to help develop a
very consistent, logical, transparent model to help project
detention space requirements.
That is something that your committee made loud and clear
to us over the past several years that we need to do a better
job of, and our new model, I think, does that. It was used
extensively during the fiscal year 2018 budget negotiation
process, where there was a lot of requests from us for
additional data.
This model is--obviously not getting into the science of
it, because that is over my head--but it considers all sorts of
variables, to include averages, trends, seasonality effects,
looking at historical data, as well as what is happening today.
So a lot of these models--and, obviously, we built this
several years ago, which is why your question is so pertinent--
is that the models and what we forecast back then still holds
true today, the impact of both ICE arrests, CBP arrests, the
requirements that we have in order to detain these individuals
before the hearing so we don't have another 50,000 fugitives
added to our 540,000 backlog.
But the best part about the model is it allows us to factor
in operational changes, things like migratory patterns and
surges, jurisdictional cooperation, increased enforcement. So,
for example, when we forecast this model 2 years ago, we had 3
287(g) partnerships. Right now we have 76. We will have 79 by
the end of this year.
And not all those are even operational yet. Right now, only
40 of those are operational because they have been recently
approved for partnership. They have to get trained, they have
to do the background investigation on the officers.
But that is going to lead to a significant increase in
arrests coming out of the Criminal Alien Program because those
individuals are going to be able to screen 100 percent of the
people that get arrested in those jurisdictions.
Not only that, it is a force-multplier benefit because our
own officers, our deportation officers that are right now
working those jails, are going to be able to redeploy to either
other facilities, to do additional at-large apprehensions, to
work on things like the docket, to move that docket along
faster, and also to take people off the nondetained docket and
put them back into custody so we can effectuate removal.
Mr. Albence. So, yes, we expect that this number is going
to put us right where we need to be for fiscal year 2019.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Let me begin by saying that I agree with
you and my colleague, Dr. Harris, that we should take into
account the concerns of sworn law enforcement officials and
respect the dangerous situations that they face every day.
However, based on the rhetoric of this administration, it
seems not to appreciate the concerns that many State and local
government and law enforcement officials have regarding their
more direct association with Federal immigration enforcement
efforts and how it undermines their safety and that of the
public, which becomes increasingly more fearful of reporting
crimes and cooperating with criminal investigations.
SANCTUARY STATES: CALIFORNIA
As you know, California has declared itself as a sanctuary
State. And I would like to read the directive from the
California Department of Justice and ask you to highlight where
you see there are weaknesses that cause you then to go into the
interior, as I understand it from Director Homan, to go after
criminals as a result of the State being a sanctuary State.
The guidance states that: California law enforcement
agencies can notify ICE and transfer custody of an individual
to ICE if the individual has been convicted at any time of a
serious or violent felony or a felony punishable by
imprisonment in State prison, has been convicted within the
past 15 years of certain other types of felonies, or within the
last 5 years of crimes punishable as either a felony or a
misdemeanor, is a current registrant on the California sex and
arson registry, has been convicted of certain Federal
aggravated felonies under the Immigration and Nationality Act,
or has been identified by ICE as the subject of an outstanding
Federal felony arrest warrant for any Federal crime.
The guidance also makes clear that California law
enforcement officers must be allowed to communicate with
Federal immigration authorities about the citizenship or
immigration status of individuals in their custody, as required
by Federal law. So, that is the directive.
So my question to you is: Where are the weaknesses in this
that cause you or ICE Director Homan to say that, because of
this directive, California is endangering the lives of ICE
officials and the community because you are then forced to go
into the communities, when it clearly states here that felons--
well, I don't want to go through the list again--that law
enforcement should be notifying ICE under these conditions?
Mr. Albence. Thank you. First, I think it speaks volumes
that the California Sheriffs' Association came out strongly
against the policies and laws that were enacted in the State
because they felt that it undermined public safety.
While there are some categories, as you listed, where we
can get some cooperation, there are a vast number of categories
where we don't get that cooperation.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Can you highlight them? Give me a few,
because I am running out of time.
Mr. Albence. I can say when we do our work--again, as I
mentioned, I don't want to beat a dead horse with regard to
targeted enforcement--but we don't do random arrests or stops
of individuals on the street. We are going after a particular
individual. In order for us to do that and to obtain an arrest
warrant for somebody, we have to determine two things: alienage
and removability.
Part of that determination in many, many cases is going to
require a personal interview. As was very public in the press
and the sheriff was very vocal about it, we got turned away
down 10 days in a row going to the Santa Clara County Jail to
talk to people that are incarcerated that we need to make a
determination as to whether or not, one, they are an alien or,
two, if they are removable. So if we can't even get into there
to make that----
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Let me stop you there to say that on
both sides we can cite circumstances where laws or policies
haven't been followed. What I am asking is, what are the
weaknesses in the directive? What should be added in order to
address your concerns in a way that also addresses the concerns
of many of our locals like the Los Angeles Police Department
and others who have concerns about a more expanded association
with ICE? I am trying to find this out so that I can then talk
to them and see if maybe we can find some consensus.
Mr. Albence. Right. And we are not asking any law
enforcement agency to enforce immigration law. We are asking
for the same access to information that any other law
enforcement agency should have access to. For example, we used
to have access to the California gangs network. We no longer do
as a result of this law. That is a huge public safety risk. We
arrested over 5,000 gang members and associates, just in a year
alone, not to mention close to 5,000 that HSI arrested last
year. If we don't have access to information as to who is a
gang member and where they might reside or who they might be
with, that is certainly a safety risk for our officers,
clearly, who used to be able to run background checks on an
individual before they go knock on a door and know that he is a
gang member. And now they are going there flying blind. That is
clearly an officer safety risk.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Primarily right now you are talking
about the gang network.
Mr. Albence. I mean, there are so many loopholes had in
that law with regard to what we can access and the type of
cooperation that we receive. I would say that the chilling
effect has been on the line officers within the law enforcement
agencies in California that would love to help us get these
public safety threats out of their community, but are afraid to
do so for fear of reprisal from their management and their
agencies. That is the chilling effect.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Well there is definitely a differing of
opinion between different law enforcement agencies in
California.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
LICENSE PLATE READERS: MODERNIZATION
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CBP uses
high-accuracy license plate readers, LPRs, at 650 privately
owned vehicle lanes at land ports. It is my understanding that
the current models are aging and soon will require replacement.
This committee has instructed CBP to pursue LPR modernization,
including in the fiscal 2018 omnibus.
What is CBP's plan to finally modernize LPRs at the ports
of entry?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you for the question and the
committee's support for additional funding to modernize our
LPRs. It is a critical tool not only to identify potential
security threats that we need to target for greater inspection
at a port of entry, but also potential risk to our officers. So
we appreciate that support.
We received a significant boost in the fiscal year 2018
enacted that is going to allow us to buy new, modernized
equipment and also extend the number of lanes we cover both at
ports of entry and border checkpoints. We have asked for
continued investment in the fiscal year 2019 budget to continue
that process.
MOBILE SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITY
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. One final question. I have
been hearing increasing praise for the mobile surveillance
capability. Most recently, it was brought to my attention that
the MSC was deployed to an incredible extent in Puerto Rico,
where it was repurposed for coastline surveillance.
Have you considered further use of MSCs for U.S. coastline
or employing them against the relocateable surveillance system
maritime requirement?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, Congressman. You referenced a specific
successful pilot we had in Puerto Rico with the MSC identifying
potential small boats out to 13 kilometers and beyond. It
worked very well for us. We do think it is an important tool as
part of our surveillance capability overall. We can use it in
other coastal environments in south Texas and California as
well.
We do have investment requests in the fiscal year 2019
budget for continued MSC truck capability.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. And I want to thank each and
every one of you all for your outstanding service to your
country. You have a difficult job, difficult mission, and you
have got the support of Congress. Thank you sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
BORDER SECURITY: CRIME
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I am at a
perspective, but I will ask some specific questions.
As you do your work, I just ask you to put everything in
perspective in the sense that if we look at the border, it is
not the way people perceive it to be. I know we have got
issues, and we are working, and we want to be supportive. But
if you look at the FBI stats on comparing violent crime rates
on the Texas border to other cities, the national crime rate is
386.3 per 100,000. That is the national rate. If you look at
McAllen, it is 151 per 100,000, which is below the border rate.
The national rate, Del Rio, is below that. Laredo is below
that.
And just to pick a couple of cities, let's say Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, where one of our leaders is from, the violent crime
rate there is 1,533, way over the national average; or, if you
look at Bakersfield, California, it is 480, way over the
national rate; or--and I don't see my colleague from Maryland,
but if you look at the Maryland figures also, let's say
Baltimore, it is 6,619 violent crimes per 100,000, compared to
my city of Laredo, 362 per 100,000.
So it is all a matter of perspective. To say that this is
the fault of immigrants or other issues like that, we have just
got to make sure we temper that; that we don't fall prey to
emotion or prejudice that we might have.
So I just ask you, as you do your work, just keep that in
perspective.
ICE: WORKFORCE COMPLIANCE
I would ask you a couple of things. Mr. Benner, I really
appreciate that when you are looking at the I-9, it is more of
a compliance. Enforcement is important but it is more of a
compliance. In fact, my office is working with your office in
San Antonio, Laredo and McAllen, working with the Texas
Association of Restaurants and the Chambers to bring you
restaurants. I think we are setting that in a couple of weeks,
so I want to thank you for that education so we can make sure
our businesses are in compliance. If they are bad apples, you
go after them, but I think a lot of them are just trying to
comply with the law. So I appreciate what we are doing in San
Antonio, Laredo, and McAllen.
ICE: JUDGE WORKFORCE
Mr. Albence, I appreciate also, yesterday, when we were
with the Secretary, I asked her, we added 55 immigration judges
a couple of years ago. We added 10 last year. We added 100 now.
One of the things I have asked that I asked the Secretary and
she agreed with me yesterday was that we have got to get those
judges to the border. Sometimes judges want to be in New York,
they want to be in Chicago and big cities, but I think if you
are going to have the activity at the border, you have got to
have those immigration judges. We ask for judge teams to make
sure we have them. I agree with you, we have got to have those
attorneys from the Department of Justice and make sure we have
everybody there.
The last time I talked to Mr. Homan and James McHenry, we
need to get office spaces for the judges. So we are trying to
get a couples judges in Laredo, a couple in McAllen, and we
have got to get them to the border and not away from the border
so we can provide justice.
Like you said, if a judge says you stay, you stay. If a
judge says you go, then you deport them. But we have got to
have those judges, and hopefully we can follow up on that
conversation.
CBP: PORT OF ENTRY
The last point I would like to bring up, Commissioner, is
what we talked about in Laredo. As you know, the committee
added language to make a proof of concept the World Trade
Bridge port of entry in Laredo, which is the largest land port
that we have, second in the country, after LA, total trade. LA,
then it is Laredo. Fourteen thousand trailers a day.
So we have got to make sure, following the line of what the
gentleman brought up a few minutes ago, we have got to make
sure we have the latest technology to do that. But it is not
only at the port of entry.
CBP: BORDER CHECKPOINTS
This is, Commissioner, where my question will come in, but
also the Charlie checkpoint which is outside of Laredo. If you
will look at that Charlie checkpoint, that Border Patrol
checkpoint, and just look at the number of trucks, it would be
the fourth largest port of entry, if you would just look at
trucks.
My opinion, and I think we talked about this, the Border
Patrol needs some assistance from CBP, because they are still
doing things that CBP was doing 25 years ago. They are trying
to stop every truck. They can't do that every time. They have
canines.
We saw what happened when they had an empty truck that took
100 migrants and some of them died in San Antonio. So we have
got to make sure that as we do that proof of concept, that we
also look at Border Patrol checkpoints. And I appreciate your
thought on that.
Mr. McAleenan. So, first of all, I agree very strongly with
the investments and the potential for capability to facilitate
truck traffic at our World Trade Bridge and also through the C-
29 checkpoint up the road. I think that is one of the promises
of a unified border security agency that we haven't fully
realized, is that collaboration and applying the best advanced
techniques from ports of entry to Border Patrol checkpoints and
some of the best advanced techniques from border patrol
operations back to the ports of entry. I know David Higgerson
and Chief Owens in Laredo are very focused on that
collaboration. We have some ideas coming forward in modernizing
the World Trade Bridge that can apply at the checkpoint.
I thank you for the question.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CBP: TRADE ENFORCEMENT
When most people think about customs and border protection,
they think about border security. But I know we would agree
that CBP has a tremendous role in the facilitation of trade.
For years, I have been saying I am all for or free trade, but I
am also for fair trade.
Within my district, shrimping and lumber are very important
industries that are impacted by antidumping and countervailing
duties. Many companies that engage in unfair trade practices or
attempt to get around these duties operate as shell companies,
dumping their goods into the U.S. before disappearing and
reinventing themselves down the road.
I am hoping you all are prepared to answer this, but I have
been told that the CBP's Office of Trade is working on a
project with a number of industry leaders to evaluate the use
of third-party data, cognitive computing, and big data
analytics to address these challenges, as well as others
identified within the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement
Act. I know we are in the middle of that pilot now. Is it
possible anybody can provide me with an update?
Mr. McAleenan. Sure. I appreciate the question. Managing 4
trillion in trade crossing our borders and ensuring we address
trade enforcement issues like antidumping and countervailing
duties, the two industries you mentioned, are subject to a lot
of evasive or fraudulent trade practices that we absolutely
need to address as a team, both identifying at CBP, auditing
it, and coordinating with investigative partners like HSI to
take action.
You mentioned the pilot to use big data. Our position at
the border requires us to collect a lot of information from a
regulatory perspective, but we also serve as a single window
for the other departments and agencies that have enforcement
responsibilities for trade crossing our border.
So, with CBP is that single window with the automated
commercial environment. That presents a great opportunity to
use advanced techniques, advanced analytics, artificial
intelligence to look at that vast array of data to train it to
identify fraudulent practices and address it more aggressively.
So we are in the very early stages just structuring that
data so it can be tested appropriately against the algorithms
in the big data approach. We will come back to you and brief on
the success of that. It is something that we want to
collaborate closely with HSI on, as well.
COMBATING NARCOTICS
Mr. Palazzo. Well, please do. And thank you for that
response. I know one of my colleagues touched on it. You were
talking about, although we know the seizure of drugs is up, it
is also more drugs are trying to find its way into America. So
it is obvious your seizures are going to be up.
But when we are discussing legal ports of entry, can you
tell me what are some of your biggest blind spots? With the
funding that we are providing you, how are we going to address
trying to--again, my colleague said it well--incorporating
technology to help identify drug smuggling and other things
that are coming through our legal ports of entry?
Mr. McAleenan. For ports of entry and interdicting
narcotics--I will focus on the land border port of entry--this
is really four sources for a successful interdiction: good
intelligence or investigative leads from our partners or our
own targeting units, nonintrusive inspection technology that
detects an anomaly in a vehicle, the canines that we have
deployed in pre-primary that are very effective tools for us,
and then a good officer inspection asking the right questions,
looking for something that doesn't make sense. Those are the
four sources.
They really find narcotics in roughly equal balance. The
place that we think we can make a huge impact with further
investment--and that is why the 18 Enacted is such a big deal
for us on the NII, given the developments in multi-energy
portal technology, we can keep a truck driver in the cab in a
health-safety posture, but then have a really thorough
interrogation of that trailer. The same thing for passenger
vehicles: getting a good, clean image of that passenger vehicle
without slowing it down and removing the driver through portals
that can scan that traffic with the travelers in it.
Expanding the percentage of traffic that we can inspect
through NII is the number one next step that we think we can
take to enhance our drug interdiction at ports of entry, and
that is why the support of this committee has been very
helpful.
Mr. Palazzo. Well thank you for that response. And again,
thank you for what you do. And please tell the people that work
with you and under you that we appreciate what they do day in
and day out. And their families as well. Thank you.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger, I am sorry, Mr. Price.
Excuse me Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Nice try Dutch.
BORDER SECURITY: APPREHENSIONS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first clarify this earlier
discussion we had about the case I cited and other cases like
it. This was not a case of someone not showing up for a
scheduled procedure or a required hearing or anything else.
This is someone who did show up.
This is increasingly what I am seeing in cases that come to
my attention. These are people who do show up. They check in
faithfully with ICE, under an order of supervision, and they
are picked up at that point.
This seems to be something new. That is why I ask about it.
It doesn't follow any plan or prioritization of danger to the
community, that I can see. That is why I would appreciate any
further clarification anyone can offer on this.
The case I cited is a very dramatic case, just a totally
inexcusable case, I think, but I am afraid there are others
like it. Let me turn to the question of border crossings and
asylum.
Mr. McAleenan, I heard it said earlier that border
crossings have begun to rise somewhat in the past 2 months, but
it is true, isn't it, that they reached historic lows in 2017,
and are still well under the peaks experienced in previous
decades. So that needs to be put in perspective.
And anyway I think we need also to ask: Who are these
people who are arriving at the borders? Large numbers of them,
I know, are seeking refuge from poverty and physical danger in
their home countries, especially the triangle countries of
Central America. And isn't it true that a number of these
people are seeking out CBP agents, not trying to evade them?
They are turning themselves in. They are trying to claim
asylum.
So it does raise the question about whether this is a
question of border security at all.
What does the National Guard have to do with this? What,
for that matter, does a fence have to do with this? Shouldn't
we be asking ourselves how to best deal with this issue of
rising asylum claims also? Before he was in this
administration, General Kelly used to argue that we needed to
pay attention to the conditions in these home countries and
what is driving people out of these countries in the first
place.
But let's just concentrate on what happens when they get
here. They are looking for an asylum hearing. And I wonder if
we are dealing with that adequately. We are hearing troubling
reports that asylum-seekers are being turned away under the
laws. Under the law, CBP agents are supposed to register asylum
requests, take the individual into custody, and then direct
them to an asylum officer to assess the validity of their
claim.
So here is my question or series of questions. Of the
increased border crossings that DHS reported in March, how many
of them are, people of the sort I have described? People who
voluntarily are turning themselves in to seek humanitarian
relief?
Are you confident that CBP agents have been properly
trained to comply with our laws to ensure the timely and humane
processing of all asylum-seekers? And, can you clarify what you
think is actually happening? Can you offer assurances, for
example, that people aren't being turned away or turned back
without or before they receive a credible, fair screening that
establishes whether they have a legitimate claim to seek
asylum?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Congressman. I will address each
of those questions.
How many? In March, we had 50,000 either apprehensions
between ports of entry or inadmissibles at ports of entry.
About two-thirds between, one-third at ports of entry. Of
those, about 18,500 were either family units or children. The
bulk of those crossers were from the northern triangle of
Central America, as you noted.
So it is important to note that the posture of people that
we are apprehending or encountering at ports of entry has
changed dramatically in the last several years versus the first
13 years of this century.
BORDER SECURITY: ASYLUM
We received asylum claims or fear claims from fewer than 1
percent of people we apprehended between 2000 and 2013. Now
that number is averaging 15 to 20 percent. And then it goes
into ICE custody, where additional asylum claims or fear claims
are made. So it is a different population, as you note.
Am I assured that our officers and agents are approaching
their responsibilities and following the law to assess fear
claims when people present them at the border? Yes, I am, and
it is something that we are focused on ensuring, going forward.
This is something that we review very carefully. We have strong
policies, strong training. We have accepted over 50,000 asylum
claims in the last 2 years at our ports of entry.
We do hear, as you are alluding to, reports where it has
not been handled appropriately. Those reports are immediately
referred to our Office of Professional Responsibility, also our
Inspector General, and they are followed up on and we have
exacted discipline in cases where it has been substantiated
that a case was not handled appropriately.
That is very important to us. That is something we need to
review. People that are entitled to protections need to be able
to claim them appropriately. But it is not a widespread issue.
It is not even remotely compared to the numbers that are being
processed appropriately for fear.
So what is actually happening? You raise some very
important points. I heard the chairman note that we have to
solve this problem. The current structure of our statute and
policy is not encouraging good results. It is inviting asylum-
seekers to come make a dangerous journey to pay hundreds of
millions of dollars to transnational criminal organizations to
put themselves and their children at risk of assault, or worse,
and really draining the youth and energy of the northern
triangle countries that you know--that General Kelly and myself
and Secretary Neilsen are committed to supporting to enhance
their governance, security, and prosperity.
So this posture is not achieving good policy results either
for these individuals who are seeking help, nor for their
countries that need a different approach to governance and
security. And that is something that DHS is committed to.
So, I want to work with you and Congress in my role,
supporting the Secretary in her role, to highlight these
statutory changes we need and to also continue to invest with
partners in the region.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger.
CBP: WORKFORCE STAFFING
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, the
administration has made it a point to secure the Southern
border. The President has called for building a thousand-mile
physical wall and a surge in new Border Patrol agents. However,
in my opinion, what is missing is more CBP officers. Mr.
McAleenan, I will be asking you these questions.
These CBP officers are essential, as there are just as many
drugs moving through our official ports of entry as between
them. CBP understands this. In their own workload staff model
your agency stated it is in need of 2,516 additional officers.
I have witnessed this firsthand. I represent the Port of
Baltimore, which is consistently short CBP officers and
shippers are being asked to compensate CBP for the cost of
additional overtime shifts.
Furthermore, these officers stationed at Baltimore are
already working excessive overtime. And this is sincerely
impacting the flow of commerce and compromising security
throughout the whole country and our ports.
The Port of Baltimore is not the outlier here. I have a
chart here in front of me which paints a really sad picture. In
March 2017, there were 200-plus vacancies in Laredo, 250
vacancies in Tucson, and 350-plus in San Diego.
I know the committee understands the gravity of the
situation. We funded 328 new CBP officers in our omnibus.
However, this still leaves a nationwide shortage of 2,200 CBP
officers.
The question is: Does the administration recognize that
drugs are moving into this country through our official ports
of entry, not just between them? If so, does the President's
budget proposal request funding for only 60 CBP hires, with
none assigned to ports?
And that is why I raised the issue of the National Guard,
by the way. Managing is a matter of priorities. I guess an
example, in Maryland, we have 500 of our National Guard in
Estonia dealing with the Russia issue. So there are a lot of
priorities.
And I think if you are going to do anything, you need a
plan and you need to rely on your experts. But to say one day
we are going to put in the National Guard in and you have to
take orders, whatever it is, you have to find a way to make
sure you do it. That is why I raise the issue of the National
Guard.
With the administration's favoring of increased Border
Patrol agents over customs officers, it indicates the President
is more concerned with intercepting people instead of drugs. I
think that is wrong. I would like to know whether or not you
believe what I just said.
Also, I understand you are stretched thin. But I need a
commitment maybe from you, or you whatever you will get back if
you can, examine this problem of the drugs versus the people.
It seems we have the people thing under control at the borders.
It seems that we have more arrests than we have ever had. But
there are a lot of people there.
We have to pick priorities and we have to a plan and not
just decide decisions based on instincts. Those are my
questions, if you can try to answer them, and I would like you
to get back to me on how you suggest we deal with this issue of
the ports.
Mr. McAleenan. Great. Thank you. Do we recognize that drugs
are coming through ports of entry? Yes. I think I have
acknowledged that several times in the testimony and talked
about some of our strategies to address that.
Are we not asking for or seeking additional CBP officers?
No. Quite the contrary. You mentioned the workload staffing
model. I spearheaded the development of that model when I was
in the Office of Field Operations. We are submitting it every
year to Congress, and we are submitting, including in the
President's budget request, against, a request for fee
increases to keep up even modestly with inflation for our
immigration user fee and our customs user fee that would
address those hiring needs.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Over 2,000 jobs?
Mr. McAleenan. Absolutely. Just a small increase in each
fee of $1 each would have a significant benefit to additional
hiring. We have asked for that every year. There is no intent
to not support additional POE hiring. Quite the contrary. The
Border Patrol agents are not amenable to a fee-based source for
their hiring, for their work. That we do need the
appropriations, and that is why you see that emphasis in the
President's budget.
I am more than happy to get back in touch with you and
examine this problem further. I think the committee is right to
highlight the rouse for drugs, right to highlight the need for
CBP officers for both security and facilitation. We agree. I
believe the budget request reflects that agreement.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I respect you all that there are a lot
of issues out there. The Commander in Chief has a different
style, but he is the President, so we have to work through
that. Whatever your orders are, your orders are. If I disagree
with him, I am not going, as Andy Harris said, do personal
attacks. I am going to make a comment. But I am not going to
try to attack him unless I disagree with his comments or his
policies. But I do respect you all. You have got a tough job,
but you have got to follow orders also. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger. One thing I want
to point out, those fees are not under our jurisdiction. They
fall under Judiciary and Ways and Means, I believe. It is a
little problem for us.
Mr. Culberson.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those fees ought to
be under this subcommittee's jurisdiction. I believe anything
that has got a President's portrait on it ought to be under the
jurisdiction of the people's elected representatives through
this committee.
Mr. Ruppersberger. You have two chairmen here. You ought to
make it happen.
Mr. Culberson. I am ready.
BORDER SECURITY: CATCH AND RELEASE
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your patience. I was chairing
my Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee hearing. And over
the years that I have had the privilege of representing the
people of west Houston, I have discovered that if I just make
an unannounced trip to border, that is always one of the best
ways of finding out what is really going on. And I can assure
Mr. Ruppersberger that the human problem is absolutely not
solved. It is wide open.
In the McAllen sector in particular, which I visited most
recently, the Border Patrol agents that I went out into the
field with--and again, this was an unannounced visit; that is
always the best way to do it--we encountered a group of people
immediately within a few minutes.
The Border Patrol said: We don't catch them, they catch us.
These were individuals with minor children that had come up as
far as Guatemala or Central America and paid thousands of
dollars. Immediately they were all obviously coached on what to
say. They knew exactly what to say to the Border Patrol agents
to stake a claim of credible fear of persecution.
It is difficult for me to believe that some of these were
actually parents with children. There was one individual about
25 years that claimed the 17- or 18-year-old with him was his
son. And the border patrol agents, again said this happens all
the time.
The human problem is actually one that is particularly
heart breaking. The drug problem is catastrophic and
heartbreaking, but human slavery still exists in this country,
and trafficking human beings is a terrible problem.
Unfortunately, Houston, Texas, is one of the hubs of human
trafficking in the country.
So I wanted to ask Commissioner McAleenan and to
congratulate you on your assignment. First of all, what is your
department doing to restore the integrity of the asylum system
to ensure that legitimate trafficking victims who need our help
are assisted, while those who are looking to exploit the system
by illegally crossing the border and pretending to be in fear
of persecution are detained swiftly and removed swiftly. What
is being done to end the practice of catch and release at the
border?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate your
visits to the border and your longstanding knowledge and
especially your emphasis on the importance of consequences for
illegal activity on the border.
Just on that note, we are the front end of this challenge.
We are the border security element catching people crossing the
border. You know sometimes with family units and children they
are not evading capture because they are prepared, coached in
some cases to request protection and to claim fear of return to
their home country.
When that happens, we turn these individuals over to ICE,
in the family case, for custody. And I will let my colleague
speak to that. For children, ICE transports them to HHS at the
start of their proceeding.
BORDER SECURITY: ASYLUM
Mr. Culberson. I found out very quickly as a part of the
visit, members, that every single one of those families that
sought out a border agent and caught them, they all reached
their destination. They were held 48, 72 hours by ICE, but
every one of them basically made it to Chicago, one was going
to St. Louis, Atlanta, Miami.
They all make it to their destination, at U.S. taxpayer
expense, because of this loophole they found in the system. So
what are we doing to close this loophole? It is putting their
lives at risk. These poor kids and these young parents had to
come from Central America and Guatemala under threat of
assault, rape, murder in order to get here, because they know
if they come in and say the right thing, they are going to get
to Miami at U.S. taxpayer expense. What is being done to stop
that?
Mr. McAleenan. We don't have our colleague, Frances Sista
from CIS here, but I will just speak to the department-wide
efforts or administration-wide.
This was one of the key areas emphasized by the
administration in the immigration discussion in the fall,
through January, one of the main loopholes that they sought to
close is to strengthen the asylum process.
What we see at that front end are a very high percentage of
people reaching that initial credible fear bar and then waiting
for a long time for a judge to eventually resolve that case,
where there is a much lower result in terms of getting relief
and getting found to have asylum. So that can be years in the
U.S.
Mr. Culberson. Ninety-six percent of them never show up for
their hearing. They are just gone. They enter the United States
illegally.
Mr. McAleenan. The chairman made that point earlier. That
is a significant challenge in the system as well.
Mr. Culberson. So what are you doing to address that, close
that loophole?
Mr. McAleenan. Number one, the administration is trying to
work with Congress to modify the statute. Also, with the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, if you are
a Mexican child or a Canadian child and you come across
unaccompanied, you can be returned to your country. That is not
true for countries further away, including the northern
triangle in Central America. So that is a key change the
administration sought as well.
Mr. Culberson. That is exactly the right answer. Thank you.
BORDER SECURITY: APPREHENSIONS
Mr. Albence. If I can just add one thing, please.
Unfortunately, we are bound by decisions, whether it is a
legislative decision or a court decision, with regard to our
detention of the family unit.
Based on the Flores settlement agreement, we are required
to release a family unit within 20 days of them coming into
custody. That is why those individuals that you reference and
the border patrol apprehends is probably the wrong time to use,
because they are turning themselves in on a frequent basis. We
have no lawful authorization to hold them longer than that 20
days because of this Flores settlement agreement. As
Commissioner McAleenan had mentioned, with the UACs, we have no
detention authority for a UAC under the TVPRA. That authority
lies with HHS. So our role is merely a conduit to get that
person from CBP or the Border Patrol over to HHS, at which
point we are no longer involved in that process.
Mr. Culberson. The key is fixing the statute. I think we
can even overturn a settlement, couldn't we, Judge, with a
statute?
Mr. Carter. Well, in the bill we tried to bring to the
floor just recently, I have three provisions dealing with all
three of these issues, to fix all three of those issues, as my
part of the contribution. This is the number one thing that
needs to be fixed, in my opinion. We are never going to stop
the flow if we don't plug this hole.
Mr. Culberson. It is a magnet that is bringing these people
in and endangering their lives.
Mr. Carter. Believe me, a lot of attractive children are
not making it to the border.
Mr. Culberson. That is heartbreaking.
Mr. Carter. Does Ms. Roybal-Allard have some more
questions? I think I probably should just yield the floor to
her for the rest of the day. I will recognize you for one more
question, at least.
BORDER SECURITY: ASYLUM
Ms. Roybal-Allard. We were just trying to figure out some
clarification in terms of the asylum claims and the statistics.
There is a lower threshold with the initial review for an
asylum claim.
My understanding is it is lower because we want to make
sure that we are making it possible for those who have valid
claims to be able to go through the process and be protected.
And then when it goes through the final determination, which is
a higher threshold, that it makes sense then that there would
be fewer people who would actually get asylum.
I guess I would disagree that that is a loophole. I think
there is a real reason for the lower threshold initially and
then the higher one when they get that second review.
And so if you have any actual statistics or information on
that, I would appreciate if you would share it. Not at this
time, because I know that we are running against the clock
here, but I would appreciate if we could get some more
information on that.
I also want to clarify with Mr. Albence for the record that
my question regarding the directive of California's Justice
Department was really an attempt to find common ground in
protecting our communities. Because my constituents and
Californians as a whole also want to make sure that dangerous
criminals are removed.
And I just believe that it would make a lot of sense and
benefit everyone, instead of fighting with each other, fighting
with the State of California, that we work cooperatively to
remove individuals who are truly threats to public safety and
to our country. So I just wanted to clarify the intent of those
questions.
BORDER SECURITY: MEXICO
Mr. McAleenan, at the end of March you traveled with
Secretary Neilsen to Mexico to meet with your counterparts in
that country and with President Pena Nieto. Can you briefly
describe what you accomplished during that trip, the challenges
that Mexico faces with regards to the influx of refugees and
migrants from the northern triangle and South America, and can
you also comment on areas where you think we are working well
with our neighbors to the south and areas where we still need
improvement?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you for the question. I was honored to
travel and to meet President Pena Nieto, but it is actually my
sixth trip in the last 12 months to Mexico to collaborate with
partners.
With CBP's breadth of our mission, we have stakeholders on
the customs side in a department called Hacienda, with their
tax authority; with their Gobernacion, which is their Federal
police, their intelligence agencies, as well as given the
security role, their military, SEDENA and SEMAR. And we
collaborate really across--and not to mention their agriculture
department, SENASICA. So we collaborate across the interagency
in Mexico.
In March, I got to sign three agreements that we had been
working on for some period of time. This is an area that is
working very well in our collaboration with Mexican customs. We
are doing unified cargo processing at the border now. So
instead of a situation where a truck would have to stop three
times on its way through Nogales--outbound Mexican customs,
outbound Mexican agriculture, and then inbound CBP, we are
doing it once together.
One of the agreements I signed was with their agriculture
department, SENASICA, to allow this unified cargo processing to
be formulized from a pilot to a program because it is really
reducing wait times, in some cases, 3 hours and beyond, down to
40 minutes or less, for that entire process. So it is
benefiting trade between our countries and something that we
want to continue to emphasize.
We also signed an agreement, both CBP and HSI, on trade
enforcement. One of your colleagues mentioned the need to
address dumping issues. Well, we have shared manufacturing
capabilities, things like steel, in North America. We know that
countries are trying to evade our trade enforcement. Seeing
data and sharing it, partnering on enforcement activities and
investigations with Mexico is just going to make us more
effective in that area.
I want to highlight one piece that you closed on: the
partnership with SEDENA on Mexican immigration, in particular.
They have taken great strides in the last 5 years to enhance
the security of their southern border, going from a very small
effort to apprehend or return people crossing between ports of
entry on their border to upwards of 200,000 in the last couple
of years. That is a big change that has enhanced the security
of the region.
The more that we can align our migration policies and
collaborate in North America, the more effective we are going
to be, because these people are paying, unfortunately,
thousands of dollars to transnational criminal organizations
that are threatening the security of Mexican citizens as they
cross through their country. We want to shut that down. And the
only way to do it is collaboratively.
ICE: WORKFORCE COMPLIANCE
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Mr. Benner, ICE, as you mentioned
earlier, has stepped up its I-9 audit of businesses to
determine whether employees are authorized to work. I know this
because a number of the businesses in my district, including
one just a few blocks from my district office, were visited
recently by ICE officials.
And in at least one case, the officials were accompanied by
members of the press, which I don't see as an appropriate thing
for ICE to do. And it also concerns me because, based on the
reactions from the community, I believe that it also serves to
unnecessarily scare the public and it is often misinterpreted
as a raid. Our office needed to clarify that in fact it was not
a raid; that you were doing what legally you were authorized to
do. And part of it is also of course the way sometimes it is
reported.
So my question is: Does ICE policy permit inviting the
press to accompany ICE as it carries out its law enforcement
responsibilities; and also, how does ICE determine which States
and places of employment to target?
Mr. Benner. Thank you for the question. Again, as Mr.
Albence pointed out, HSI and all of ICE in particular, we
certainly do not conduct raids that are indiscriminate or
otherwise. In HSI we execute criminal investigation activity
pursuant to law and they are well thought out and well planned.
I am aware that there are instances where our public
affairs departments will authorize ride-alongs for members of
the public or the media. I would like to take that particular
instance back and then come brief you more in-depth on that
particular instance and which case it was and look into it in
that way.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. One of the reasons that I was given
was that it was an effort to show the public that there weren't
abuses taking place as a result of that.
Let me just suggest there may be a better way of doing
that, and I would like to work with you and with ICE on that.
Mr. Benner. Absolutely. I think it is important to tell the
story many times. I do know that in the course of our I-9 work,
in one particular case it was well-documented in the media, and
his agents were actually congratulated by the business owner
for being professional. It was a very low key process to serve
that I-9 inspection.
And we are incredibly proud of the men and women of his who
execute their mission with great care, concern, respect, and
with great caution to as many cases that, even in the worksite
realm where we have that victim-centered approach. Like I said
earlier, the exploitation of unauthorized workers is a top
priority for us. Those cases go to the top of the pile every
time because those are the most egregious.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. The second part, how is that determined?
How do you decide either what State or what community is going
to be targeted?
Mr. Benner. We don't pick communities or States. We pick a
broad cross-section of businesses operating in a particular
area. Each part of the country has targets, based on the size
of their AOR and the number of personnel located there.
And we let the field, who know their areas of
responsibility the best, work through what targets they are
going to look at for I-9 inspections. But we also rely on the
tip line. We get thousands and thousands of tips coming in
from, as you would be surprised, competitors who feel that they
have an unfair advantage because of their company next door
that maintains an illicit business model doesn't pay the same
taxes, they don't pay the same wages, they don't pay overtime.
And it is hard to compete. Those two companies can't compete
with each other. The company that follows the law will lose
every time. So we get a lot of complaints from the public.
And so we have a national lead development center where we
take a look at those tips. We try to use our intel assets to
actually make them good leads before we send them to the field.
That typically would be the start of the I-9 process, would be
to take a look at those leads.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. In the interest of time, I will submit
the rest of my questions for the record and let Mr. Culberson
ask his questions.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you. And thanks for you all's
patience. I had to get through that CJS hearing.
BORDER SECURITY: OPERATION STREAMLINE
I wanted to ask Mr. McAleenan about the criminal
consequence initiative, otherwise known as Operation
Streamline, which is designed to fast-track aliens apprehended
at the border to the Department of Justice to be prosecuted for
the criminal offense of illegal entry or illegal reentry.
I made certain that the Department of Justice has an
increase in funding to hire additional prosecutors, additional
staff, additional personnel at the southern border, because it
is the magnet. I don't really see it as a loophole. It is a
magnet that draws these people in and they are being assaulted
and murdered as they come to the United States through Mexico.
If they are from Mexico, the Border Patrol agents have the
authority to simply return them immediately back to the border,
back to Mexico, put them back across the river.
I hope you will be able to start doing that for those that
are coming up from Central America and elsewhere.
BORDER SECURITY: HUMAN TRAFFICKING
As I said, I like to make unannounced trips to the border.
One of the trips I did that I learned the most from is I
volunteered to work as a law clerk in the courtroom of Judge
Alia Moses in the Del Rio sector under an assumed name. So no
one knew who I was. I worked for several days as a law clerk.
And it was fascinating. I learned a great deal. The DOJ guys
didn't find out who I was for about 48 hours. It was right when
I became chairman of the subcommittee.
I learned, for example, that one other statutory change we
need to make is human traffickers, if you are smuggling drugs,
your assets can be seized. If you are smuggling human beings,
you cannot seize their assets. That is a change that has to be
made in the statute.
BORDER SECURITY: PROSECUTION
Venue needs to be changed so that when you pick somebody up
25 miles or 50 miles from the border, you can prosecute in the
zone in which they are apprehended. If they are in the United
States illegally, you can't prosecute them under the venue
statute. We need to fix that as well, Judge.
I discovered that Judge Moses--by the way, I hope the Trump
administration will consider appointing her to the fifth
circuit. She does a superb job. She enforces the law, 1325 and
1326. She gives some consequence to everybody that comes in.
Whether it be a week, a few days, they have got a conviction,
and is able to do so in a way that protects everybody's
constitutional rights. And it works.
The illegal crossings in the Del Rio sector are the lowest
they have ever seen because of Operation Streamline and Judge
Moses' enforcement of the law.
So I wanted to ask, Commissioner, about Operation
Streamline and, if you could, update me on records that I have
from a couple of years out-of-date on these, but on the number
of people of those that are apprehended in each sector, what
percentage of those who are apprehended are actually referred
to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution?
I remember it being a standard, when I first started
looking about a decade ago, when the Judge and I first got on
this subcommittee that in the Tucson sector only about 4
percent of those apprehended were being prosecuted. In the
McAllen sector, about 11 percent. But in Judge Moses' sector,
she prosecutes 70 percent. Anybody that is caught in the Del
Rio sector is going to get prosecuted. There is going to be a
consequence. As a result, illegal crossings have plummeted.
I also learned by sitting there and asking questions that
the magistrate was asking questions for me, and I was typing
for him as a law clerk, that these poor people were paying
$5,000 to $6,000 apiece to get here from Guatemala; that the
drug cartels were charging $500 to $1,000 to get them across
the river and then just dumping them in the desert with no food
or water. They had no idea where they were. You couldn't touch
the smugglers.
BORDER SECURITY: OPERATION STREAMLINE
So what can you tell me about what you are doing to expand
Operation Streamline to duplicate what Judge Moses is doing in
the Del Rio sector up and down the entire border and what can I
do as chairman of the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee
to help ensure the Department of Justice is deploying resources
to support your work and referring these folks for prosecution?
Mr. McAleenan. Let me just first thank you, Congressman,
for your longstanding support for our consequence delivery
system and the criminal consequence initiative Streamline. I
didn't know you actually had helped Judge Moses out with some
of those cases.
You noted that Del Rio is an area where we have a very high
percentage of acceptance of referrals for immigration
violations for prosecution.
I don't know if you saw yet a letter issued by the Attorney
General directing his U.S. Attorneys to increase acceptance of
immigration violations; zero tolerance memo. We will be meeting
with him this afternoon on opportunities for increased
consequences for immigration violations that can create a
sufficient deterrent.
We have seen a direct correlation between the consequence
delivery system and reductions in recidivism and repeated
attempts at crossing our border illegally. We know it works. We
want to apply it in smart ways appropriate for the individual
that we have encountered or apprehended, but I would be happy
to get back to you with in-depth data on this initiative and
especially as we continue to engage the Department of Justice
in improving our efforts.
BORDER SECURITY: PROSECUTION
Mr. Culberson. The prosecution rates by sector of those you
apprehend. And please ask the Department of Justice what if any
additional resources they need. Because fundamentally, this is
a law enforcement issue, Judge. It is just a matter of letting
the officers enforce the law with a compassionate heart and
good commonsense to distinguish between the MS-13 member or
someone smuggling guns or drugs, smuggling humans versus the
economic migrant versus a young woman. You want the officers to
use their good heart and their good sense.
Law enforcement works. And this is a law enforcement issue.
Respect for the law. That is one thing this President is doing.
Restoring respect for the law, respect for our military, and
respect for the United States around the world is one of the
most important things this President was doing. That is why he
was elected. And we look forward to helping you, as I know you
know Judge Carter and this subcommittee is committed to helping
you to restore respect for the rule of law at the border.
Thank you very much.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. If you see a guy that looks like Culberson
camouflaged out in the bushes, it probably is.
Mr. McAleenan. New intern.
Mr. Culberson. You won't know I am coming.
Mr. Carter. We are going to conclude the hearing now. Thank
you very much. Well done. Good answers. Remember, we are part
of a team. Keep us informed. If you have needs, don't hesitate.
Call me. Call Lucille.
We are recessed.
Friday, April 13, 2018.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA)
WITNESS
HON. BROCK LONG, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Carter. Good morning, we are going to call this meeting
to order, this hearing to order. We are very pleased this
morning to welcome the Administrator of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, Brock Long, to discuss FEMA's fiscal year
2019 budget request.
Administrator, welcome, we are glad to have you here. I
want to start by thanking you for your leadership in
overseeing, not just FEMA, but the entire Federal response to
the record level of disaster activity this past year. Congress
has now passed three supplementals, providing nearly $50
billion for the Disaster Relief Fund. This is for response and
recovery from three catastrophic events.
I would like to hear from you today on how recovery efforts
are going and what additional resources you think FEMA will
need in the coming months to continue to support the long-term
recovery. Fiscal year 2019 budget for FEMA is $11 billion. The
request proposes reductions to existing FEMA grant programs
while at the same time requesting $522 million for a new grant
program that hasn't been authorized--at least not as yet. I
would like to hear from you why you propose these cuts,
particularly in the current threat environment, and what are
the new grant program's intended to achieve. And I understand
FEMA has also recently released a new strategic plan which
outlines--give us an outline of your vision for the agency. I
hope you will discuss how you plan to implement this strategy
and how fiscal year 2019 requests support these efforts.
At this time, I would like to recognize my distinguished
ranking member, Ms. Roybal-Allard, for any remarks she may
make.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Good morning, Administrator Long, and
welcome to your second appearance before this subcommittee. The
last time you appeared was on the heels of the damaging
hurricanes and fires which prompted emergency supplemental
spending bills. We are now eager to spend some time with you to
get your perspective on FEMA's budget request, your ongoing
response and recovery activities and the challenges that lie
ahead.
I know this has been a difficult time for your agency. You
had only been at FEMA for a few months when we not only
experienced of the most damaging hurricanes season in history
but the wildfires that devastated large swaths of my home State
of California.
Mr. Administrator, we want to help support the efforts of
FEMA's personnel, and we want to make sure that FEMA's programs
are working well to support recovery efforts. This is
particularly true for Puerto Rico because of the level of
devastation on the island and the fiscal challenges it was
already facing. We must not forget the families and other
survivors who, months after the disaster, are still struggling
to rebuild. And we must remember that this disaster occurred on
American soil and that the people that it affected are
Americans.
Again, we appreciate your joining us this morning, and I
look forward to a productive discussion. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Roybal-Allard. We are joined by
Mrs. Lowey, the ranking member of the full committee. Mrs.
Lowey, I will yield to you for any comments you wish to make.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I
appreciate your having this hearing.
And thank you, Ranking Member Roybal-Allard, for holding
this hearing.
And, Administrator Long, thank you for joining us this
morning.
You last testified before the subcommittee last November on
the hurricane supplemental request. Thank you for your hard
work assisting the States and U.S. territories, many of which
are still recovering months later.
This morning, we will hear your justification for the
fiscal year 2019 FEMA budget request, which I find lackluster
at best. You propose to eliminate several programs and to
severely cut others with devastating implications, particularly
to New York. For example, your budget request would eliminate
the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, which has
trained approximately 2 million first responders; the Emergency
Food and Shelter Grant Program, which provides shelter, food,
and water for families and communities in crisis.
Your budget request would also notably reduce the National
Pre-Disaster Mitigation Fund by $61 million. As we saw in the
wake of Superstorm Sandy and Hurricanes Harvey and Maria,
responding to and recovering from a natural disaster often
costs a lot more than investments in mitigation measures.
In 2017 alone, there were 50 major disaster declarations,
20 of which occurred after you were confirmed. We can all agree
that communities need to be proactive in mitigating their own
vulnerabilities, but this request in my judgment sends the
wrong signal by cutting an essential program so deeply and
could result in higher recovery costs to the Federal Government
and communities hit by disasters.
Your budget would also threaten the safety of our
communities by significantly decreasing emergency management
performance grants by $70.7 million, port security grants by
$63.6 million, public transportation security assistance by
$63.6 million, the State Homeland Security Grant Program by
$117.6 million, the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant
Program by $117.6 million. With threats of violence and
terrorism on the rise, these programs are essential for terror
targets like New York to help State and local law enforcement
protect our communities. Simply put, our communities cannot
strengthen their preparedness programs when support from their
Federal partner is inconsistent or so inadequate.
Administrator Long, I look forward to a productive
discussion this morning about how we can best build resiliency,
mitigate the impacts of future disasters, and keep our
communities safe from violence and terrorism.
Thank you again for being here today.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. All right, we are waiting to hear what you have
to say. We do have your written report in the file, but we
would like for you to give us a summation and give us what you
think we need to hear.
Opening Statement of Mr. Long
Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Ranking Member, thank you.
And, members of the committee, it is great to be here again
today.
We are all here in the spirit of improvement and trying to
find ways to make the Nation more resilient and prepared. I
work towards it every day, and as I look this budget request, I
realize it was not informed by the 2017 season because of the
budget process. I do look at this budget as an opportunity to
serve as an initial down payment on a strategic plan that I
feel strongly about and the way forward that I want to talk to
you about to obtain your support going forward.
Obviously, it was the biggest disaster year that we have
seen in our history: 47 million Americans, 15 percent we now
estimate of the population was impacted in some way shape or
form. To date, I want to thank you guys for the three
supplementals. It has been a tremendous help. But, more
importantly, it is not that I need more money in some cases as
much I need new authorities. For example, disaster recovery
housing is not a well-designed program. I need more granting
authorities to be able to provide Governors an opportunity to
be able to control their own destiny, and I am asking for your
help on that.
What we have put forward so far as a result of 2017: We
have obligated close to $22 billion from California to the
Virgin Islands; $11 billion of that has gone directly to the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico already. These recoveries are not
going to be done over night. We are going to be in these
communities for years as we progress through.
So we learned a lot of major lessons. As I said, I need
granting authority to fix housing. We have got to continue to
find ways to streamline fragmented recovery. Funding comes from
17 different agencies, not just us. And it is confusing to a
Governor. HUD made an announcement the other day; it is one of
the largest grants that the agency has proactively put down.
But it is confusing to a Governor on how they utilize FEMA
funding, HUD funding, and funding that comes from these others
to do the greatest good. And I think we have got a lot of work
to do to streamline our efforts to do the greatest good and
ultimately build more mitigation into our recovery efforts as
well.
I am also asking for authorities to increase State
management costs. It is not just the grants that we need to
provide to State and local governments to kick-start programs,
but the management costs is probably the most beneficial tool
that they can have. Right now, for example, on a disaster, we
provide them 3.34 percent in management costs based on the
total of public assistance dollars that we obligated. That
number needs to rise to 12 percent. That gives a State the
ability to hire their own force account labor or hire
consulting firms to help them with staff augmentation or
technical expertise that they don't currently have, because I
believe that preparedness is everybody's responsibility from
the citizen all the way to the Governors to the States.
And as disasters change and threats change, we cannot do it
all at FEMA. We cannot continue to fund and supplement programs
in their entirety. We have to have an honest conversation
about, is there too much of a gap between the Federal
Government and what State and local governments are doing. I'm
here to have that conversation, but based on the major lessons
learned that we had, based on comments of reaching out to our
stakeholders--we took 2,300 comments from internal staff
members and stakeholders, and I am asking the questions: What
do you want FEMA to be good at? Where are we? Where do we need
to be going forward in the future?
We did a trend analysis based on what we got back, and we
came up with three primary goals: One, as I said before, goal
one, build a culture of preparedness. We don't have it in this
country. Our citizens are our true first responders. How do we
open up more low to no-cost options of preparedness to our
citizens? How do we provide them more training to do things
like CPR? The Red Cross has a statistic that one in four of us
is going to do CPR in our lifetime. Are you trained? Are you
ready to go? You are the true first responder after an active
shooter or a tornado.
The second thing is that I am aligning the budget and my
assets to begin tackling the robust strategic plan. So, for
example, under building a culture of preparedness, the $522
million grant, competitive grant that is listed in the budget
would help me to start addressing evolving issues, because so
much of the grant funding is tied to the PKEMRA, to older style
9/11 traditional attacks which could happen today, obviously,
but it doesn't give you much freedom to be able to tackle new
evolving threats, such as soft-target active-shooter events or
cybersecurity. So this would help me build more of a culture of
preparedness.
The other thing about culture of preparedness is we have
got to invest but also incentivize State and local governments
to step up and do land-use planning and pass building codes and
do more predisaster mitigation. So the cuts in predisaster
mitigation, with all due respect, the amount of funding that
has always been traditionally in there is not enough. It is a
drop in the bucket. I am asking for a holistic fix to do
mitigation upfront in a much larger amount rather than on the
back end. So I am not even sure that 40, 50, or 60 million in
predisaster mitigation really makes a difference when you look
at the grand scheme of things of how we need to harden our
capabilities going forward.
I am the biggest believer in insurance as well when it
comes to staff--when it comes to people and when it comes to
self-insured cities. We have got to close the gap on insurance
under that building a culture of preparedness. And I want to
work with you to do so.
The second goal is ready the Nation for catastrophic
disasters. I don't believe this Nation is ready to go from low-
to no-notice events, like New Madrid earthquakes or earthquakes
in California, Wasatch, or Cascadia. And in many cases, we have
got a lot of work to do and that we have to bolster State and
local capabilities to do their own commodities when it comes to
emergency life-sustaining commodities and not just depend on
FEMA to be providing everything.
I am not so sure we are that good that we can get there
right after a no-notice event, and we have to build baseline
capabilities at all levels of government because that is the
best way a response can work as a unified whole community
effort. So, underneath that, there are things that we are
looking for.
I am worried about the wall of work that is coming to my
agency as a result of what we just went through. If you look
back at 2017, my agency picked up a new event every 3 days. I
need staff members, and we are asking for that in this budget.
Underneath goal 2, we are asking for 41 staff internally
because I can reimburse everybody else, but I can't reimburse
my own agency. And as we pick up more disasters, I am worried
about the operational capacity to respond to anything from
congressional inquiries to processing paperwork to ultimately
getting money out down the road. So I am asking for a down
payment, in this budget to help me bolster my staff internally
as well, and then maybe the next year I will continue to see
the ramification of what we have seen.
And then, finally, reduce the complexity of FEMA is goal
three. I am the biggest critic of the agency. I know that there
are things that we can do. There are policies I want to strike
down. There are things I want to clear up. And within this
goal, there are specific budget requests for grants management
modernization. I inherited an agency that has 10 different IT
systems to manage 10 different grants. Why do we not just have
one? But it takes money and understanding to how to consolidate
those efforts. And I want to streamline it and make it simple,
as well as streamline the disaster survivor and grantee
experience.
So, Mr. Chairman, the one thing I would like to also
explain is there has been a lot of misunderstanding about
Puerto Rico and the recovery. Recovery has been ongoing since
day one. A lot of emergency response and recovery projects are
in place. I was in Puerto Rico last week, met with the
Governor, and we finalized the dialogue on 428 to move forward
on how to build a more resilient Puerto Rico. 428 is the best
way to move forward, not just for Puerto Rico but for
communities in the future, because we are giving you a budget;
it is outcome-driven recovery, which FEMA has never really had.
It says: How does the State of California want their recovery
team to go as a result of this wildfire so that we are not back
again? Governor, you know best. Local communities, you know
best. So let's design that outcome-driven recovery now,
upfront. Let's put the money towards it, and let's work toward
that. And if you manage that budget, Governor Rossello, very
aggressively, whatever is left over, you can keep and put in
and incentivize in predisaster projects that you would like to
see that were not factored into the original project
worksheets. Because, right now, if we attack Puerto Rico the
old traditional way of attacking recovery, we would be writing
thousands and thousands of project worksheets that would get
reversioned year over year over year. And I am not sure that we
would be working toward a common recovery outcome. So we were
able to put that into place. It is not something you want to
rush. It is something that you want to be very calculated and
deliberate about.
And the Federal Emergency Management Agency has no
incentive to see anybody fail in recovery. I do not want to be
back in these communities fixing infrastructure again. We can't
afford to rebuild the way the infrastructure was before the
event knocks them out. We have to do better and factor in
predisaster mitigation before and after all of these events.
I am here in the spirit of improvement. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. That concludes my comments.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Carter. Well, thank you. We are going to go 5 minute--
time 5 minutes, for everybody to know. And, by the way, I want
to thank everybody for being here. It speaks well of you
because this is a go-home day, and we have got a full house. I
am really proud of everybody being here.
I will start off and then go to Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Congress has provided more than $49.5 billion for the
Disaster Relief Fund in emergency supplemental funding to
address the requirements from last year's unprecedented
disaster activity. Can you give us an update on recovery
efforts for Harvey, Irma, and Maria? I have other questions.
Mr. Long. You can't compare disasters. You are not looking
at apples to apples; it is apples to oranges based on how these
communities were impacted, where they are geographically
located, how strong was the infrastructure before the storm, as
well as the liquidity issues in the budgets and how they were
managed. And so each one is dramatically different. As I said
earlier, out of the $22 billion that we have obligated to this
point, and that number changes every day, up to this point, $11
billion has been placed toward Puerto Rico and roughly I
believe $5 billion has been put forward toward Harvey. And that
is largely because of the types of damages that we see and the
types of infrastructure that we are trying to fix. But these
recoveries are ongoing.
In Puerto Rico, specifically, I am about to become the
largest employer. We have already done close to 1,500 local
hires. And what we are trying to do there is not only set
forward an outcome-driven recovery for what it is going to look
like next. But I am having to rebuild an entire arm of
emergency management at the Commonwealth level as well as the
local level, which is why we are taking the initiative to do
local hires. We are training them. We are qualifying them in
the FEMA qualification system so that we ultimately leave a
very strong and robust capability in emergency management there
for years to come.
When it comes to Texas we have major challenges. We are
going to go have challenges in housing in Puerto Rico, which is
the most frustrating aspect of recovery where I need your help
to change. We need granting authority. If I could give Governor
Abbott, for example, granting authority, he could take funding
from me and do housing the way he sees best. He could buy tent
cities. He could do direct construction. He could buy a travel
trailer. He could do a manufactured house, and he doesn't have
to adhere to my bulky laws but his State laws. And he could do
it much quicker and efficiently than I could. But, right now,
the way it has to work is I have got to do an Intergovernmental
service agreement with the Governor, and he has got to follow
my bureaucratic process, which slows things down. We have got
to fix it because I have never heard of a recovery housing
mission that has ever sought praise from anybody, which is a
real problem. There is a lot that is going on, but I have
thousands of people in the field right now. 65 percent of my
agency is still deployed, and it is not these four events that
we are working. I am working disasters, and 35 States and local
territories have been impacted this year. I couldn't be more
proud of my staff and what they are going through and the
sacrifices that they put forward, and they continue to serve
others.
Mr. Carter. I agree. The staff has done a really fantastic
job.
But estimates for hurricanes Maria beyond fiscal year 2018
and the California wildfires were not available when the last
supplemental came out.
Mr. Long. Right.
Mr. Carter. Do we have a better estimate for those
disasters now? Will another supplemental be needed to address
those needs? If so, can we expect to receive another
supplemental request for funding to support these disasters?
Will that request cover the entire life of the disaster for
Hurricane Maria, or should we expect multiple supplemental
requests?
Mr. Long. So, right now, it is hard to project how much it
is going to cost. For Puerto Rico, some of the initial damage
estimates range anywhere between 40 billion and 50 billion as
we start to look at the levels of damage and the
infrastructure. Here, again, that number could change. As we
dig deeper into the damage assessments and understand what
really needs to be done to make it resilient, those numbers
could change.
As far as requesting another supplemental, we are just not
there yet. But I am not going to allow my agency to get too
close before we have to ask for your support. So we will
maintain and double down on communication to the Congress, as
well as OMB, when it comes it a critical point of when we think
we are going to run out of funding. And I can get you the other
numbers on the other.
Mr. Carter. If you have got other supplementals coming,
which I would assume you do, but maybe you don't assume that.
In that last supplemental, we had requests, and we didn't have
information to give us the information we needed to see the
picture.
Mr. Long. Right.
Mr. Carter. So, if you are going to do other supplementals,
that is why I asked that question, on the wildfires and Maria,
we didn't have estimates. I know that you flooded the place
with people making estimates. You should have a better picture
now than before.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Mr. Carter. I can tell you that, when I was in Houston, I
was with some building contractors, and they said it is 186,000
of remodels estimated to be in Houston right now in a market
that builds 50,000 to 100,000 homes a year. They can't even
build the homes for lack of labor. They can't even meet goals
in the home building but for lack of labor. And how are we ever
going to have enough labor to do these lesser jobs? Because a
framing contractor looking at a remodel and looking at a new
home, there is no choice there; he is going to build a new
home.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Mr. Carter. Makes more money off of it. It is easier
because he doesn't have walls and things he has to tear out. So
it is going to be a real challenge. I know it may not even be
FEMA's job to direct, but ultimately those are things we have
to fix. This new plan----
Mr. Long. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. And this new plan by putting it in the hands of
the Governor, which--in at least my Governor, I would like to
see that--it may be a good idea. It sounds like a good idea.
But, you know, turning the ship of state is a slow, tedious
process.
Mr. Long. And, Mr. Chairman, you know, when it comes to
reducing disaster costs, I think we need to look at the
categories of damage that FEMA pays for through the Stafford
Act. In some cases, I scratch my head as to why FEMA reimburses
State and local governments for building and contents that
could be picked up by private insurance companies. Why are we
paying to fix facilities that could be insured? And that right
there would save billions of taxpaying dollars and would help
FEMA to further work with solid public-private sector
partnerships in the insurance arena, which would reduce the
need for supplemental requests down the road.
When you get to these big, big disasters, our data would
suggest that paying for public buildings and contents that are
uninsured or self-insured is one of the greatest expenses we
have as taxpayers. And I question, why are we doing that?
Mr. Carter. I think that is a good question to ask. And
that may require some legislation at this level, and if it--as
you view it, have conversations with Members of Congress about
it.
Mr. Long. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. If we are going have it to write legislation to
redirect things, I think that is what we do for a living.
Mr. Long. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Well, I will yield now to Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Administrator Long, I think, in your
open statement and in some of the comments you have made, to
some degree, you have already answered some of the questions
that I have, but I would like to ask them anyway and give you
an opportunity to either add or to elaborate on what your
efforts and your needs are.
Last fall, the President issued major disaster declarations
for areas of California that were ravaged by wildfires. This
came on the heels of several fire management assistance
declarations for California in the preceding days. I understand
that FEMA has already obligated $230 million in fire management
assistant grants for fiscal year 2018, and these grants are
funded out of the Disaster Relief Fund base account. Is there
sufficient funding in the Disaster Relief Fund base account to
provide fire management grants for all eligible recipients? And
with regard to the DRF base, is the budget request enough if we
have a fire and hurricane season similar to last year's?
Mr. Long. So excellent question. One, Mother Nature
dictates how many fire management assistance grants we are
going to have it to put out. And this past year was an
unbelievable year. Two, the DRF as you guys know, is dictated
by the BCA and the formula that is put forward. My concern with
wildfires and what he we saw this year was the volume of
wildfires can deplete the DRF toward the end of the fiscal year
as we head into major hurricane season, which requires us to
come to you for supplemental requests. Now the omnibus bill, as
I understand it, did fix some of the problems that many of
Governors were having problems with when there were fires
occurring on Federal lands, which is not FEMA's responsibility.
Our role is to make sure that a fire doesn't get out of hand
and become a major disaster declaration similar to what
California was impacted by.
And I think that the insurance industry looks at California
as probably the worse wildfire on the globe that we have ever
seen. It is one of the most disturbing events I have ever been
a part of.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. The supplemental appropriations bill for
the hurricanes provided up to $4.9 billion for disaster loans.
These loans would help local and territorial governments with
the costs associated with operating their governments given
that they are facing lost revenues. In addition, $300 million
was provided for making loans to Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands to pay for the non-Federal cost share of
projects. My understanding is that the progress on making these
loans has been disappointingly slow. I understand that, to
date, only $54 million in loans have been made to
municipalities in Puerto Rico. I have three questions here. Can
you update us on the progress of these loans and why the
application process takes so long? And for Puerto Rico, are
FEMA and Treasury working on a long-term estimate for the need
of these loans? And going forward, will FEMA and the Department
of Treasury be able to ensure these loans more rapidly--issue
these loans more rapidly.
Mr. Long. Yes, ma'am. Thank for the question because there
is a lot of confusion around this. Yes, FEMA does administer
the community disaster loan program. And not to belabor this
point, but because of the liquidity issues that we were facing
in the Commonwealth, Treasury proactively and rightfully has
stepped in to help us understand the situation including how
much liquidity Puerto Rico government actually has. It is my
understanding that when Puerto Rico's budget reaches a critical
low point of $800 million, then the loans can begin to be
placed and Puerto Rico can draw down against them. So that was
basically what the deal between Treasury and the Governor was
worked out in Puerto Rico. But I can come back in writing for
specifics.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. I would appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, will we have time for a second round?
Mr. Carter. I don't know yet. We have several----
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. Then I will anticipate we do and
yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mrs. Lowey.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much.
And thank you for your presentation.
Administrator Long, I understand that FEMA and the
Department of Homeland Security are looking to change the way
risk is calculated for metropolitan areas. This could impact
the allocation of grant funding in both the State Homeland
Security Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative.
I am aware that the threat is changing, and we need to take
that into account. My concern is that, rather than relying on a
robust analysis of threat, vulnerability and consequences, the
risk analysis will be tweaked to fit what is only a perception
of the evolving threat. That would defeat the purpose of having
a rigorous risk methodology at all.
So has any independent third party, outside of FEMA or
Department of Homeland Security, looked at the proposed changes
to the risk methodology? And do you think it might be valuable
to have an independent review from the GAO or some other source
of expertise before you change the method for calculating risk?
Mr. Long. Sure, and, ma'am, I really appreciate the
question as well because I don't want FEMA doing anything in a
vacuum that becomes detrimental to anybody. I am a believer in
doubling down on communication. When it comes to third-party
review, we typically rely on reaching out to the National
Emergency Management Association and the International
Association of Emergency Managers. I don't have a problem with
engaging GAO because we want to do this right.
The problem with the grant system is that I don't think the
Federal Government has ever done a good job of measuring return
on investment and I don't believe that the old risk formula was
actually a formula at all. And so we have to be able to build a
defensible formula that allows numerous communities access to
funding to help them kick-start recovery.
When it comes to cost share and grants, I don't believe
that it is FEMA's place to fully supplement a program through
its cradle-to-grave lifecycle. I believe that State and local
governments need to have skin in the game. And I believe that
these programs should be designed to kick-start initiatives and
help communities to graduate their budgets to be able to
continue going down the road of a robust program in the future.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, I think that is an issue that is really
critical that we work together on.
Mr. Long. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Lowey. I understand your point of view. And in some
instances, I would agree; and some, I probably would not.
I just want to mention one other program, the nonprofit
security grants in the State Homeland Security Grant Program.
When Secretary Nielsen testified before this subcommittee, I
asked her about a new grant program I fought to include in the
most recent omnibus. Funding to nonprofits located outside of
areas designated for the Urban Areas Security Initiative really
help those organizations improve security at a time when hate
groups are on the rise across the country in communications
large and small.
According to recent reports by the Southern Poverty Law
Center and the ADL, neo-Nazi groups grew by more than 20
percent in the past year. Anti-Semitic incidents rose by more
than 90 percent in New York in 2017 alone. And that is why I
was so pleased to hear Secretary Nielsen state her intention to
focus DHS' efforts on hate groups widely, including white
supremacy groups. This $10 million in funding will really help
organizations like some of those in my district proactively
combat the changing face of hate, threat, and violence.
Can you tell us when you expect the grant notice to be
released? And when do you think the funding will go out?
Mr. Long. I don't have an answer on the timing. We will
definitely follow back up with you. But I would agree that this
money, the nongovernmental organizations that are active in
disasters, are incredibly important. They are one the most
important pillars in the whole community, and we depend on
them. We specifically depend on them to do things that we are
bound by regulation that keep us from being nimble in some
cases. So we look forward to putting this money to work, and we
will get back to you on the timeframes.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank you for your presentation. You seem so
well informed, and we are very honored to have a person of your
caliber take on this responsibility. The chances--the
challenges are just incredible. And I know we discussed Puerto
Rico, so I won't bring that up today. But I hope you really
stay on it because the tragedy was overwhelming. When you are
up in that helicopter and you see all the homes without roofs
and the electric grid and the water and the food and the jobs.
So thank you for your leadership, and I hope you really stay on
it. And don't forget St. John's as well.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Administrator Brock, we appreciate you and your
service. And please give our best to everybody that is under
you. I know that they have a very challenging environment to
work with, as you do you, lots of challenges. I am very happy
to hear some of your comments about streamlining the agency and
also I do want to touch on Puerto Rico just briefly. I was just
down there last weekend in Orocovis and understanding that, as
we talked about just a little earlier, about deterred
maintenance and some issues with Puerto Rico themselves have
had that were not prepared, if you will. But, obviously, we
still have to go down there and help out to make sure that we
are doing everything we can to make them more resilient and
have a more robust system.
So one of questions that I have: I was speaking with the
mayor down there in Orocovis, and he was--it is my
understanding that the municipalities will spend their money,
of course, to fix infrastructure and then get reimbursed.
However, they don't have a lot of money, right? So they sort of
then run out, and it is not fixed or finished, and we have
another upcoming hurricane season. I am curious: What is
happening to make things more efficient? Is there a way to do
so to make sure the infrastructure is fixed before the next
hurricane season?
Mr. Long. So, Congressman, great question. Just be honest,
there is no way we fix the infrastructure before the next
hurricane season. I can tell you that we are proactive when it
comes to the money management and kick-starting the projects
and making sure that project worksheets are being estimated and
the work being done. We are embedding staff with the 78 mayors.
We have embedded staff a long time ago to be able to work with
them directly to navigate.
But we are in the train-the-trainer process as well, as I
said earlier, with the 1,500 local hires, or approximately
1,500 local hires, that we have done. And that is my army going
out and basically helping these jurisdictions navigate.
When it comes to the infrastructure, we have to remember,
for example, a lot of the power grid wasn't functioning before
the storm. You guys gave me the authorities to fix that. We are
putting temporary roadway systems in until roads can be
rebuilt. So we just have a long way to go. We are going to be
there for years.
Now what we are doing to get ready for hurricane season: We
are rewriting emergency operation plans for all 78
jurisdictions. We are also rewriting plans for the
Commonwealth. On June 14, all of our efforts to write the
plans, train upon the plans, is going to be exercised on June
14 with a full-scale exercise. I am exponentially increasing
the amount of food, water, and supplies that we have on the
island. And then we are going to run through plans of
distribution for commodities, and the commodities that we were
allowed during the exercise, we are going to allow the 78
municipalities to keep the commodities so they can build their
own levels of preparedness on a daily basis.
Mr. Taylor. One quick thing on the efficiency of
reimbursements for the locality so they get money back to be
able to do what they need to do locally. Is that being looked
at I guess?
Mr. Long. Yeah.
Mr. Taylor. To make sure they get reimbursed faster.
Mr. Long. Right. And in some cases, we may be entering into
what are call expedited processes to be able to get funding to
them if there is liquidity issues or the lack of funding. We
did that in Texas. We did it in numerous locations across the
country, but I would be happy to respond to you in writing on
how we are actually managing the money processes at the local
level.
Mr. Taylor. One quick question, is FEMA looking at new
technologies to help with disaster relief to get things,
products faster? For example, you mentioned housing, things
like 3D printing housing and things like that?
Mr. Long. Excellent question. So, under the third goal of
reduce the complexity of FEMA, there is $124.6 million ask in
the fiscal year 2019 budget for specifically critical
infrastructure and analytics investment because we have got to
do a better job of understanding the interdependencies with our
own agency but how we interact with the 16 critical
infrastructure sectors to make sure that we are making the
right decisions and putting money down in the best way we can.
Mr. Taylor. I appreciate it. One more last thing, under the
administration, politically there has been some hits, of
course, about reducing programs that have been helping with
things like sea level rise. So, in coastal Virginia, Hampton
Roads, that is an issue. Regardless of what you think
politically how it gets there, we have soundings, and so there
is sea level rise. So, in terms of resilience and helping
communities, is that something--let me also say there are a lot
of programs in the government that need to go away that are
well-intended but may not work well. In your mention of a
culture of preparedness, are we also working with resiliency in
areas like Miami and Hampton Roads and Louisiana for sea level
rise?
Mr. Long. Sure, so I had a conversation the other day with
a very talented forecaster from NOAA by the name of Chris
Landsea, and we were discussing that the ocean seems to be
rising 1 inch every 10 years. Obviously, we have to start
accounting for that. And our strategic plan embodies this. So
that is why I am asking for predisaster mitigation, a real
mechanism to do predisaster mitigation upfront that we are not
having to negotiate or it doesn't get zeroed out every year by
every President that goes forward or whatever, that there is a
mechanism to help communities start to elevate roadway systems
and infrastructure in anticipation of sea level rise.
The other thing is that FEMA can't stop sea level rise;
that would be the equivalent of us saying we are going to stop
plate tectonics as well and halt all the earthquakes. What we
can do is we can ready the Nation for catastrophic disasters as
well. We anticipate that over 30 percent of the flooding that
we see across the country is because of the built environment,
the newly built environment and the way we are expanding
without proper land-use planning and building code.
So there are a multitude of things that we have got to
start putting forward. And I believe disaster resilience is in
the hands of the State and local governments to pass those
land-use planning laws and building codes. My agency gets to
deal with the consequences or the lack thereof.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Administrator Brock, I appreciate
it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Administrator Long. Happy to see you back here at
the subcommittee to congratulate you on your good work and also
acknowledge a fellow North Carolinian. I hope you still claim
that.
Mr. Long. Heading there today. Maybe I can ride with you.
Mr. Price. All right. Maybe so.
Well, speaking of that, I have only one shot here, but I do
want to ask a couple of questions, and hopefully we can deal
with both of them because they have to do with part of your
broader support system: the national service volunteers who are
playing an increasing role in disaster relief and recovery, and
then the work at the center at UNC Chapel Hill, the Coastal
Resilience Center, which I understand you are going to be
addressing on Monday, which we are very glad to know.
Mr. Long. Yes.
Mr. Price. Both of these are problematic in the President's
budget, which is a nice word for being zeroed out so that is
why I bring them up. And I want to ask you about the value of
these aspects of your support system.
First, national service. You know very well that all hands
on deck are required as a North Carolinian and now in your
national role. Volunteers are often a crucial part of the
response and recovery. We did form a new national service unit,
the FEMA Corps, in 2012. I understand that something like 4,000
national service volunteers were involved in 2017 alone in
relief and recovery efforts. They act as force multipliers. I
am going to ask you actually to describe what they do. What do
these volunteers do to extend the reach of emergency relief and
help ensure the long-term recovery of communities? Why on Earth
would the administration zero out national service? Are there
any other barriers that exist to volunteers that Congress
should address? But I am co-chair of the National Service
Caucus. I have seen this firsthand in North Carolina, and so I
am baffled by the budget, but I am also, of course, encouraged
by the support that they have increasingly--volunteers have
increasingly offered in our national recovery capacity.
Mr. Long. Sure. Obviously, taking this job, I became
Administrator in a very tough budget environment. And,
unfortunately, cuts have to be made here and there. And I have
got multiple training facilities. Like when it comes to
universities, I would love to be able to fund a ton of
programs, but I also have EMI; I also have the Center for
Domestic Preparedness, which are very expensive institutions
dedicated to training. I need to concentrate somewhat on my own
shop within FEMA.
And then, when it comes to FEMA Corps, FEMA Corps is a
great program. The bottom line is that it provides a jumping on
point for people to get involved in emergency management. And
we make a concerted effort to hire those who have gone through
FEMA Corps into the disaster corps positions or PFT positions
as they come available where we can. We try to do that. But,
Congressman, tough calls have to be made. It is not just
providing money to State and local governments. I think 2017
should be a reflection point for State legislatures and local
elected officials to reevaluate how much their staffing and
funding their emergency management programs. I cannot continue
to supplant them in their entirety.
And I will go back to my experience as director of Alabama
Emergency Management Agency. My general fund budget was
somewhere between $5 million and $7 million to run a State
emergency management agency. During the height of the 2017
season this year, FEMA was spending that in a matter of an
hour. So I am spending $300 million a day at the Federal
Government level, and literally, that is a general fund budget
of a State agency is spent in less than 2 hours. There is too
much of a gap.
And I am also trying to combat the fact that there is a
reduction in grants, which makes up most of the budget cuts, by
introducing what we call FEMA integration teams. I am ready to
take the staff that I have out of my regional offices and out
of headquarters and move them into the State agencies which we
are embarking on this week. We are beginning to phase this out
to where we are putting full-time staff in State agencies to be
a part of the discussion every day but to also to help them
overcome the planning gaps that they may have when it comes to
staffing as well.
So it is not just funding. It is getting my people out, but
also, as I said earlier, the greatest thing that Congress can
do to help the States is increase the management costs from
3.34 percent to 12 percent. And we can use disaster relief
funding to help them augment their staff and capabilities. We
can't just singularly look at grants. What are the multiple
tools in the tool box that we can collectively provide to
States? And that is the way I approach this job.
Mr. Price. Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired, so I
am going to ask the Administrator to submit for the record a
direct answer to my question about the role of national service
volunteers in 2017 and otherwise and also to answer the
question I was going to ask had there been sufficient time
about the role of the Coastal Resilience Center.
Mr. Carter. I will yield you that time.
Mr. Long. OK.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Let me just ask directly about that,
if you have--submit whatever you want to about the national
service.
Mr. Long. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price. You really didn't address that.
And then this Coastal Resilience Center, as I said, you are
going to be there on Monday. I am sure you will be thanking
them for what they have done. It is my understanding their
storm surge modeling played a large role in FEMA and the Coast
Guard's decisions about where to place people and assets during
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. I wonder if you could elaborate on
that. And any of this, of course, you could elaborate for the
record. Tell us more about the importance of the center's work,
and what are your thoughts about eliminating all of the funding
for this?
Mr. Long. So Gavin Smith, who runs the program, is a good
friend of mine. He is a very smart mitigation-minded subject-
matter expert. The bottom line is it boils down to, here again,
it is a tough budget environment. Should FEMA be funding
universities? And how many of these programs should we fund
nationwide? Or do I need to concentrate on working with our
partners? NOAA also does storm surge modeling that we depend
on.
Mr. Price. If that is the case, let me--my time is
limited--if that is the case, if this is duplicative, if the
work of the Coastal Resilience Center really is not needed,
then you need to document that.
Mr. Long. I am not saying it is not needed. I am just
saying, for me, I can't fund it all.
Mr. Price. Is it redundant?
Mr. Long. I don't know enough about the program.
Mr. Price. Well, I think somebody should look at this. I
mean, this is siloed. It looks to me like it is siloed, and you
are talking about budgets that aren't directly in your purview,
but it is certainly budgets you should care about. And it seems
to me, if you care about it, if it is important to your work,
you should say so. We need some assurance that, within the
administration, these conversations are going on and that
functions that are critical to something as important as the
work of FEMA, that those are highlighted and that, if there is
something that we can safely eliminate, then we need to have
the rationale for it.
Mr. Long. Right. I am not at a point to tell you what
should be eliminated against at this point. I am going there to
learn, to be honest. And I appreciate everybody that is trying
to put forward better information to FEMA, and we have to be
able to utilize it. But, here again, I only have so much
funding, and I have to make hard decisions, and we have to make
hard decisions. So I would be happy to respond to you in
writing once I learn more about the Coastal Resilience Center,
I would be happy to respond in writing about what we found.
Mr. Price. Good. I will appreciate that. And also a
response in terms of more specifics about the national service
input.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Mr. Price. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. You are welcome, Mr. Price.
Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Brock, thank you for being here today. I have known
several FEMA Administrators, and you seem to be one of the best
ones that I have heard explain your agency, so thank you for
your honest and clear answers.
Real quick, I am from Gulfport, Mississippi, Mississippi's
Fourth Congressional District. One thing you can relate to that
is Hurricane Katrina. We were ground zero, and we took it right
on the chin. And it took almost a decade for us to be
comfortable in our recovery. The one thing the Gulf Coast, and
not just in Mississippi but coastal areas, any place that lives
on or near the water, which is practically the majority of the
population in America, relies on insurance, the NFIP program.
In Mississippi alone, it is 64,000 NFIP policies.
Mr. Long. Right.
Mr. Palazzo. In 2013, Congress tried to improve the NFIP
program only to basically cause a lot of unforeseen problems,
and with that was the drastic rate increases on homeowners who,
at no fault of their own, were in NFIP program because it was a
government program, and it was the only insurance available.
Overnight, they were going to see their rates go up double,
triple, quadruple, and that was a big concern. And Congress
acted swiftly. I think the term was ``unintended consequences''
is what many of us used on the floor. The bill was tied to some
other things, like the RESTORE Act, which was the delivery of
the penalties from the BP oil spill, and a 2-year surface
transportation extension. And so the fact that we were going to
find a longer term solution to NFIP, the reauthorization,
because prior to, there were 16 or more short-term
reauthorizations, and, obviously, those reauthorizations and
the fear of it expiring, and you can't get a mortgage if you
are required to have flood insurance. So it was affecting
homeownership, home building, economic development, just
uncertainty and instability of the market.
Now guess what? Fast forward, you know, the House has
passed a bill which is impassable. It has some good reforms.
There is no way it will ever pass the Senate because it is
going to increase rates on homeowners, and it is going to
cause, again, market disruption. But, you know, we are for
moving as much of this to the private sector as possible, but
there is not a private sector market right now in many areas.
And so I guess the thing is, can you kind of tell me, has
the fact that we haven't reauthorized the program--it looks
like we are constantly searching for must-pass legislation to
attach even the short-term reauthorization to--is that having
any effect on your agency right now?
Mr. Long. Well, thanks to Congress, those supplementals
helped us in debt forgiveness right off the bat. Every time we
have a massive event, it gets to a point where FEMA can't even
pay the interest bill anymore on the NFIP program. And so we
need to make the NFIP program financially solvent. I don't have
all the answers on that, but sometimes I think we may be
attacking it in the wrong manner.
For example, any house the United States can flood. Why are
we solely focused on these flood zones? And what we learned
from Harvey is thousands of homes can flood outside of those
zones that were not depicted in there, particularly if street
drains are not well maintained or the built environment changes
the flood zone quicker than the mapping changes. And so every
house can flood.
Until there is a legislative fix, I am working and my
mitigation guys are working with the private industry through
reinsurance, and I believe that we have offset some of that
cost and saved taxpayers over $700 million most recently with
getting them to back us up through reinsurance.
The thing about NFIP and what runs through my mind, and we
would have to talk to the private sector to start dialogue, but
why is flood insurance not connected to every insurance policy
in America? Why is there not an all-hazards insurance policy
every time you buy a house, and so you reduce the cost? You
spread it out, and it becomes more affordable. I don't know why
we have to have this a la carte system of you have got to have
fire insurance that you can let lapse if you paid off your
House; you can choose or not to choose to buy NFIP flood
insurance if you are outside a special flood hazard zone. Why
are we not working with the private industry on a more
innovative solution of saying, can we get to an all-hazards-
based insurance package for a homeowner?
Mr. Palazzo. All-hazards, sounds good to me.
I want to be very sensitive with my time. It is a fly-out
day. Thank you, Mr. Brock.
I have several questions related to mapping on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast compared to my neighbors in Louisiana
and Alabama, and I will submit those for the record.
Mr. Long. Thank you. All right.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Thanks for being here. We
have a lot of people who we ask questions, but it seems to me
you are pretty well respected, and it is based on your actions.
You know, a good manager is only as good as his team too, so I
am sure you have a good team.
You know, you are one of the most important agencies, I
think, in the government because you protect the American
people and our critical infrastructure from a host of evolving
threats. It is one of the only agencies which the public hopes
they never have to deal with. When you see a FEMA van or tent,
you know something tough or terrible has happened. However,
your lifetime, facing tragedy--and, in fact, we basically saw
that severe tragedy. As you said, last year was probably the
worst year you think FEMA has had. Is that correct?
Mr. Long. I would argue yes.
Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. During this time, FEMA--I think you
delivered 138 million meals, 194 million liters of water, and
1,310 generators to power critical facilities supporting
survivors impacted by the four major hurricanes. And while
improvements can always be made, I think your agency should be
impressed with this good work.
Now, I want to just focus on one issue today, and that is
port security grants.
Mr. Long. OK.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I represent the Port of Baltimore, and I
have been involved in a lot of port security issues and reports
on that issue. I am discouraged by the administration's
deficient funding request for the Port Security Grant Program.
This program was included in the original Department of
Homeland Security authorization. And in my eyes, this is clear
evidence that Congress recognized the urgent need to secure our
ports.
Each year, America's ports generate 4.6 trillion in revenue
and employ 23 million people throughout the country. And now,
with the expansion of the Panama Canal, we can only expect to
see even more of an increase in that area.
The bottom line is that the economic impact of sea ports
cannot be understated. According to the Brookings Center for
the 21st Century security and intelligence, it would take a
small attack on our ports to grind U.S. commerce to a halt
within days. Thus, the need for port security cannot be
understated.
For this reason, we need to protect our maritime
infrastructure. The Port Security Grant Program assists both
large and small ports with chemical, biological, nuclear, and
explosive detection. And funding can also go towards bolstering
cybersecurity capabilities and implementing transportation
worker identification credential card systems.
My question is--I have three. First, in your opinion, do
you believe that the Port Security Grant Program has been a
valuable tool in combatting terrorism? To me, a cut to this
program implies that our ports have shored up all of their
vulnerabilities. I assume you don't believe that is the case.
And, three, do you believe our ports are being built for
resilience against rising sea levels and severe storms which
are increasing in intensity and frequency?
Mr. Long. Right.
So, when it comes to port security, it is my understanding
that we spent quite a bit of money through grants to build a
baseline capability. And what we don't do a good job of in the
Federal Government when it comes to the return on investment
is, what point do we build that baseline and have a handoff to
the port authorities and to the State and the local
governments, and should grants start to graduate and reduce
overtime as we build a baseline capability? Or do we just keep
continuing to grow this budget and I become the person that
supplements these grants in entirety. And then what happens to
tomorrow, as the threat changes, I have got to find new money
to address this problem or that problem. And I think that this
is one of those grants where we build a tremendous capability.
But where is the handoff to? You know, and I am fairly asking
the question. Where is the handoff to the port authorities, to
the State and local governments? And as well as the private
sector that uses those ports as well?
Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, in my opinion, it is based on
which port, the management of the different ports. But that is
why, in the beginning, I talked about how important port are.
Trillions of dollars, I mean, just a shutdown, when we had, I
think, a strike at the port in California. I mean, this is a
tremendous industry with a lot of vulnerability, a lot of drugs
coming in.
We had, yesterday, we talked about how we--I don't think
any port has the manpower to deal with the drugs that are
coming in, especially Fentanyl. So I would suggest that you
look at it, and you need to manage where the money is going.
But I think the Federal Government has to step in when it
relates to ports.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator Long, we really appreciate your work,
especially appreciate your clearly earnest and sincere desire
to get the money out the door as soon as you can, to front-load
the funding for disaster victims, to put it in the hands of
property owners who are going to take the best possible care of
their own property. Get it out in the hands of Governors and
local authorities is the right way to do it.
I am convinced that your approach and your attitude lies at
the heart of the reason that Donald Trump was elected President
because people feel the government is so badly broken that they
elected this guy from outside of the entire process as a
businessman to just get 'er done, get things fixed and done.
They just want action and decisive action.
And I would encourage you, as someone who served--I started
in the Texas house, and I served here in Congress and know that
if a law is maybe a little ambiguous or seems to leave you an
opening, just do it. I mean, get to yes. I have heard you say
that before. We had a very good meeting. Governor Abbott and I
came in to see you. And I know that you have instructed your
staff on repeated occasions: Don't tell you the reasons you
can't do something; tell you the reasons you can do it. And I
encourage you to just be bold and assertive and to get to yes.
And if the law looks like it is ambiguous or gives you an
opening, just do it.
You have been terrific when it comes to requests that we,
as Texans, have submitted to you. When I have asked you to
extend hotel stays for disaster victims, you have done so;
increase the Federal share for debris removal, you have done
so; concur that extreme circumstances existed so contracting
could be expedited, you did so.
But there are a couple other really small fixes that you
have got authority right now to do that would make a dramatic
difference for homeowners who--thousands of whom are living on
the second floor of their homes in my district with all the
sheetrock torn out on the first floor. And they have over
their--because there have been times they were denied rental
assistance. And if you go to the FEMA website and log on--to
the fema.gov website and ask what specific items are covered by
housing assistance, it tells you that this housing assistance
includes reimbursement for short-term hotel expenses, money to
rent a place to live for up to 18 months while your home is
being repaired. And an immediate question a homeowner has,
Administrator, is, does my income matter?
Well, the law says, no, it doesn't matter. And, in fact,
your website says that. Question: Does my income need to be
under a certain dollar amount to qualify? Answer: No. FEMA's
housing assistance program is available regardless of income to
anybody who suffered damage or losses.
But that is not the way the bureaucrats and FEMA are
administering the program. They are denying rental assistance
to thousands of my constituents who have sunk all their money
in their home. They are not wealthy. They have got kids in
college, a mortgage that they are still paying on a home that
is flooded out, and having to pay rent in a lot of cases to
stay in the school district, and a lot of expenses, and they
are being denied rental assistance. But you have got the
authority, literally, to just change that and comply with what
is on your website.
Would you please do that? And how quickly can you could
that?
Mr. Long. So, Congressman, as we spoke the other day----
Mr. Culberson. I have been on you about this.
Mr. Long. No, no, no. And I appreciate it because I wasn't
aware of the issue until you raised it. And so, you known, the
bottom line is, is it spawned very deliberate conversations.
And we are actually going to be entering into the rulemaking
process to look at a whole host of, why do we put these
ramifications on assistance to begin with, right?
Mr. Culberson. But you could do this.
Mr. Long. Some of it, yeah.
Mr. Culberson. Don't get lawyers arguing with each other;
just do it. Just get 'er done. That is what this election was
about. The American people voted to get 'er done, right?
Please.
Mr. Long. And I will continue to work with you. And I
appreciate you raising the issue.
As you know, I am always in a rock and a hard place when it
comes to being deliberate and understanding. That policy that
was put into place, as a result of the 2001 terrorism events in
New York. And I am trying to understand why, and I am trying to
understand what the ramifications are by moving it. But we are
trying to move it as quickly as we can. And I will stay in
contact with you.
Mr. Culberson. Now, you are a bold, decisive person. I can
tell you are letting the lawyers discourage you and slow you
up. Don't do that. It is clear as a bell. Just go for it.
This Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is another one that I
am concerned about. As I understand it, the State of Texas will
receive 1.1 billion in FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program
funding this year. But as you know, this funding is awarded to
the States on a formula basis after a presidentially declared
disaster impacts an area.
Administrator Long, could you describe, please, how these
programs--what types of projects these funds can be used for
and how quickly this money will flow to the State of Texas? And
what role does FEMA play in approving the projects recommended
by the States? And what kind of projects have been proposed so
far? And what have we done to speed it up?
Mr. Long. I don't know what they proposed so far. But the
HMGP postdisaster mitigation program is based on a percentage
of public assistance dollars, I will get you the exact formula.
I think it is like 15 percent of the public assistance dollars
that we put forward in a disaster becomes available in
postdisaster mitigation. The cost share on that is set by the
Stafford Act at 75/25. So I don't have any authority that I am
aware to be able to waive that 25 percent.
But, going back to States' rights, the Governor is in
control of that response and recovery. And so what my job is,
is to make sure that we are helping Govenor Abbott to meet his
mitigation recovery goals.
Mr. Culberson. That is what we want to hear, because Texas
can move a lot more quickly.
And, Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me, since we just got
this one round and we got so many folks out there hurting, can
I ask very quickly about the DALHR Program?
Thank you, sir.
The Direct Assistance for Limited Home Repair Program is
administered by the General Land Office in unincorporated areas
in the city of Houston inside the city limits. And I have heard
from constituents there has been a lot of confusion and delay
regarding this DALHR Program. And I understand the GLO plans to
end the program--the General Land Office--to end the program
for the unincorporated parts of the city of Houston in Harris
County and that the city of Houston only recently got underway
with administration of the program within the city limits. It
has been really spotty.
Are you aware--what is the current status of the program?
And what can you do to help, once again, take a blow torch to
whatever----
Mr. Long [continuing]. Right.
So, here again, what would fix this problem is granting
authority on housing. If you can give me the granting authority
to provide funding to a Governor, down through a Governor, to
allow that Governor to control housing and do housing way he or
she would like to, a Governor will out-manage us. They will do
it more efficiently.
The problem with the inter-service government agreement,
and the reason we went this way is I don't have enough
manufactured homes to handle the flooding in Houston. I mean,
the population of Harris County alone is more than Puerto Rico.
Mr. Culberson. Sure. Well, as the judge said, there are
186,000 homes being remodeled.
Mr. Long. Right.
And so we had to put numerous options on the table. And I
put travel trailers back on the table that--they were taken off
the table for some reason, because I knew that there was going
to be a shortage in housing.
We tried to be innovative in this inter-service
governmental agreement, and Governor Abbott boldly and
courageously stepped up to lead it. He has one of the only
Governors that has ever done this. And I commend him for it.
But the problem is that the mechanism is not right. And I
will admit it now: I think it would be better for the Governor
to purchase housing or provide funding to the homeowner then
under my bulky code of Federal regulations.
Mr. Culberson. Going through the State.
And I thank the chairman for the extra time. It is
appropriate as we, Mr. Chairman, very quickly celebrate Thomas
Jefferson's 275th birthday today, that we remember that the
Founders intended, and Mr. Jefferson in particular, that the
States administer things that affected only the States. And
Jefferson liked to say regularity that if we would just follow
the Constitution and apply that standard to any problem, no
matter how complicated, he said the Gordian knot will always
untie itself.
So you are on the right track. Governor Abbott. Let Texans
run Texans. We will take care of it.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mr. Culbertson. Thank you.
Thank you, Judge.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Roybal-Allard would like to have another
round. And so there is just three of us left, so we are going
to have another round.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK.
Mr. Carter. I am going to start off.
Once again, a program it looks like you are about to
eliminate, which I have a lot of interest in, the National
Domestic Preparedness Consortium. My State is a State with a
lot of big cities, but it is a great big place. And it has got
more little towns than we got big cities. And the training
center at Texas A&M University trains our first responders.
Literally every small town in Texas is blessed by that being
able to train.
To say that we no longer are going to have that available
is to say that two-thirds of my State is going to have both
medical and firefighting at a minimal level. And I don't
understand--I would like you to explain why that is necessary.
Now, if it is because it is administered by a university--
and, you know, I can understand prejudice against big
universities. Not unlike big government, they don't look at
where the digits are as desperately as they should. But that is
a management issue if that is the case.
But to cut off all funding to things like what we are doing
in Texas is to cut off fire protection and EMS protection to
two-thirds of our State. Not that we won't have it, but they
just won't have it effective.
Now, I have got Fort Hood in my district. We got the best
training ranges in the entire United States Army at Fort Hood
with the exception of the National Training Center. OK? That is
where you learn the best. You train, and we train--we are great
trainers. We have got great soldiers, and they are well
trained. But they all go through the National Training Center
before they go to war, if it is available to us in the war
situation. Because, therefore, you save lives, you are more
effective, you win battles. That is what this consortium is
doing for the small towns and midsize towns of my State and of
every State in this Union.
If it is the fact that universities are attached to it,
then let's figure out a way to make it better. But explain to
me why basically you are saying--I know I have heard we got to
make bad cuts and all that stuff. But I will tell you, you will
harm--but in my district, it is basically suburban, but you are
still going to harm about 25 towns in my district.
Mr. Long. Yeah. And by no means do we want to harm anybody.
I am just in a rock and a hard place when it comes to where I
can prioritize our funding in a tough environment.
When it comes to Texas A&M and the Texas system, look, it
is a phenomenal system. We are working with them. If I remember
correctly, we actually hired their engineering students to do
home inspections. We had to perform over 2.4 million home
inspections this year, which is, one, we have got to get the
better technology and stop doing the manual process to begin
with. But we are trying to find ways to engage universities.
And universities do great work. I am in a rock and hard place
when it comes to what we can fund and what we can't.
I would love to be able to fund them all, but it is just
not reality.
Mr. Carter. Well, that seems to be your answer. I am all
for going in and doing surgery on the Federal Government. I
think it is a great idea.
Mr. Long. I would be happy to work with you, sir.
Mr. Carter. But I don't understand how I explain to some
little town that has one fire truck--and the only people they
get to train them is: Go to A&M. And I have graduated kids from
high school. I taught Sunday school for 25 years. I have got at
least five firefighters that I know of that I have taught. And
nirvana for a firefighter in a small town is to go to A&M to
that training center, because they come back with confidence.
They know how to fight the chemical fires. They know how to
fight vehicle fires. They don't just know how to squirt water
on a grass fire.
Mr. Long. Right.
Mr. Carter. And they are better in every State for the
people that live in their town for going there. And all I say
is, if it is wasteful, let's figure out a way to not be as
wasteful. If you need a share from the State, let's do a
cooperative with the States or the locals, or whatever it
needs. Add a fee, whatever it needs. But to kill it is pretty
disastrous.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Administrator Long, as you can imagine,
I get a lot of questions about Puerto Rico and what is
happening in Puerto Rico. So my last two questions are related
to Puerto Rico.
Six months after Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the island
still has a long way to go, as we have discussed. According to
press reports, FEMA has received claims for assistance to
repair over 1 million homes on the island, but fewer than 40
percent of those have been paid. And one reason for this delay
is apparently a difficulty for residents to prove they own
their homes. And it has been reported that some transactions
are based on verbal agreements and handshakes and never
officially recorded. Other survivors may have lost official
documents during the storm. FEMA needs to find a way and a
long-term solution, or some residents may never be able to
return home.
So what is the current plan to help these homeowners? Do
you need additional authority from Congress to help solve this
problem? And, finally, will you commit--if you need help from
us, will you commit to providing us with technical assistance
on what authority is needed to fix the problem including the
authority to reimburse individuals who have made repairs at
their own expense?
Mr. Long. Excellent question, and you hit the nail on the
head. This is a unique situation about home ownership that the
agency has never run into before. And I don't know if it is a
legislative fix or a policy fix. But what the concerning factor
is, is that, you know, to protect the taxpaying dollars, I have
to make sure that if I am providing funding to fix a house,
that it actually gets done.
And it is not that we don't trust anybody to do that. We
are a very trusting organization. But if I do it and it turns
into waste, fraud, and abuse, then I will be called back before
this committee again saying that I leaned too far forward.
So let me get back to you on whether or not it is a
legislative fix, because I may need, once again, to ask you for
special authority similar to looking the other way on the
deferred maintenance piece, because we don't fix things that
were not well maintained typically in disasters--or I am called
before OIG again, and you are asking questions of why I am
doing that.
So let me get back to you on whether or not it is a special
authority or not.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. And then my final question is, and I
know that you have said that conditions on the island make
recovery very difficult, which, again, we have talked about.
A recent AP news story reported that, in the village of
Corozal, Puerto Rico--detailed their struggles with getting
running water. And speaking about this one area of the town, a
resident said: Practically no one has shown up here.
The story is dated March 16, 2018, and reports that they
still didn't have running water or electricity and had not
received the generator that they had requested.
I had my staff share the article with your staff so that
the subcommittee can get more detail about what is going on
there and to have a better understanding of an area where the
recovery seems to be struggling.
Can you share what you found out? Are there any areas where
we can be helpful? And is Corozal a good example of other areas
in Puerto Rico that are also struggling to recover?
Mr. Long. So excellent question too, and there is a lot of
misunderstanding on the water. So PRASA, a majority of the
PRASA system it services, an overwhelming number of the
population in Puerto Rico is back up and running. Some of it is
running on emergency power.
I have not read the article, but what I would probably
assume is if it is a private well that is not operational or is
no longer useable, we first have to understand whether or not
you can actually put a generator on that well to pump the water
out. And if so, what type of generator?
And if I remember correctly, we are working a mission
assigned to EPA to be able to go in and do that. And then, if
not, we are still mobilizing water to communities like that
through water trucks or buffalos or bottled water. And we are
working with NGOs to make sure they are getting out. But we can
follow up on any specific area. I would be happy to do that
and, you know, make sure that we are not leaving any stones
unturned.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Long. Yeah.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator Long, this rental assistance thing is really
a problem. It just--it really bothers me a lot, because we have
got people that has now been--it is on the brink of being 8
months since the storm made landfall. And the Stafford Act says
you can't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national
origin, creed, or income.
Your rule online says you will not discriminate against
people on the basis of income. And this is really a desperate
problem for people. The law is clear. Your rule is clear. There
is no reason for there to be any delay with this. You have got
the authority. I know your heart is in the right place. I
guarantee it is lawyers arguing with each other that has got
you worried. And I am a pretty good lawyer myself, as the judge
will tell you. The other thing is I am relentless. I don't turn
loose once I get ahold of something, do I, Judge?
Mr. Carter. No, you don't.
Mr. Culberson. I am not turning loose on this. You have got
the authority to do this. And I tell you: I am going to use
every tool that this committee has got to help the lawyers--not
you; it is the lawyers underneath you that are the problem.
I figured out a way to get to the Department of Justice to
change a sanctuary city policy without ever passing a bill,
with no language in my CJS bill, just using good common sense,
good lawyering, and existing law.
I am telling you: The law supports you on this. I am really
counting on you to get this done. I am not turning loose of it.
You can do this immediately. Just go tell those lawyers: Get
out of the way. Get 'er done.
Mr. Long. OK.
Mr. Culberson. I am coming. Culberson is after us.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mr. Culberson. I really appreciate that. That is very
important. These people are really hurting.
Mr. Long. I understand.
Mr. Culberson. That is something you can do right away to
help them. I deeply appreciate it.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mr. Culberson. You could also--one other thing you have got
authority to do is let people use the mitigation grants. When a
property is purchased, the law is ambiguous. I believe it gives
you a little daylight where you could give the homeowner the
flexibility to use that grant to lift a new structure. Right
now, they are limited to lifting an existing structure, which
makes no sense, because, as you said many times, nobody is
going to take better care of a piece of property than the
property owner.
Mr. Long. Right.
Mr. Culberson. Or no one is going to do a better job than
the Governor. That is the genius of what Mr. Jefferson and the
Founders left us, is to let local authorities and State
authorities handle things and individual Americans handle
things that affected themselves and their own families.
So are you familiar with this, and can you take----
Mr. Long. I am not familiar with the exact issue, but I
will go back to my region 6 staff to make sure I fully
understand it.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you. Because I think this is one you
do have the discretion to let the grant--because today they are
just--a grant, again, is only being used to lift an old
existing structure.
Mr. Long. OK. We will take a look at that.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Long. We appreciate it.
Mr. Culberson. I look forward to working with you and the
chairman to help resolve those rental assistance problems and
others. Anything else you need to get 'er done.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter. We thank you for coming here today. I commend
you for trying to fix a broken system. The issue that it always
effects is when you fix a broken system and you don't mine down
into it to see what the consequences are going to be, and I
think we heard a lot about that today. Don't give up on trying.
But mine down in there and see if there are alternatives.
Mr. Long. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. That is really what we need to look to do.
I am no fan of the Federal Government running everything.
Then when you think about it, there is an X number of States in
the Union that historically have disasters. If all the burden
is all put on those States, those States are going to be
overburdened as we try to make sure that the economy of the
entire Nation functions effectively. For one thing, the Gulf
Coast is where--I would argue 90--but it is probably 80 percent
of all the petroleum we produce in this country is refined.
Therefore, a major sector of our energy economy could be lost
if we didn't do a lot of work down there on the coast. It is
not refined in other places, so, therefore, you got to--that
becomes a Federal nexus, in my opinion. I would just encourage
you to keep trying but think about asking and learning about
the consequences, especially to the little guy.
Mr. Long. Yeah.
Mr. Carter. Because the little guys, they don't have the
resources of the big boys.
Mr. Long. Sure.
Mr. Carter. You got anything further?
All right. Then we will recess, and thank you for being
here.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018.
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
WITNESS
ADMIRAL PAUL F. ZUKUNFT, COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
Mr. Carter. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning, Admiral. Welcome. Thank you for being here this
morning. Today we look forward to your perspective on the Coast
Guard's priorities and requirements.
The Coast Guard's mission is both wide-ranging and unique.
It is a military force that protects us, not only in the waters
of the Continental United States, but also in the Arctic and
Southwest Asia. It is a federal law enforcement agency fighting
transnational crime here and abroad. It is a regulatory agency
ensuring the safety and security of our Nation's ports and
waterways, facilitating over $4 trillion in trade and commerce.
And it is a first responder, saving over 12,000 lives during
the historic hurricane season last year.
The challenges of this diverse mission requires a force
that is robust, agile, and well-equipped. Congress provided
substantial funding for the Coast Guard in the last hurricane
supplemental and in our fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations
bill. The committee is eager to hear from you on how you will
execute these resources and how you intend to sustain these
efforts, as well as your priorities and concerns.
In fiscal year 2018, the Coast Guard added a fifth vessel
to its modernization program, the Waterways Commerce Cutter.
Sustaining five major acquisition programs will be a challenge.
I am especially interested in hearing your plans to continue to
recapitalize the Coast Guard's icebreaker fleet, the inland
waterways cutter, and the long-range reconnaissance aircraft.
The fiscal year 2019 budget addresses many important Coast
Guard requirements. The physical reality is that every agency
must operate in a constrained resource environment. But if you
can match the Coast Guard's consistently excellent performance,
maintaining a quality force, sustaining operations with aging
assets, and recapitalizing for the future, taking care of the--
and taking care of the Coast Guard families. As always, my goal
is to ensure that we support the most critical programs with
funds that are needed for the fiscal year. Your testimony today
will help guide this committee in making some tough decisions.
Admiral, I am not sure--sure everyone is aware, but this is
your last hearing before the subcommittee as commandant of the
Coast Guard. On behalf of my fellow members, I say thank you
for your leadership over these past 4 years. And even more so,
thank you for your 4 decades of service to our country.
Before I turn to the Admiral for his statement, the text of
which will be included in the record, let me recognize our
distinguished member, Ms. Roybal-Allard, for any remarks you
may wish to make.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral
Zukunft, welcome to what your final hearing in front of the
subcommittee as commandant of the Coast Guard. Let me begin by
thanking you for your dedication and service to the Coast Guard
and to our country. I believe you are departing with the legacy
of improving and strengthening our Coast Guard, and leaving our
Nation's Coasties in a better, more sturdy position to continue
their mission.
It would be an understatement to say that lately the Coast
Guard has been busy. As a unique force with both military and
civil authorities, the Coast Guard and its missions touch
nearly every facet of our Nation's expansive maritime domain.
This also includes its role as a critical responder during
natural disasters.
Last year, during our Nation's worst hurricane season,
while still performing all of its statutory missions, the Coast
Guard saved close to 12,000 lives and was hard at work at other
aspects of the disaster response, such as delivering food and
supplies, reopening the ports, and repairing communications.
The Coast Guard's critical set of missions make it
essential that we properly support it. That is why I was
pleased that in the 2018 omnibus we were able to provide
funding above the fiscal year 2017 level, including $1.4
billion above the enacted level for the acquisition,
construction, and improvements account, which funds the
recapitalization of Coast Guard air and marine assets and $294
million above the fiscal year 2017 level for operating
expenses.
With the 2019 request in mind, this hearing will help keep
us informed on how the Coast Guard is operating and what
resources are needed to continue supporting its important
missions.
In closing, I would be remiss if I did not recognize a very
special person who is with us today, Mrs. Fran DeNinno, the
wife of the Admiral. Fran, thank you so much for all you have
done in support of the men and women of the Coast Guard and
their families. Due to your efforts to improve their quality of
life, this subcommittee and the 2018 omnibus increased the
childcare subsidy for Coast Guardsmen stationed in high cost of
living areas.
In many of these locations, childcare costs often far
exceed the current subsidy caps for our servicemembers. Quality
childcare is not just a family issue; it is a readiness and
retention issue. It is an issue we must continue to address,
and I think I can speak for all of my colleagues in expressing
our heartfelt thanks to you for bringing this issue to our
attention.
As the Coast Guard's first lady, your work on behalf of the
men and women of the Coast Guard has been extraordinary, and I
truly wish you and the Admiral all the best as you begin your
next chapter of life.
Admiral, again, thank you for joining us and for your
service to our country, and I look forward to our discussion.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Roybal-Allard, and I join you in
congratulations and telling you that we will miss the whole
family in our Coast Guard. Admiral, we are ready for you to
proceed.
Opening Statement of Admiral Zukunft
Admiral Zukunft. Good morning, Chairman Carter, Ranking
Member Roybal-Allard, and I would be remiss if I did not
recognize Chairman Rogers, you honor us here this morning as
well. And members of this committee, I appreciate the
opportunity to testify today, and ask that my written statement
be entered into the record.
First, let me express my profound thanks to Congress for
your unwavering support and the funds included in the fiscal
year 2018 omnibus, the first meaningful annual appropriation
increase for the Coast Guard since the Budget Control Act was
passed in 2011.
Following a series of devastating hurricanes, the Coast
Guard launched one of the largest responses ever in history,
culminating in the rescue of nearly 12,000 people. This was an
all hands on deck campaign, and it did come at a cost. I thank
Congress, and this committee specifically, for the $835 million
to refurbish, and yes, renew our shore infrastructure that was
pummeled by these devastating hurricanes.
And while so many Americans endured this historic hurricane
season, transnational criminal organizations continued to raise
havoc in the Western Hemisphere. Last year, your Coast Guard's
efforts to protect the United States border far out at sea
netted $7.2 billion worth of cocaine, and we referred 606
smugglers to the Department of Justice, and all 606 of them
were prosecuted here in the United States.
These transnational criminal organizations spawn violent
crime, undermine rule of law, and are attributable to failing
economies, and create the stimulus for illegal migration in
nations like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. At the same
time, our cybersecurity program of record took action to
safeguard cyberspace and secure our maritime critical
infrastructure, ports, waterways, and commerce, that translates
to $4.6 trillion in economic activity each year.
Your Coast Guard continues to be a sound investment. We
earned our fifth consecutive clean financial audit opinion, the
only armed service to do so, and our major acquisition programs
continue to deliver assets that meet performance, cost, and
schedule milestones.
Moving forward to fiscal year 2019, we look to Congress for
continued support of our future fleets, highlighted by funding
for the construction of the second Offshore Patrol Cutter. The
Offshore Patrol Cutter will be the backbone of the Coast Guard
strategy to protect and maintain offshore presence and exert
sovereignty for decades to come.
In the Arctic, we continue to face growing threats to our
national security. The imperative for polar icebreakers goes
well beyond simply breaking ice. It is about exerting U.S.
sovereignty at a time when Russia, and now China, are becoming
increasingly assertive in the polar regions.
I am very pleased with the President's budget that includes
$750 million for polar icebreaker programs. Our request for
proposals were released in March, almost a month earlier than
planned, and it has energized the U.S. industrial base and
keeps us on track for delivery of the first heavy icebreaker in
2023. We are as close as we have ever been, in over 40 years,
to recapitalizing our polar icebreaking fleet, and I thank you
for all you are doing to keep the momentum going for this vital
national asset.
The budget also advances the recapitalization of our aged
fleet of 35 Inland Construction and River Tenders. Some of
these are over 70 years old, yet still in operation today.
Replacing these vessels with a modern but modest fleet of
waterway commerce cutters is a matter of economic and national
security, as these ships are necessary to sustain our Nation's
maritime transportation system.
Going forward, we require 5 percent annualized growth in
our operations and support account, and maintain a minimum of
$2 billion in our acquisition account.
It has been my honor, my privilege, to work alongside each
of you these past 4 years. You have helped your Coast Guard
obtain the resources needed to serve our Nation. With your
continued support, the Coast Guard will always be Semper
Paratus, always ready.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of
this committee, and I welcome your questions.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Admiral. We are on a tight schedule.
We have got a drop-dead time around 12 o'clock, so we have got
to get through with that. So, everybody, watch the clock.
Admiral, let's talk about recapitalization of--the
recapitalization plan. Congress has been very generous in
support of the vessel program. Even so, many of our Coast Guard
assets are still kind of antiques. I am pleased that--to see
that you are--you are requesting a new effort on the issue of
waterways commerce cutter.
I want to talk to you about the design of this cutter and
what your vision is for this cutter for the Coast Guard. Will
it be a single design or a family of cutters designed for
select missions? I think that is the curiosity. And when will
the first ship, in your opinion, be fielded and ready to go?
I would also like to talk about the National Security
Cutter, which is an outstanding ship. And can you tell us how
you will fund the operational cost of the new cutters as we
look down the road towards a 12-cutter--National Security
Cutter fleet, which is, I believe, the recommendation, and how
will you balance these operational costs against the other
mission requirements?
Finally, the HC-130J aircraft, they are part of your long-
range aero program, and you are still calling for eight more,
and none are proposed in this particular budget for 2019--what
would be the impact on--to your modernization plan, if an
additional aircraft was not included in 2019? Lots of
questions.
Admiral Zukunft. I have the answers to them all, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Good.
Admiral Zukunft. So let me first talk about the Waterway
Commerce Cutter. This is a very modest platform. It plies the
inland rivers of the United States, the Ohio, the Mississippi,
the Missouri, and many others. And when you look at our Nation
from outer space, you can be envious of our natural geography.
Rivers that connect to deepwater ports that connect to the
supply chain. And it is these cutters that enable this $4.6
trillion worth of goods.
Many of the inland states don't normally equivocate
themselves with the United States Coast Guard, but if a river
runs though it, rest assured, the Coast Guard is there as well.
We have--I have met with a number of shipyards in our
inland rivers that--that build tugs that can be configured to
be waterway commerce cutters for a very modest cost. With the
appropriation we have, we are already standing up our
acquisition team looking at a parent craft that would meet the
needs of all 35 of these ships. And with the funding going
forward, we could actually have a ship launched within 2 years'
time.
And so I want to get us on this glide slope. The oldest one
of these ships right now is 73 years old, can't even
accommodate--most of these ships cannot accommodate mixed
gender crews, as we have become a more diverse Coast Guard, and
yet they are excluded from the service because they were built
at a time when women were not in our service and going to sea.
And so very optimistic about that, and we are looking at
commercial designs that we can bring into the Coast Guard.
The National Security Cutter, that was a program of record
of eight. We now have 11 of these on budget. The 11th cost less
than the fourth and fifth, so there are economies of scale by
holding steady requirements, keeping a hot product line open,
but on their maiden voyage, these ships literally pay for
themselves in the value of cocaine removed in a single patrol.
On a near monthly basis, we have a National Security Cutter
pulling into San Diego offloading $1 billion worth of cocaine,
to include the people moving this, and very few of these
smugglers make it through their fourth or fifth run before they
are imprisoned in the United States. We are trying to deter
legitimate fishermen from taking up trade in the counter drug
business, and try to deter it, can't do it alone. Today, we
have an armada of Mexican and Colombian ships and aircraft now
supporting us in this endeavor, as well, for the first time
ever in history.
And so, when you start looking at what are the out year
sustainment costs of doing this, this year is the first year
since the Budget Control Act was passed, when our operations
and maintenance account was funded above the Budget Control Act
floor by 4 percent. But in the previous years, it has been
funded below, which adds up to a nearly $1 billion shortfall in
our operations and maintenance account, which translated to a
backlog of more than $1.6 billion in delayed infrastructure
improvements. We kept the ships running, kept the ship--the
aircraft maintained, but we had to pass the burden cost
elsewhere.
So we are finally above the BCA floor dating back to 2011,
which is why asking for a 5 percent increase in our OE account
that would allow us to sustain these new platforms as we bring
them online.
Now finally, with the C-130J, it makes good sense to have
good configuration management and not multiple aircraft types,
and the C-130J is a quantum leap above the Hercules, or H
model, that we had before.
I am proud to say that, even though we are operating in the
most high-risk environments, over a hundred helicopters flying
in Hurricane Condition 1 conditions for 3 consecutive days
during Hurricane Harvey, not one mishap. We have not lost a
Coast Guardsmen in flight for nearly 7 years now, the only
service that can make that statement, which speaks volumes to
our readiness, the flight hours, and using those OE cost to
best advantage, especially when it means putting people in the
air or on the water in old ships to make sure that we look out
for the safety of our people, as well.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Admiral, the administration clearly has
set a priority of funding border security, including more miles
of physical barriers. One of the concerns that I have is that
increases to these efforts at the border could possibly divert
immigration from border areas to the seas.
As we tighten our security at the border, what concerns, if
any, do you have on the impact it might have on the illicit
activity in the maritime domain? And if that were to occur,
what would the Coast Guard need to address the changes to the
safety along our coasts?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Ranking Member, and first of
all, yes, building a physical barrier is going to stem the flow
of illegal migrants trying to enter the country. What it will
not do is get at the drivers of why do people leave their
country to begin with.
Over the last 4 years, I have made multiple trips to meet
with the presidents of the tri-border region, in Honduras, El
Salvador, and Guatemala. And they will say they are a victim of
geography. They live just north of the largest drug-producing
country in the world, Colombia. And then they live just south
of the largest drug-consuming country in the world, the United
States.
The drugs land in Central America, in bulk, via maritime
means. And when those drugs arrive, violent crime goes up,
prosperity goes down, and hope goes away for young adults and
children. If they are going to thrive in the 21st century, they
can't do it at home.
So the drivers for illegal migration are going to be with
us for quite some time to come, and if you can't make it across
the border, you go around the border. And so we start looking
at border security, we need to look holistically. You know, the
fact that there is a maritime stream that goes with this, as
well. So, long-term, we need to look maritime.
We are already seeing more numbers looking at Haiti,
another country in very desperate economic conditions, very
difficult governance situations in Haiti. There again, people
are voting with their feet, and they take to the water. So as
we look long-term, in terms of protecting our border, to
include our maritime border, there is a very strong maritime
component to that, for which the United States Coast Guard will
need to be funded to remain Semper Paratus against what I see
as at least a generational threat, if not longer to come.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. A lot of attention is paid to drug
trafficking on the border. However, 70 percent of cocaine
consumed in the U.S. passes through the Eastern Pacific. And
you mentioned, in your written statement, that the Coast Guard
interdicted, like, 223 metric tons of cocaine in 2017. And just
for comparison's sake, 32 metric tons was interdicted at the
border in 2017.
Also, you mentioned in a recent speech a River Interdiction
Program in Colombia. Could you tell us more about that, and how
it might work?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Ranking Member, and I have had
multiple engagements with President Santos, and in his
administration, our country team in Bogota. And first we need
to look at the--just the proliferation of growth of coca in
Colombia. In 2015, October of that year, aerial eradication was
ceased to advance the FARC peace accords, and since that time
we have seen cultivation increase over threefold. Not just
cultivation, but now production as well, which is really at an
all-time worst.
Eradication needs to be brought back to bear. There is an
election this year in Colombia. Diplomatically, we need to be
thinking long-term of, ``How do we get in front of this
problem?'' because we are behind it.
And over the weekend, we intercepted several tons of
cocaine west of the Galapagos Islands, nearly 2,000 miles from
where it originated. It goes out rivers in the Tumaco region,
which is an ungoverned territory of Southwest Colombia. I would
much rather see it stopped in these riverine systems. We are
providing valuable information to the Colombian government, and
would like to see them stand up a riverine interdiction program
to stop it at the source so we don't have to catch it 2,000
miles downstream.
They are trying to do a big flanking movement to get around
the United States Coast Guard so they can land these drugs in
Central America and Southwest Mexico, where it goes from 80-
pound bales of cocaine down to grams, that is comingled with
licit commerce to get into the United States for consumption.
But we really need Colombia to be a true--while they are a
strong ally, but more work needs to be done at the source.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK, thank you. I see my time is up, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Roybal-Allard. We are really
honored to have Hal Rogers, the former chairman of the full
committee and of this subcommittee. Yield to him for questions.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for letting
me sit in on your subcommittee.
Mr. Carter. You are welcome.
Mr. Rogers. You and your Ranking Member have done a great
job. We are especially pleased and honored to see the
commandant here this morning and his bride. This is a sort of a
bittersweet time for the Admiral, I am sure, because he is--he
is being forced by term limits, if you will.
Mr. Carter. We know about those.
Mr. Rogers. We know about those things. But you have done a
wonderful job, Admiral. The Coast Guard is as good as it has
ever been under your leadership. You have been a great
spokesman for the cause, great leader for the men and women of
the guard, and we certainly hate to see you leave this post,
but we are sure there will be some great new chapter to be
written in your all's lives, and we wish you well in that
regard.
Let me follow up briefly on Ms. Roybal-Allard's questions
about drugs. We just concluded in Atlanta the 7th annual summit
on prescription pill abuse and heroin overdoses. It has become
the national platform for the welding together of all of the
elements of the fight against drugs. Law enforcement,
education, treatment, you name it, we had the head of NIH
there, CDC, DEA, FDA, Surgeon General, the White House,
President Clinton came and spoke down in Atlanta.
This is the 7th annual such summit. The pill problem began
in my district, Oxycontin, 15 years ago, so we started an
organization called UNITE, Unlawful Narcotics Investigations,
Treatment and Education, a holistic approach that has proven so
successful as a model locally we took it national and created
the summit, now the 7th year. We had 3,300 people there, from
all the states and nine countries.
But we are continuing to see the problem grow worse.
Overdoses and deaths now, on the national level, are
approaching 60,000 a year. That translates into each of our
districts an enormous number of people. More than car wrecks.
More than gun accidents or gun crimes.
You are the front line. Everyone says that practically all
of the heroin comes through Mexico, and the cocaine comes
almost entirely out of Colombia. And you have increased the
seizures and interdictions by a great amount. It is astounding.
In 2017, you interdicted 223 metric tons of cocaine, more than
$6 billion worth, 708 suspected smugglers. It is great work.
And yet, I am absolutely puzzled why you are not
requesting--you are requesting less money for fiscal 2019 than
2018. For fiscal 2019, you are requesting $1.41 billion for
drug interdiction. That figure is more than the 2017 level, but
it is actually $64 million less than the President's 2018
request of $1.48 billion. Why is that?
Admiral Zukunft. The 2018 budget, there was money added to
go beyond our program of record for National Security Cutters.
So that really does account for that. You know, it is perceived
to be a reduction, and yet, at the same time, there is funding
in the 2019 budget to buy ahead on the Offshore Patrol Cutter,
another very capable ship that costs much less than the
National Security Cutter. But also in the 2019 budget is the
$750 million for icebreakers.
But the biggest cause for that drop, which--perceived to be
a drop--was the funding for 10 and 11--National Security
Cutters number 10 and 11. And so hence what is perceived to be
a reduction--and yet we still have fast response cutters, six
of those being built, the second Offshore Patrol Cutter--so at
the end of the day, we are still making investments to get
after this very persistent threat, drugs in the transit zone.
Mr. Rogers. Let me commend you on your comments about
Colombia. They are a great friend of the U.S., but they have
stopped eradicating the poppy, and we are being flooded out of
Colombia, our friend.
And I chair the subcommittee that funds foreign aid, and we
are letting Colombia know that no longer are we willing to say
we are not going to withhold your money as long as it looks
like you are doing--you are going to do OK with eradication and
so forth. We are saying now, you have got to show us proof that
you are actually reducing the cocaine and heroin coming out of
Colombia. It is killing our people, by the tens of thousands.
And it is Colombia.
So I salute you for that, and congratulate you on the
seizures that you are making, but it is not quite enough.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. It is a little bit like that old saying, that a
pat on the back is only 16 inches above a kick in the rump.
[Laughter.]
And the Coast Guard is doing a wonderful job, but you are
not quite there, perfect, yet. So, thank you very much, and
congratulations on your great career.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking leader. I
want to say thank you for the work that you are doing, and I
really appreciate it. We just got back--because some of us just
got back from Colombia, and I think I would been there with
Chairman Hal Rogers, I think a couple years ago.
And I agree with your approach, because sometimes there are
members of--my colleagues that think that if you play defense
on the one-yard line, called the U.S.-Mexico border, where we
spent over $18 billion, and if you add the wall construction,
to be billions of dollars. Using football as an analogy, I
would rather play defense on their 20-yard line instead of
playing defense on a one-yard line, but nevertheless, you know,
we have got to deal with those political realities.
I appreciate what you are doing, and one of the things,
when we were in Colombia, we were looking at the ports where
the--where the--you know, where the cocaine comes from.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes.
Mr. Cuellar. And I asked the question, ``Well, why don't we
try to stop them here, before they get into the blue waters?''
And somebody there, one of our officials, said, ``Well, it is a
lot easier to catch them where they are out there in the seas,
because it is a submersible here, or might be a fast boat over
here.''
But to me, I like your approach, and I wish more people
would do that, is that we try to stop them there, before they
get in--into the high seas sit zones, because then you have got
to have the--you know, the gray hulls, you need to--you know,
the Navy, Coast Guard, and makes it difficult. So I definitely
want to thank you for that approach, and I hope that you get
other folks to think the way you are, doing the work at the 20-
yard line.
The 20-yard line also includes working with Colombia and
Mexico, and my question is--again, thank you for engaging them,
and if you could include some of the other Central American
countries, but it is a good start with Mexico and Colombia--
what else can we do to help you so we can get those other
countries to do more?
Because if you have one of your ships out there, whether
you multiply it by the number of assets that the Mexicans had,
or the Colombians can add, then you are talking about
multiplier effect. What else can we help you--in that type of
thinking that I wish more of our officials had your type of
thinking--what can we do to help you?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman. And I can't
emphasize enough that the value of relationships, beginning
with Colombia and Mexico. Colombia is besieged on their other
coast with nearly a million Venezuelan migrants leaving a
failed Nation. So they have a number of challenges there.
But they are going to need support to resume their aerial
eradication program. They have a presidential election this
year, that the senior leaders, who are now my personal friends,
both in Colombia and Mexico, which also has their presidential
election, we don't get a vote on how that might conclude. But
we have got to have those relationships with the next
administrations that come in, that are all in to get after this
transnational criminal threat.
We have 25 aircraft supporting our operations today. Six of
those are Coast Guard. The other 19 are Mexican and Colombian,
helping us. There is a real value--and we are not paying for
these services, so we are finally at--what I would say a
potential tipping point, where we have two of our key allies,
and the most prosperous nations within Central America say,
``Hey, United States, we want to work with you. We are sharing
information.''
We have two patrol boats just delivered to Costa Rica
today. They want to play with us as--in Costa Rica, so they are
in. So we are looking at how do we work with partner nations
that are looking for United States leadership? Because who else
is in this region is China. And we do not want to see
democratically elected nations now become favored nations with
China.
And so I think there is a strategic risk here, as well. If
we don't pay attention to where we can really have U.S.
influence, and more importantly, the partnerships, Congressman.
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, and you are absolutely right. I have got
about 40 seconds, but you are right. I have been in Costa Rica,
and you know, China has sent a lot of their party members over
to Costa Rica that--they are in other places, they are in
Colombia, at some of the ports of entry.
So I really appreciate it, and again, just to get your type
of thinking and philosophy, and get other folks to understand
that it is better to play defense on their 20-yard line, and it
is better to get more other--those neighbors that want to work
with us. They want to work with us. So I certainly want to
commend you on your good work and you are thinking.
Mr. Rogers. The gentleman yield--before he yields back----
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Could I ask a question of the witness on your
time?
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Admiral, we are seeing now this horrible
problem on top of a horrible problem, and that is fentanyl, an
elephant sedative that is being mixed now into the heroin that
our kids, especially, are dying from, not knowing the danger of
fentanyl.
I am told that fentanyl comes to us by way of Mexico from
China.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. Is that accurate or not?
Admiral Zukunft. It is, and now Mexico is producing
fentanyl, as well.
Mr. Rogers. Right. Are you seizing fentanyl?
Admiral Zukunft. This is all moving across the land border.
We see very low numbers of heroin moved across--you know, via
maritime means. But as you mentioned earlier, in 2016, 64,000
Americans died due to drug overdose. Most of this is opioids;
10,500 of those deaths were cocaine laced with fentanyl. The
numbers just in from the National Institute of Heath is roughly
66,000 now, in 2017.
So 130,000 Americans, from every walk of life, have died in
the last 2 years. And the numbers are not getting better. You
know only too well, in Kentucky and in the Ohio Valley, some of
these communities are grief-stricken. And we need an all-out
campaign, not just on the interdiction side, we have a
behavioral health problem here in the United States, as well,
addiction.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, I want
to give you a heartfelt thanks for your service to the great
Coast Guard, your personal commitment and your family's
commitment. Thank you so much.
As you know, I represent the third district of Tennessee.
Chattanooga is our largest city. And I believe Chattanooga is
probably the most patriotic city in America. We have had the
longest running Armed Forces--Armed Service parade in the
country, and I want my colleagues to know that this year we are
going to honor the United States Coast Guard. And we have done
that--we do every branch, and this year it is the Coast Guard.
I want everyone to know that the Admiral has worked with
his staff to make sure that this year is going to be special.
We will honor the men and women who currently serve, as well as
the great veterans of the Coast Guard. So it is going to be a
great, great day, and again, thank you personally, and I just
want to thank the Coast Guard for participating in our Armed
Forces parade, sir.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Fleischmann. Yes, sir. Admiral, there has been an
ongoing concern with long-term Coast Guard recapitalization and
acquisition needs not being matched with budget requests. While
we all know the challenges with current budgeting, I am
curious, sir, how well the fiscal 2018 omnibus and fiscal 2019
budget requests address long-term recapitalization efforts. Are
we still facing future capability gaps at current procurement
and construction levels, sir?
Admiral Zukunft. Congressman, you know, anyone in the Coast
Guard, if they are looking at the 2018 omnibus, and what is
teed up for 2019, will say, you know, this is not the Coast
Guard that they were born into. This takes us into a whole new
era. If you want to be the world's best Coast Guard, you need
to be financed as the world's best Coast Guard.
But at the same time, we want to be responsible stewards of
these resources, which is why I am especially proud of the fact
that we have had five consecutive clean financial audit
opinions. Our financial record stands on its merit. We hold
steady requirements in our acquisition program, which is why we
are able to deliver on schedule and on budget, you know, new
platforms that meet--and quite honestly, they exceed the
requirements that we had laid into.
Our Fast Response Cutter is just one example of many. Eight
consecutive ships, coming off the product line in the last 14
months, with no discrepancies whatsoever. They are fully
crewed, and they are ready to go out. It doesn't take them 2
years from delivery to go out and conduct operations.
Our National Security Cutters, we could not even envision
this program of record, the return on investment that we are
seeing right now. So much so that we have the Department of
Defense saying, ``We would love to see the National Security
Cutters serving in the East and South China Sea.'' We have
China Coast Guard that is now merged into their defense
structure. Why don't we have U.S. Coast Guard on the front end
of some of the Nine-Dash Line that we are dealing with?
So we are seeing an increase in the global demand for Coast
Guard, and I think a lot of it is, one, the capability of the
platforms, but to your point, you know, this aspect of
patriotism--the platform is just the platform. It is when you
put the right people in it, that have a passion for this
service, and an all-volunteer service, that is what makes it
all work. Which is why investments in things like subsidized
child care and readiness and high retention rates all come
together to make best use of these new platforms.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. In your opening statement,
sir, you speak to the continued successes in the counter-drug
mission. While it feels that we are getting better and better
at interdicting and disrupting the illicit narcotics trade, we
are also sadly aware that a majority of smugglers get past us
due to a lack of assets.
As a result of this, national--as a result of this,
National Security Strategy calls for greater resources and a
focus on dismantling transnational criminal organizations
rather than just putting illicit narcotics on the deck. Since
the Coast Guard plays an integral role in this strategy, sir, I
was hoping you could give us your thoughts on how well it is
working and what we need to do to make it as effective as
possible.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman. So, I watched
for--I have been in this business for 41 years now. I have
watched for a period of time, for nearly 8 years, we went
through what I would call somewhat benign neglect. We saw
marijuana legalized, and we saw resources being stripped away
from this campaign, and funding levels really not addressing
the threat.
On Thursday, I will be with the President down in Key West,
Florida, to look at the bigger picture of what is happening to
this Nation, and where does this all begin, and ultimately have
a healthy dialog of how do we resource against this threat.
One aspect--I mean, we have got the supply side, which we
can bring all of government to bear. We have got to look at the
demand side of this, as well, and come up with a comprehensive
campaign to get at some of the root causes, here at home, of
why we are the largest drug consuming country, and at the same
time hold those accountable who want to infect this Nation with
these toxins.
Fentanyl is a toxin. It is a weapon of mass destruction.
And the United States will not be able to do it alone, we are
going to need an alliance to get after that, but we do have the
commitment of this administration, of, ``We are going to get
after this problem.''
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Admiral, for your answers to
these questions. And Mr. Chairman, I yield back, sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Admiral, on this good day for you--and
first, thank you for--again for your service. I was in local
government, and I have been here about 15 years. I didn't know
much about the Coast Guard, but when I came here, I saw an
organization that worked hard, always did more--more with less,
and I think--I have a lot of issues with--with how many
missions the Department of Homeland Security has, but I think
you are the premier agency that division.
So, you know, I hope you have got quality and positive
leadership behind you, which I am sure you do. But I want to
thank you again for your service.
I want to talk to you today about polar icebreakers. The
Russians consider the Arctic to be their next frontier, with
the environmental changes, ice and permafrost is retreating,
exposing viable land and navigable waterways, new opportunities
arising for oil and gas drilling, as well as access to
untouched fisheries.
Both Russia and China have both recognized this development
and are scrambling to establish a foothold in that region. Now
in this regard, America is coming up short, that is my opinion.
Russia currently has 44 working icebreakers, seven of which are
nuclear powered, while the United States, I believe, has two.
Now, the Coast Guard has stated that it needs three heavy
and three medium icebreaker to counter Russia and China's
influence in the Arctic, and I believe this is clearly the
right move, and I know this is just a high priority for you as
it is, I think, should be for our country.
Now, my questions, the first thing: what impact would an
unchecked Russia and China presence in the Arctic region have
on our national security and sovereignty? And I am going to--I
am going to throw out the questions, and then let you answer.
Also, there is a moratorium on fishing and unexplored,
untapped oil reserves in the Arctic outside of our exclusive
economic zones. Do you feel that without the American assets in
the region we will be able to enforce international law?
They said--like you said in your testimony, I think
appropriating a steady supply of funding to icebreaker
procurement will reduce the price tag and due to the economies
of scale, keep us where we need to go on this threat of Russia
and China.
Secondly, the Coast Guard received $300 million in the
defense bill to jumpstart the preplanning for icebreaker
acquisition, which was a good thing, how you--it was able to
move from defense to you all.
Now, the President's budget asked for an additional $750
million. Now, if the committee does not fully meet the $750
million request that you are asking for, and that is in the
budget, what impact will it have on delivery dates for these
icebreakers?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman, and those are spot
on questions. You have done your homework, your numbers are
spot on.
So we have four coasts in the United States. We have the
East Coast, the West Coast, the Gulf Coast; well, we now have a
fourth coast, the Arctic coast. And we have communities up on
the Arctic coast. So I don't think any of us could ever
envision that we would have no mechanism to assert U.S.
sovereignty off the Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast, or in
the Gulf of Mexico, and that Russia can just willy-nilly, you
know, show up at our doorstep.
But we would write lots of reports and say, ``You can't do
this. You--we will demarche you if you do that.'' So you can't
exert sovereignty with paper, which is why, you know, investing
in an icebreaker is absolutely pivotal. It is really an
instrument of national sovereignty. Vital resources are at
stake up there.
We need to look at the long game, not the short game. I
mean, oil is trading at just over $65 a barrel right now, which
makes it not profitable to extract the rich resources that are
in our EEZ and beyond our EEZ.
As Congressman Cuellar could appreciate, we have an
extended continental shelf the size of the state of Texas,
beyond our 200 mile limit and a lot of the 13 percent of the
world's oil, a third of the world's natural gas, over a
trillion dollars of rare earth minerals are on or below the
seabed up there.
Russia has claimed all the way up to the Arctic Ocean.
Russia will take delivery of two ice-breaking Corvettes,
warships, with cruise missiles, plying off our Arctic coast.
China is building another icebreaker. China routinely does
scientific studies in our extended continental shelf.
And then, you look at well, why don't we just claim this
extended continent else--continental shelf of ours? Well, it
requires ratification of the Law of the Sea. So we don't have
the governance model in place, because we have not ratified the
Law of the Sea convention.
So all of those are coming together as a confluence. And
then we look at fish stocks. As they migrate further north we
claim a moratorium, but if you don't have an enforcement
mechanism. There again, it is paper, but you don't have the
ability to back paper up with force if necessary.
And then finally, when you look at the $750 million, what
is at stake? This is a great risk for an industry to take on,
because they are going to have to reengineer their production
lines to build a heavy icebreaker. They don't want to build
just one icebreaker. They won't make those front end
investments if we are only committed to building one.
The National Defense Authorization Act--and I am pleased to
say that we have $150 million installments in 2017 and 2018
from the Department of Defense, but the National Defense
Authorization Act of 2017, DOD is committed to building an
icebreaker. Three hundred million dollars does not buy me one
icebreaker. I need the full funding.
But what we need to do is demonstrate to industry that we
are committed, and we want you to take on the risk to do the
engineering work to build the United States icebreakers, with
United States steel, with United States workers.
And so what really is at stake is industry may walk away
from this, if they don't see a commitment from us that we are
serious about making this acquisition.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Just real quick, is your plan--will that
balance out the issues we are dealing with Russia and China, do
you believe at this point?
Admiral Zukunft. It puts us in play. We created, on our
watch, while I was Commandant, an Arctic Coast Guard Forum.
That includes seven other Arctic nations besides Russia.
During Hurricane Harvey, we ran the largest search-and-
rescue Arctic exercise with ships and planes ever in history,
while at the same time we are doing Hurricane Harvey, while at
the same time we are intercepting drugs, but we have got
Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Dutch, Iceland, and others--
Canada, saying, ``United States, we are all in.''
So there again, can we do it alone? No. Can we do it with
others, like-minded nations? Absolutely. So we look at where we
leverage international partnerships as well, sir.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Good answers.
Mr. Carter. Dr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, and congratulations,
Admiral. You know, I have spent 17 years in the Naval reserve.
I can't imagine having spent 2\1/2\ times that amount of time,
but congratulations on a job well done.
I also want to thank the Coast Guard. Obviously, they are
very important in the first congressional district of Maryland.
We have the--you know, the entire Atlantic Coast of Maryland,
and a lot of the--Chesapeake Bay coast. And two issues,
specifically, I just want to bring to your attention. One is
one I think we are working through, which is that the Coast
Guard recently removed Daybeacon 10 from the Honga River.
And it is because the channel was not navigable anymore,
but it was also an important marker for another maritime
channel, or another maritime route, that boaters used, and the
issue is--I am not going to ask the Coast Guard put back in, I
understand why you removed it, but I think you have to approve
the county and state working together to put a different marker
there.
And I understand there may be a little hold up on that. I
just--as--you know, we are coming up on the boating season, I
ask you to expedite that. And then we had a meeting with the
watermen, and I think your staff was there from the Coast
Guard, and I think that will go all right.
The other one that I really want to do a shout out on this
is--you know, it is funny, both of these have to dredging
channels that are--that aren't deep enough, and the Ocean City
Inlet has a problem, and a fishing vessel--I think was about 2
months ago--came in literally with thousands and thousands
pounds of fish at the wrong time, couldn't land--you know,
couldn't dock at their own dock, and was able to unload most of
the--only some of the fish was lost, most of it at the Coast
Guard--I want to thank the Coast Guard for--for stepping in and
helping there.
Because that is very important to our economy, and again,
you know, in the Navy we would go ``Bravo Zulu,'' job well
done. Thank you very much for that.
Now the other the rest of my time I want to spend on an
issue that is not--not unknown to my chairman. It is windmills
off the Atlantic coast. And, you know, there is a windmill
project going to be run--you know, over a billion-dollar
project by a company in Italy that wants to build windmills off
the coast, and, you know, bought the leasing--bought the lease
from--the lease that BOEM issued, over in the Department of the
Interior, and the more we investigated, the more bizarre it
appears what happened over at BOEM.
And the reason why I bring that up is because, you know,
they are supposed to actually look to other federal agencies to
provide input on way--when the leasing area is designated, and
then, of course, when it is developed.
Now before the designation, there are two specific agencies
that--that I think are very important to be involved; one,
because there is a national park there, the National Park
Service, and under the Organics Act, you are supposed to
actually preserve the--the scenery, preserve everything, and
the National Park Service never had input into it.
But the other important agency is your agency. And your
agency actually did have input into it. In a letter to the--to
BOEM in 2013 that you have--you are--the Coast Guard very
specifically said don't designate this area, because later you
may have to basically undesignate it, or not be able to develop
it, because of dangers to maritime traffic.
And I don't know how familiar you are with the issue, but
it was apparently completely disregarded by BOEM, which went
ahead and did that lease area, and now, you know, there is an
effort to kind of ram this project through without Park Service
comment--although I think we are going to get Park Service
comment--and despite the warnings from the Coast Guard that--
that, without proper channel designations, and I think the
Coast Guard would recommend what they call alternative one,
which removes a large part of the lease area.
This is concerning to me, because I would hope that the
Coast Guard would be very adamant and say, look, we all want--
look, this is not about whether we are going to have offshore
wind. We are going to have it. It is where you are going to put
it, and whether it is going to be, in the case of the Park
Service, visible from shore, in the case of the Coast Guard,
interfere with shipping channels, and I just want your
assurance that the Coast Guard is going to--is going to be
adamant about maintaining maritime safety off the coast--you
know, off my district.
Because I don't want a vessel accident, and the spill of
whatever--we know what is in vessels. We know from the Exxon
Valdez what is in vessels. I don't want that spill offshore. I
don't want these--these ships, after going into channels that
they don't--into routes they don't know about, so, I am--I
can--I am going to ask, what can the Coast Guard do to make
certain that we don't create an unsafe condition, under the
current proposed development plan?
Admiral Zukunft. Well, Congressman, first of all, I will
echo your term ``adamant.'' I spent most of my career as a
mariner, and putting wind farms in a traffic separation scheme
that interfere with radar propagation, interfere with
communication propagation, create in fog conditions, a hazard
to navigation, all of these things combined is not a prudent
measure.
I will be more than pleased to back to BOEM, to go back to
our 2013--we have not deviated from our position when it comes
to the hazards as you have alluded to.
And look out into the future--we may have autonomous ships
out there. And now we have changed the lay of the land with
these autonomous wind farms. If I was with Park Service, I
would--what is the interaction with migratory species? A lot of
these wind farms carry a lot of mortality.
There are a number of stakeholders in this. This is beyond
a lease. This is environmental, but, for me, it is all about
maritime safety. So I stand behind you.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much. I yield back to you, Mr.
Chairman.
Admiral Zukunft. Actually, next one. And then with regard
to private aids to navigation, absolutely, we will work with
the state to make sure--I recreational fish, and if I can't
find my honey hole because of want of that, then--you know, we
will work with the stakeholders on that. Private aid is not an
issue for us.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, and congratulations,
again. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Admiral, for your service and also the service of your spouse
and your children. Thank you for all that you have done in 41-
plus years serving in uniform.
Also, please take back to your Coast Guard team how much we
appreciate their service and sacrifice, as well. I know it
takes a full-team concept to be as successful as you have been,
but also as successful as the Coast Guard has been lately.
Mississippi really appreciates our Coast Guard presence in
Pascagoula, as well as Gulfport. You have got a first-class
team down there. I have visited both stations, and I really
enjoy going out there.
I was invited to come floundering. I haven't taken them up
on that one, but it is over--it is a little honey hole. I won't
tell you where it is at. You were talking about honey holes,
so.
Also, I thought Admiral Kelly did a fantastic job at the
annual National Guard Reserve Components Breakfast. He did a
splendid job addressing the Reserves, and hopefully, over the
months and maybe not the years, but in the months to come, that
we can address the manning--the shortage of manning that they
have in the Reserves.
The Coast Guard has a huge mission in providing for our
Nation's national security, and I know there has been a lot of
talk about drug interdiction, and, you know, the demand, the
supply, and those are things that we have to address as a
nation.
We have been soft on drugs. We have been soft on
prosecution. We are sending all the wrong messages, not just to
the dealers, but also to the American people, that it is OK to
use and abuse drugs.
And so I might ask you a question. You know, I have been
to--I guess I have heard reports. You have a presence in South
and Central America. Tell us what we are missing, when it comes
to--you are seizing over half the cocaine seizures on--that our
U.S. government seizes every year. I am afraid we are missing a
lot.
And, you know, can you kind of put that in perspective?
Because it is finding its way into America, and what can we do?
What can we, as a Congress, do to give you the tools to combat
this more effectively?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes. This is a very perplexing problem we
have, Congressman. And so right now we are getting about--
just--you know, about maybe 25 percent of the flow.
Gone are the days where we sweep the ocean like a
lawnmower, hoping that we stumble on something. These are all
intelligence-driven, vectored in aircraft, helicopters that are
armed, ships, like the National Security Cutter.
But there are so many, you know, we can't target them all.
We know that we bring them into custody, and we will ask a
smuggler, ``How many runs did you make?'' Four, maybe five, and
then we caught you.
Well, don't you think, before you are going to do 20 years
in a U.S. prison and be cut off from the network, you might
want to stop doing this?
So we are actually trying to deter people from entering
into this business line, as well, but what we have come to
realize is when--to sustain this fleet--we have got 50-year-old
ships doing some of these interdictions right now.
We need to maintain momentum that we have right now in our
acquisition program, and then, at the same time, make sure we
don't forget about the out-year cost to maintain these
platforms, as well. We are doing everything we can to identify
efficiencies of how do we run this fleet in the future.
I signed off on terminating what would be rotating crews.
So if you can imagine, you have got four crews assigned to
three ships, and those three ships are in three different home
ports, and then when you take that ship out, the crew has to go
through what is called analyzed training, with helicopters and
wartime readiness.
Well, a new crew comes in, they get on that same ship, and
the same ship has to do the same thing all over again. So maybe
you are running that ship 35 more days a year, but the fact of
the matter is, fewer days are spent in the high-threat area
because you are spending more time training these rotating
crews.
So that is why one crew, one ship, and then a ship and crew
that we can surge, if the threat picks up, to go forward. So we
want to make sure that we are making smart investments in how
we operate this fleet in the future, as well.
But to continue what I would say just predictable funding--
and I recognize, you know, we are going to have a day of
reckoning just around the corner, as we look at deficit
spending, as this cannot continue forever. We have an aging
population.
And so all of that combined, we want to make sure that we
can demonstrate to you that we are a good investment with a
return on investment that is valued by our Nation.
Mr. Palazzo. Well, thank you for those comments, and,
lastly, my question--you did such a fantastic job last year
elaborating on why the Jones Act is so important to our
national security and our economy, I think this panel would be
welcome to your remarks, again, this year.
Admiral Zukunft. So, as we all know, we have the largest
trade deficit with China right now. China has the most
aggressive ship-building program in the world right now.
So if you can envision, 5 years from now, you know, a ship
pulls into L.A. Long Beach. It is a Chinese flag. And then it
is going to go from L.A. Long Beach to, maybe, Seattle.
And so now we have our entire domestic maritime trade is
being run by China, and Chinese mariners. With the Jones Act,
the maritime academies go away. The U.S. mariners go away.
We have three Jones Act shipyards that build deep-draft
ships in the United States. In the 1950s, we had over 50 of
them. We are now down to three. Those go away.
So we will say goodbye to the United States as a maritime
Nation, because, for cost-considerations only, and not for
security concerns, our--our sealift, our national sealift to
carry out a military campaign, would be on the flag of a
foreign Nation that may, potentially, be an adversary.
So we really need to look at this from a national security
lens, and also from an economic security lens, because who
would fill that void if we decide this law is now obsolete?
Mr. Palazzo. Well said. Thank you, Admiral. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, welcome. Congratulations. It is great to see you,
and of course, I am sure I am not the first one to say this,
this morning, but I want to congratulate you on your
retirement. It has been a real pleasure to work with you, and
to see the Coast Guard thrive and grow under your leadership.
So it is a heartfelt thank you, and congratulations.
Just the tenacity and bravery that the Coast Guard, once
again, showed during Harvey and Irma and Maria storms, that
challenged us like few have, and as we--we become almost
accustomed to this, but we should never take it for granted the
way quick action by your organization saved thousands of lives
during three historical natural disasters in quick succession.
For that, and much, much more, we thank you.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, thank you, sir.
Mr. Price. Let me ask about a couple of aspects of the
migrant issue, which the Coast Guard is of course quite
directly involved in, and can enlighten us on perhaps.
First, the general situation you are facing and then a
specific question about Cuban migrants. I understand the Coast
Guard District 7 cutters are regularly ferrying rescued
migrants and detainees to shore.
I understand, of course, that this displaces other search
and rescue activities, as well as other interdictions. Many of
the cutters aren't particularly designed for this, they are not
equipped to hold large numbers of people on board during these
transitions.
So, first of all, how are you addressing this problem in
general? What are the dimensions of the challenge? What should
we know about it? How are you handling it?
And then secondly about Cuba, let me just get that question
out there as well, President Obama, as you know, ended the wet
foot, dry foot policy in January of 2017. And after that, there
was a dramatic drop in the number of Cuban migrants trying to
reach the U.S.
But looking at your budget in brief, it looks like the
Coast Guard interdicted 2,510 undocumented migrants and had to
repatriate a 1,532 Cubans. That is puzzling to me anyway.
Why do you believe the number of Cuban migrants has risen
again? There has been no change in policy, so I am genuinely
curious as to why this might have occurred.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, so we report those, Congressman, in a
fiscal year. And when the repeal of the wet foot, dry foot
policy went into effect, we saw an abrupt halt in Cuban
migrants.
And so we went 5 months, 5 consecutive months without one
Cuban migrant. We have interdicted a handful in the last
several months off Cay Sal Banks, which is the Bahamas, so they
are looking at doing an end run to the Bahamas over to Freeport
and so now we are picking them up with a fairly sophisticated
human smuggling network leaving Freeport, Bahamas, and
sprinting across the Florida Strait to land.
We have seen Cuban, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Sri Lankan,
Chinese, I mean, we pretty much have seen most of the United
Nations in terms of illegal migrants with this very
sophisticated human smuggling network, which I think drives
home the point that find the path of least resistance.
If there is a wall, find water, and if there is water, try
to mingle in with all the other recreational boats off the
Florida coast as well. So that is what we are seeing right now,
which has challenged us.
We have been able to pull--at any given day a year and a
half ago, we had about 10 Coast Guard cutters dedicated to
nothing but the Cuban migrant problem. We have been able to
dial some of that back, but now we are seeing through the
Bahamas' human smuggling networks, we are working very closely
with our very close partners in CBP Air and Marine doing these
interdictions, but more importantly, getting after these human
smugglers as well.
So that is where we are seeing the difference. It is not
the traditional smuggling means, it is going around and then
paying off human smugglers to gain illegal entry.
Mr. Price. Well what would you say about the kind of
priority you are required to give this matter and the trade-
offs in terms of other missions, other search and rescue
activities, other interdictions?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, thank you, Congressman. So we will
never diminish our search and rescue readiness posture, and in
fact, as you saw during Hurricane Harvey, we--you know we--we
pulled over 3,000 people, several hundred aircraft and boats
from non-effected regions to support the search and rescue
effort.
So search and rescue, this administration has made it very
clear where--where we stand when it comes to illegal migration,
and so I own the sea component of that. And then, so we look
at--so where else might you take risk?
In years past, we have a number of ships, what I would call
our flagships, doing enforcement of our remote EEZ, thousands
of miles offshore in the Central Pacific Ocean, where we can
remotely monitor activity there where we were not seeing
encroachment, but because it was one of our 11 missions, there
was a time where we say we need to resource each mission
equally.
We have great intelligence, and that intelligence tells you
two things, where you need to emphasize, where you need to be
more present, but it also tells you where you might be able to
go at risk with limited resources so you can double down where
you have the higher risks, and maybe you accept risk is some of
the other areas.
So some of our remote EEZs we have accepted risk. Today
there is a naval ship in the Central Pacific with a Coast Guard
law enforcement attachment on it doing fishery enforcement
operations.
So we are actually getting help from the Navy in doing
fisheries enforcement. So we haven't zeroed out the program all
together, but we are looking at where do our authorities
resonate, where are the greatest risk, and then where do we
apply those resources.
It is working out pretty well for us.
Mr. Price. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Newhouse.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Madam Ranking
Member. Commandant, welcome to the committee.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you.
Mr. Newhouse. Pleasure to get to know you and I want to
thank you for your very good update and as well as your long
service. I am experiencing a bit of regret, I am fairly new to
the committee and you are leaving, and I don't get to enjoy
working with you as my colleagues have expressed their pleasure
in working with you.
But congratulations on your--also say thank you to all the
Coasties under your command, and for all the hard work that
they continue to do and work with what they have and always
exceeding their mission, so appreciate that.
You talked about the many challenges in protecting our
coastlines, certainly this last year with all the hurricanes
was a huge challenge, but you were able to rise to the occasion
and continue to do the hard work of making sure that all of our
ports around the country and your work with the DOD remained
in--in effect, and so you were able to multitask and exceeded
your mission in that regard as well.
I should note that I had the pleasure of visiting our
facility in Seattle and I want to thank the men and women there
who gave me a fantastic tour and a great briefing on the hard
work that they are engaged in in the Pacific Northwest, a lot
of important things.
And it was, you know, an educational thing for me too. I
was able to see two of the three icebreakers that we have. One
of them, I think if I am correct, is sitting there kind of
being robbed for parts as we speak.
Admiral Zukunft. It is.
Mr. Newhouse. But certainly I understand the need and the
necessity of protecting our northern coastline as well, so I
appreciate that--your--your focus on that and our ability to
have been able to fund, at least begin, to fund the necessary
improvements and being prepared.
Coincidentally, I had a staff member that was able to visit
your St. Elizabeth campus right after the hurricane season and
was very complimentary in the--what was witnessed there, and
the--the work being done in conjunction with local authorities
and others. So all around, I would say a good job.
My question has to do with something that I think was
engaged with when I was a state legislator actually concerning
inland waters and vessel discharge laws and regulations. As you
know, there is the Vessel Incident Discharge Act, which would
establish a single federal ballast water management standard
that would specify the Coast Guard's 2012 standards as the
baseline. It is in both the House and Senate and it would focus
on establishing a uniform national standard for ballast water
and other incidental charges and provide the authority to
regulate these discharges primarily with the Coast Guard, and I
understand along with the EPA.
I guess my question has to do with how you see the Coast
Guard as the enforcing agency if these proposals are enacted.
Could you discuss that some?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, thank you, Congressman. So I really
put myself in the in the shoes of a mariner. If you feel like
you have got to cross so many T's and dot so many I's because
you have competing entities that are doing enforcement
operations. And we only get maritime governance--in this Nation
it is the United States Coast Guard for maritime governance
that understands Mariners, that understands the technology. It
is the United States Coast Guard that represents the United
States at the general assembly where I lead the delegation at
IMO that looks at international standards.
And so it makes sense to have one entity, one federal
entity, so you don't have competing states with different
requirements. So the Mariners want to do everything they can to
come into compliance, but when they get conflicting signals
from different entities, from different agencies, it makes
their compliance all the more difficult. So big advocate that a
one-stop shop and logically it would fall on the shoulders of
the United States Coast Guard.
And on ballast water standards, we have set the bar higher
than any other Nation in the world. We now have six certified
ballast water treatment systems that we want the global
community to embrace. We have foreign flagships coming into
ports like Seattle where we are already seeing hundreds of
billions of dollars in damage each year from invasive species,
we have have got to stop the bleeding.
And so we are trying to be the model internationally. I met
with the Greek shipowners yesterday that own 20 percent of the
world's fleet and they are looking at us, OK, IMO has a lower
standard but we do a lot of trade with the United States. We
want to work with the Coast Guard. We want to come into
compliance as well.
So I think those two--whether its ballast water treatments
systems, or whether it is the VIDA regs, look no further than
the United States Coast Guard, where we have those captain of
the port authorities, as well, throughout the United States.
Mr. Newhouse. Appreciate that.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you for your support, sir.
Mr. Newhouse. Certainly, simplicity, having a single
regulation to follow, I would think would aid in compliance and
success in protecting our environment.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, sir.
Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate your response. Again,
congratulations on your career and Mr. Chairman, I yield back
my time.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And admiral, thanks
for your service. We truly appreciate you and--and
understanding who the high-ranking admiral is, we appreciate
your wife's service and thank you for your family----
Admiral Zukunft. As only a former service member could
acknowledge. [Laughter.]
Mr. Taylor. I understand, I understand. And also, we think
very highly of the Coast Guard in Virginia, in Virginia 02, so
I think it is a huge part of our national security apparatus.
So we appreciate all--all that you do. We appreciate all the
Coasties who are under you and what they do. So please give our
best to them.
There was a significant amount of money of course in fiscal
year 2018 and 2019 for the Coast Guard and my question is for
the Coast Guard as other services as well as, it is a lot of
money in a short time. Is the Coast Guard using contract
vehicles like OTA's and SBIR's so as to use of funds quickly
and inefficiently but responsibly?
Admiral Zukunft. So a lot of this money is actually 5-year
money. And when you start looking at our shore infrastructure--
and we work with the various congressional districts and some
would really like to see local workers land those positions as
well. So we work with minority contractors, but at the same
time, we want to make sure that we are--the requirements are
being met and on budget. So we are growing our acquisition
staff slightly to be able to accommodate these opportunities
that have now arrived on our doorstep.
I have the highest confidence that we will be able to
execute on time but also execute responsibly. We look back to
supplemental funding that received after Hurricane Sandy. So we
have got great corporate knowledge of when you have an infusion
of money, some of it driven by contingency, but it also has
multi-year.
And so what we will be doing and what the next team coming
in will be doing is, is doing well looking down at 5-year
timeline to make sure that we are fully obligating and
expanding and expanding responsibly the funding that is being
allocated in the 2018 omnibus that will meet our requirements.
Great example was out at Great Inagua. We had a hurricane
number years ago, leveled our hanger out there, so we built it
to condition three standards that experienced 155 knot winds
during Hurricane Irma. It didn't remove a shingle. And so the
next day, we are using that facility to do rescue operations in
the U.S. Virgin Islands.
I just use that as one example of many, but we have seen
this movie before and we know how to be responsible stewards of
the funding and also the proper contract vehicles that can make
sure that it will meet our needs, most importantly, meet them
on time as well.
Mr. Taylor. Understood, thank you. Switching topics to
cyber. So, cyber appropriations in fiscal 2017 and of course
2018 as well, how are we--for the--for the workforce--how is
the Coast Guard collaborating with other agencies or services
in the space so as not to be redundant?
Admiral Zukunft. So, we were first working within our
flagship, our Department of Homeland Security. We have been
able to create a cyber protection team that is over 120 people
strong. The end strike needs to be closer to 200 of that. The
good news is, we actually have these people on the payroll. We
are creating a cyber curriculum at are Coast Guard Academy in
2019. The valedictorian who was a Fulbright scholar graduate
last year is off at Oxford and has every intention of making
his career in cyber.
The J6 at--who serves the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is
a Coast Guard three-star admiral. The Coast Guard has a one
star admiral who is the J8 at U.S. Cyber Command and we have
over 80 cyber professionals there. In a closed hearing, I could
actually say what they do, but when I talk to my good friend
Admiral Rogers, he mentions a first-class petty officer in E6
by name. He was one of the rock stars over there.
So that is our contribution not just to the joint services,
but across the inner agency within the Department of Homeland
Security. And were doing with a very small footprint, 120
billets right now, but we do need to grow that in a very
competitive field right now as only you can appreciate. The
world, this country is not flush with a lot of cyber
professionals, demand exceeds supply.
Mr. Taylor. No question. And this may be more of a
statement than--than a question because we are in of course an
open hearing. But obviously with cutters and ships, you have a
tremendous amount of different vendors and different systems
and coding, et cetera, and all that. I guess, it could be a
question, but in a--a general question. Is the--is that cyber
space looking at that, and sort of hacking, and having the
ability to understand what all those various systems are with
different vendors, as well as--so as to be--have the ability to
respond to a cyber attack, but also, you know, to understand
their systems better?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman. So, in 2015 I put
out a cyber strategy. One, we operate on the Department of
Defense Information Network. We don't want to be the soft
underbelly for an adversary to get inside the greater network,
which is our Department of Defense.
So, one, we harden our defenses. We have migrated to
Windows 10. So, you know, we are, you know, we are standing the
watch from a protective standpoint, but then how do you use
cyber offensively? Which gets into some of the more classified
system. When you look at our National Security Cutter, our--all
the platforms we are building have, what I would call, Navy-
type, Navy-owned, C4ISR systems.
So we are looking at what is in the supply chain to make
sure that it doesn't have imbedded malware before we plug it
in, and then we are using that to interoperate with allies,
and, more importantly, with our great U.S. Navy.
Then finally, the last piece of this, we are looking at
what is the maritime industry doing? We have listened to them.
We are working with the National Institute of Standards of
Technology. Looking at what are the state of play in cyber
protection today, to share that with the maritime industry.
Maersk shipping, just over--nearly a year ago, was intruded
with NotPetya malware, and it shut down their screens. In 5
days, they recovered, because in 5 days they could migrate the
entire enterprise to Windows 10.
Through our acquisition--it took us 4 years to do that in
the United States Coast Guard, and probably most federal
agencies. We don't have that nimbleness to move money that
quickly.
So we are looking at--protect the Department of Defense
Information Network, on which we reside; use it offensively to
go after adversaries; and then, third, protect our maritime
infrastructure, which is very cyber-dependent, from intrusions,
as well, to provide them as practices.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Admiral. We
wish you and your family all the best in the next chapter.
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Carter. We are going to go to a second round.
Admiral, last year you stated that 1,100 reserve billets
needed to be restored, that active-duty strength needed to be
increased by 5,000 over the next 5 years, and you have talked a
little bit about that today.
But the Coast Guard has yet to complete the required
Manpower Requirements Analysis to determine the size of the
force-based strategy analysis risk management.
Without a complete manpower analysis, how can you determine
the right size of the force, and the proper fleet mix of
vessels and aircraft? What progress has been made in completing
this analysis, and what remains to be done to achieve force
structure goals?
It is now the third quarter of 2018. How is the service
doing in terms of hiring, recruiting, retaining both civilian
and military workforce?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the
analytical work was done, and the numbers were backed out. So
we have also, in parallel, have done a force-planning
construct, which is internal to the Coast Guard, and it is not
by coincidence. The numbers in there mirror image what--what
was on record, in terms of, you know, a 5,000 active duty. In
fact, the force-planning construct says 5,260, roughly.
The 1,100 reservists, those were billets that were cut when
we were going through those funded below the--you know, the BCA
floor, so we started cutting billets. And we cut 1,100 of our
reservists.
Those are the first people we call in time of disaster, and
so we are just trying to get back to what was status-quo to
deal with natural disasters.
And so our forced-planning construct--we will work with our
department, we will work to get the numbers put back in there,
but I could say with very high confidence a 5,000 growth in
active-duty is valid, and restoring our 1,100 reservists is
valid, and sustaining our current end-strength of civilians is
valid, as well.
We have the highest retention rate of any armed service
right now. Over 90 percent of our first-term enlisted are re-
upping. We have very low numbers, as an early indication,
entering into what is called the blended retirement system--
those that have the option to opt-in are saying, well, they are
planning to do a 20 year career? Why would they opt in and
retire with less pay at 20 years, if they plan to do a 20 year
service?
So we have the highest retention of any armed service. Huge
dividends are paid if you don't have to constantly hire, train,
and then certify journeymen that are coming into the service.
That has paid huge dividends.
We can't bank on that, but the fact of the matter is, we
are in a very good place right now. Numbers are valid, but we
do owe you, you know, the force-planning construct, which, as
you can well-appreciate, you know, we need to get that blessed
from other levels of government to get that on record.
But everything I have seen--we are spot-on when it comes
to, you know, growing the active force by--by 5,000, the
reserves by 1,100. We fully loaded our training center at Cape
May right now. We have not lowered the standards for anyone who
wishes to become part of Team Coast Guard.
You must have a high school diploma. If you have a GED,
well, then you better have an associate's degree on top of
that. This is the best-educated, physically fit Coast Guard
that I have served with, and I am proud to stand next to them
in my 40 plus years of service.
Mr. Carter. And this Manpower Requirement Analysis--when
will it be completed so we can take a look at it, too?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. When will that be?
Admiral Zukunft. I will get back to you on that. I wanted
to have that date for you here, and I never like to show up
without our homework complete.
Mr. Carter. OK. We need that. Thank you.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Yes, I would like to follow up on the
Chairman's question, with regards to retention and focus more
on the retention of women, because you recently mentioned in
the speech that the Coast Guard is having trouble retaining
mid-career level women, and that you were looking into this
whole issue, and--by conducting a study on retention. And I
mention that--a part that is going to be included, and what the
Chairman was asking about.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, I was glad that we
were able to include additional money for childcare, and I am
just wondering if the survey, in addition to the childcare
issue, if there is any indication as to what other issues are
causing the women to leave the Coast Guard, and if you could
tell us what the cost is--first the contributions, then the
cost, of losing these service members, both in terms of funding
and readiness?
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, thank you, Ranking Member. So, yes,
we did embark on a study rather than hypothesize and--and maybe
we hypothesized wrong of--of why do women leave the service.
You know, 50 percent of a year-group leaving between years
10 and 12 of service, at a point where, you know, they have now
become subject-matter experts in--in their chosen field, and
every field is open to women in the United States Coast Guard.
And you can speculate, OK, well, maybe they have approached
child bearing years. Maybe it was difficult maintaining two
careers.
Or maybe there is a subculture in the United States Coast
Guard. I don't want to be the emperor with no clothes, that we
have a subculture in the Coast Guard that does not fully
embrace diversity to include the role that women--the vital
role that women serve in the United States Coast Guard today.
Because that is a leadership issue that a commandant of the
Coast Guard can address and can fix.
The good news is, a lot of our women, when they do leave
active duty, they affiliate with the Coast Guard Reserve. And
so they still want to serve in the United States Coast Guard.
But before we start a program, we need to understand the
problem, and then come up with solutions.
Today, our United States Coast Guard Academy is nearly 40
percent female. We didn't have women when I went to the Coast
Guard Academy, back in 1973. And they serve in every field
across the Coast Guard.
So, when you take somebody out of service, at 10 to 12
years of service, well, it took 10 to 12 years to grow that
competency. And so you don't recover overnight. You can't bring
somebody new into the Coast Guard and fill that void. So, this
is--one, it is a diversity issue for me. It is also a readiness
issue for me. And it may be a leadership issue for me as well.
So we will provide full disclosure on the findings of this
report, to include if it points to, you know, we have a
subculture in our Coast Guard that is not hospitable to women.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Yes, well, what is the timeline in
completing this?
Admiral Zukunft. I believe it will be done in the next
year. So we awarded the contract to embark on this early--very
early this year.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. And I want to follow up on the
questioning of Mr. Taylor. The Guard sustained significant
damage during the last hurricane season. Buildings and
facilities were damaged, as well as utility systems and
navigation aids, and aviation assets were used more frequently
during the response, requiring accelerated maintenance.
And as was stated in February, Congress provided $835
million in supplemental funding to address the storm. As we
said, there--this is a huge amount of--of funding, and it would
be difficult for any agency to execute. And you were talking
about a 5-year plan.
My questioning has to do more with the fact that the
current hurricane season begins on June 1st. And so I have a
series of questions here. First, can you update us on the
status of these projects? Does the Coast Guard have enough
personnel to manage and execute repairs and maintenance, and is
there anything that this subcommittee can do to help facilitate
these activities so that you will in fact be ready for the
coming hurricane season? Especially if we have something like
we had last year.
Admiral Zukunft. Yes, Ma'am--Ranking Member. And so, I
guess I would begin--if--if--you know, starting where--Port
Aransas, Texas, where a tornado devastated our--our small boat
station there. So work is already ongoing to restore that. We
made it through this hurricane season with a shortage of $77
million of restoration funding from Hurricane Matthew the year
before.
We had small boat stations along the Florida coast
operating out of temporary facilities, and now those temporary
facilities are gone, as well. So we have been able to
prioritize, you know, where we cannot meet mission. And so
those are the projects that are queued up first. The
administrative buildings--yes, it does affect operations, but
we have a very deliberate approach of how we are going to
reconstitute those.
Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands--the challenges there
is the workers. But again, this money for shore acquisition
construction and infrastructure is 5-year money. So, I am not
concerned about our ability to award, obligate, and expend the
funding to do that, but I want to make sure we are getting the
right quality of work.
So the area right now that we are most vulnerable is going
to be in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We did a lot of great work in
building housing in Puerto Rico, so very little of our--our
Coast Guard-owned housing faced destruction, unlike the 700
other members of the Coast Guard who went home and found out
that their home had been destroyed in Florida and in Texas, as
well.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. OK. I see my time is up.
Mr. Culberson [presiding]. Thank you very much. Chairman
Carter will return in just a moment. Admiral, on behalf of the
people of Houston, I wanted to first of all address our
profound gratitude for the extraordinary efforts that the Coast
Guard engaged in to save lives during the Hurricane Harvey.
Your team was extraordinary. When the 911 call centers in
Houston were overwhelmed, your team in Houston, the Coast
Guard, quickly set up an emergency operations center, which
triaged all the calls from those who were stranded by the flood
waters, and dispatched boats and helicopters to rescue those
who were most in need.
During the storm, the Coast Guard deployed an additional
1,400 personnel from units as far away as Alaska and Puerto
Rico to help the people of Houston. You sent 34 helicopters, 69
shallow water vehicles, and 7 fixed wing aircraft to help us
during the height of the storm. Your helicopters flew over 900
hours, and fixed wing aircraft flew 370 hours in support of
rescue operations.
I am told that during one 8.2 hour launch, air station Cape
Cod MH60 helicopter dodged heavy thunderstorms and massive
rainfall to--using street addresses and Google Maps to navigate
to survivors, and conduct 24-hour hoist rescue. It was just an
extraordinarily agile response that exemplifies the Coast
Guard's motto of ``always ready.'' We are immensely proud of
you.
You saved over 11,000 lives that were either assisted
directly or indirectly by the United States Coast Guard. Those
11,000 Houstonians and Texans are alive today because of the
work of the Coast Guard. We don't know how many lives would
have been lost had you not been there for us. All the people of
Texas and Houston are immensely grateful to you.
It is a remarkable record, and we congratulate you and your
team on a job well done. And we are especially grateful to the
Coast Guard Sector Houston and Galveston, and Air Station
Houston for their role in this historic rescue effort.
I wanted to ask you, what are some of the lessons that you
think we have learned? And what could this subcommittee do to
help the Coast Guard in the future to make sure that you can
respond just as effectively as you did during Harvey?
Admiral Zukunft. Thank you, Congressman, and I think my
good friend and FEMA Administrator, Brock Long, would first
congratulate the state of Texas. You know, and a very resilient
state, and a very proactive community, and what I would say,
``Texans helping Texans.'' It wasn't just the Coast Guard. We
had the Cajun Navy there, as well.
It really brought out the best of what this Nation is
about. Neighbors helping neighbors. But what we did learn in
the middle of this, when that 911 call center went down, we
were operating on social media. We had a Twitter account. And
so there was an 800-number there, which is my Coast Guard
Headquarters--we have a small command center that notifies
senior officials of big events.
We were getting a thousand phone calls an hour. That 5-
person team became an 80-member call center. It looked like a
March of Dimes telethon. But these are calls--``I am on a
roof,'' ``Water is up to our necks,'' ``I need dialysis
treatment.''
Your emergency management center provided us with an
application called GeoSuite, and we were able to bring that
into the Department of Defense information network, with the
approval of Admiral Rogers, so that we could in real time take
a call, push that to a helicopter pilot on an iPad, and vector
them to where we had Texans in distress. The cycle time of that
was about 10 minutes.
So what we learned is that people don't necessarily rely on
911 call centers. This is very much like Uber or Lyft, in some
other application. The only difference is the streets that you
were going to use are now navigable waters, and it--you can't
drive.
So how do you use social media in a response right now?
What happens when you lose communications? We were fortunate
that you--we didn't lose the entire communication grid in the
state of Texas. But we certainly learned the relief societies,
providing food, providing meals, and how do you bring all of
that together? And that response framework worked extremely
well during this. But at the end of the day, very resilient
community.
If I learned anything, if I were to step back and say,
``Well, what if the sequence of events were reversed, and the
first hurricane was Maria, and then the second one was Irma,
and then the last one was Harvey?'' I would have been hard-
pressed, pulling resources out of Puerto Rico to then flow back
to Florida and Louisiana into Texas.
And so, we were a little bit fortunate that they happened
in the sequence and the timing that they did, but if the
sequence was reversed, I probably would not have had the
resources that were needed to be there during Hurricane Harvey.
So when people say, ``Well, obviously, you must have a big
enough Coast Guard''--many people say they were lucky. We were
lucky by virtue of the sequence in which these three hurricanes
occurred.
Mr. Culberson. An extraordinary job, and we are all
grateful to you. And every one of us that were there during the
storm would up doing jobs we didn't expect to do. My wife and I
were stranded in our home, and I became a dispatcher.
I was helping to position checkpoints with the Houston
Police Department, with the sheriff's department, with DPS, and
then I got a phone call from Garret Graves, who called to say
he was--he had--the Congressman from Louisiana had a hundred
in--a hundred trailers and trucks bringing 110 boats full of
jambalaya, and diapers, and water, and food, and radios, and--
something called the ``Cajun Navy,'' which I had not heard of,
and he wanted to know where to send them, because he wasn't
getting a lot of help, he needed to know where to send them.
So I was able to direct him pretty quickly to where they
needed to go. So, they--the response was amazing. I met people
in neighborhoods when I was out in the neighborhoods helping
folks after the storm, helped get their houses cleaned out, and
we met people from Michigan, from Florida, from the Carolinas,
who had just spontaneously seen the disaster, put their boat on
a trailer, and just come to Texas to help.
So I could not have been prouder. I have never been prouder
of the city of Houston than I was during that storm, and
certainly never been prouder of the United States Coast Guard
for the spectacular job that you did, sir. And you have always
had the strong support of this committee, but you have got an
even stronger ally here among the Texans on board here for what
you did to help us during Harvey.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Admiral.
Admiral Zukunft. Congressman, I am just going to have make
you an honorary member of the Coast Guard, then. Thank you for
your leadership in that time of disaster.
Mr. Carter [presiding]. Mr. Price?
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, I have--as we
wrap up here, I have a couple of very different questions, one
having to do with transgender military members, the other
having to do with semisubmersibles. I assume the second is
simpler, so I will start with that.
There has been an increasing number of migrant and drug
smuggling by sending semisubmersible technologies to our
Nation's coasts. So we are aware of that. And so it does raise
the question of Coast Guard capacity. Do you have the anti-
submarine warfare capacity to detect semisubmersibles from a
Coast Guard Cutter? What is it? What kind of equipment and
other needs does this development pose?
Admiral Zukunft. Congressman, we do not have the anti-
submarine sensors in any of our Coast Guard Cutters. That is a
naval capability. The one advantage is these are not fully
submersible, and we have other means of detecting their
activity. The most successful means of detection, quite
honestly, is human beings.
And these individuals that we bring in to be prosecuted
here in the United States, they can cut a deal with the U.S.
attorney, and instead of doing 20 years, they do 12. Now, how
do they get 8 years taken off their sentence time? They provide
us--information to include, where are these semisubmersibles,
where are they loading, and where are they leaving from?
So then we can do surveillance in those areas and catch
them as they leave. But that has been the most valuable tool
that we have right now, where--I want to say success yields
success. Success in an interdiction, you bring in informants
that then tip you off to the next event to get after these
semisubmersibles.
Mr. Price. So it sounds as though the main strategy for
dealing with this is not technological.
Admiral Zukunft. Part of it is human, and then other--what
I would say, as a member of the National Intelligence
Community, which the Coast Guard is, using all other sources of
information--which gets into a classified realm--to be able to
target these semisubmersibles. They have to communicate, and so
that is an area where they are also vulnerable.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Well, let me turn to this fraught
question of the transgender military members. As you know, in
July 2017, the President announced via Twitter a complete ban
on transgender people serving in the Armed Forces. A few months
later, the Departments of Defense and Justice recommended the
full implementation of this ban.
It seems to me this is an invented problem and a waste of
time and dollars and military resources by targeting these
dedicated service members who have proved their fitness and
their ability to serve. It would seem that every American who
is qualified and willing to risk their life to keep our country
safe should be able to serve.
I want to commend you for strongly speaking out against the
ban last summer in support of the current transgender Coasties.
But this is an ongoing matter, and that is why I would like you
to provide us with an update on the Coast Guard's position
regarding transgender individuals, both current service members
and future hires, and ask you, if I might, what is your posture
with respect to the apparent determination of Secretary Mattis
and Secretary Sessions to implement a ban?
There are pending judicial procedures. Is the Coast Guard
contesting this--what can you tell us about the state of play?
Admiral Zukunft. Well, the--the easiest--I will begin with
our--the 17 members of--transgender members of the Coast
Guard--actually, they transitioned, so they are not even
transgender anymore--that--that are serving in the Coast Guard,
carrying out the full scope of missions that we execute around
the world today--17, out of our more than 40,000 active duty
Coast Guard. One of them happens to serve on my staff, by the
way.
So we are certainly committed to their continued service in
the United States Coast Guard.
I work with the chairman, I work with the other service
chiefs as we look at the policy going forward. There--you know,
risk factors, and whether it is through surgery, whether it is
through emotional wellbeing and the like, and so we will make
sure that there is a one policy for all service members, of
which we are the fifth armed service.
So the Coast Guard, nor will the Navy, Army, Air Force, and
Marine Corps go off in a different direction with a different
approach, but we are all sitting at the table together, and
then providing the chairman, to provide elected leadership--
what I call, ``best military advice'' going forward.
But I look no further than the 17 members serving today
with a passion to serve in an all voluntary service, and they
are hitting the ball out of the park. Where we go with a policy
going forward--again, we will work collectively, among the
Joint Chiefs, provide best military advice, and then we will
follow what that policy is. But are you are well aware, that--
that has not been reconciled as of today.
Mr. Price. That best--that good advice, that conscientious
advice, of course, is extremely important, and I am glad you
are offering it so straightforwardly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Well then--well, Admiral, I think that is going
to conclude your last hearing. I join all of the--my colleagues
in congratulating you on doing a very, very good job for our
Coast Guard. And all of us here are very, very proud of the
Coast Guard. I got proud of them going all the way back to New
Orleans, when they were the first ones in and got the job done
when everybody else messed up.
So, thank you, good luck, aloha--I know where you are
going--and enjoy a great retirement, and our doors are always
open to you and your beautiful wife any time you want to come
around this city and visit us. We would love to see you. God
bless.
Admiral Zukunft. OK. Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Members,
and members of this committee. Thank you.
Thursday, April 26, 2018.
MEMBERS' DAY
Mr. Carter. The committee will come to order. We are going
to hear from Members of Congress today, issues that they have
that they will talk to us about their department and let us
know what they need. Billy Long, you are recognized.
---------- --
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HON. BILLY LONG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
MISSOURI
Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Roybal-Allard, is that how you pronounce it, and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for allowing me to come before you
today to speak on the importance of H-2B seasonal worker Visa
program. Many of us in this room represent districts with
various small and seasonal businesses that are struggling to
find local workers to fill seasonal temporary jobs. Many of
these businesses depend on seasonal workers through the H-2B
visa program. Relief for these seasonal businesses is urgently
needed and cannot wait, and I am here today to ask for your
support to include key H-2B visa program provisions in the
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations fiscal year 2019
proposal.
H-2B visas, the H-2B--excuse me, the H-2B program is
essential to employers who cannot find workers to fill
temporary jobs in seafood processing, horse training,
hospitality, amusement parks, forestry, landscaping, circuses,
carnivals and many other seasonal industry. It is important to
point out that these workers are not immigrants. They provide
an opportunity for businesses to operate at a greater capacity,
retain their fulltime workers and contribute to the local
economies.
The H-2B program sustain American jobs. In fact the H-2B
visas issued support 4.6 American jobs on average.
Unfortunately, the program's annual 66,000 visa cap, 33,000 for
each half at the fiscal year is not adequate to meet the
demands of the growing economy. In fact, the cap for seasonal
half of fiscal year 2018 was reached February 27, 2018, leaving
many seasonal employers excluded from the program with no
access to legal, seasonal laborers, leading to potential
reductions and operating hours and closures. Without action, it
is inevitable that the H-2B visa cap will be reached early in
fiscal year 2019. An increase to the H-2B visa allotment from
the existing 66,000 visas would certainly be a big step in the
right direction.
Often the cap is reached literally within days of when work
petition applications are accepted, the program has essentially
become a lottery as the demand for visas is far greater than
what is issued. I understand firsthand the importance of this
program, Missouri's seventh congressional district which I
represent is a tourism hot spot, I am proud to represent such
entertainment centers as Branson, Missouri, a small town in
just over 11,000 people taking in 8.5 million visitors every
year.
I would like to point out that a lot of residents are
retirees and you have seen the ad on TV, I am 85 and I want to
go home. People that have to work until they are 85 and there
is not a log of people retired in Branson that could take these
jobs that need to be filled.
The deficiency in finding available employees in Branson
affects everything from hotels to restaurants to theme parks,
to landscaping businesses. These are employers that have tried
for years to fill the need for employees with locals and have
been unable to do it. The H-2B program provides the Branson
community and many other destination--destination cities across
the country the ability to find employees so they can provide
their services to the public. These seasonal destinations are
very much--excuse me, the seasonal destinations are very much
dependent on such a program for the commerce in the to
effectively function. Simply put, there are just not enough
able individuals to fill these job openings.
It doesn't take a PhD from MIT to figure out in a town like
Jackson, Wyoming at 10,000 people or Branson, Missouri of
11,000 people, these tourist areas to bring in millions of
tourists every year, that you are not going to have the local
population, if everyone there wanted to work three shifts,
three times, you wouldn't have the number. So I plead with you
to please look at increasing the 66,000 cap.
Again, I appreciate the committee's continued willingness
to listen to the views of members like myself. I know the
Appropriations Committee will face tough decisions on
priorities for fiscal year 2019. For this reason, I
respectfully ask for you to support--for your support to
include key H-2B visa program provisions in the Department of
Homeland Security Appropriations fiscal year 2019 proposal.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Long--Congressman Long. Do you
have any comments and questions really quick?
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Not really other than to say thank you.
Mr. Long. OK, thank you all very much. I appreciate your
consideration.
Mr. Carter. Yeah, we understand the dilemma, we hear it
from everybody, it is a challenging area, but we--I support H-
2Bs and we are going to--we will work, again, try to get some
expansion. We also will some issues the White House has with H-
2Bs that we have got to overcome.
Mr. Long. I have been talking to them too and I got--I
think they are leaning that way.
Mr. Carter. Keep them--keep at them. And I apologize to Ms.
Roybal-Allard, I didn't make an opening statement, you? OK, it
makes it easy.
All right, we are joined by Brad Schneider. Brad, are you
ready to go?
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HON. BRAD SCHNEIDER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS
Mr. Schneider. I am all set, thank you. Thank you, Chairman
Carter, Ranking Member Roybal-Allard and the distinguished
colleagues of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity
to speak before the committee. I am here today to request
robust funding for the Department of Homeland Security,
specifically for four programs of particular importance to the
residents of my district and our country.
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, a
shining beacon of hope for those fleeing oppression and seeking
a better life. I testified before this subcommittee last year
and since that time I have participated in a handful of
naturalization ceremonies in my congressional district. I can't
begin to explain how meaningful it is to experience these
ceremonies, especially meeting the individuals now proudly call
themselves Americans.
My grandmother, my great grandparents came to the United
States in the early 1900s fleeing the persecution of--of Jews
in Tsarist Russia. This country gave her and her family, my
family boundless opportunities and they were able to make a
wonderful life for themselves. That is why I am committed to
both ensuring the safety and security of the American people
and also ensuring our country remains a beacon for immigrants
and a land of opportunity for all.
I vehemently oppose President Trump's travel ban that
arbitrarily bars entry of people seeking refuge from certain
countries into this country. His travel ban does nothing to
target the root causes of terrorism, does not make our country
safer and undermines the very values that define our nation.
The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, USCIS, plays an important role in
processing applications for those seeking entry into the United
States as asylum seekers or through the U.S.--through other
U.S. humanitarian programs.
USCIS faces major backlogs and delays when processing
applications, so I continue to urge this committee to work with
them and other agencies involved in refugees screening
processes to identify whether there are ways to improve and
ensure the timely processing of refugee and asylum
applications.
I also urge the committee to continue funding for the Urban
Area Security Initiative, UASI program, which assists high
threat urban areas to build and sustain the necessary
capabilities to prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from
acts of terrorism. I have heard from emergency responders
across my district about the importance of this program in
keeping our communities safe. UASI funds are critical to the
first responders as well as enabling regional coordination
across districts and states.
Additionally, I would like to highlight one specific
program within UASI that is of critical importance. This is the
Nonprofit Security Grant Program, NSGP. The NSGP was created
to--so at-risk nonprofit organizations that serve our community
centers have the resources they need to protect themselves
against potential threats. These funds may be used for
important capital improvements to upgrade much needed security
measures. Underscoring the need for this program is the
troubling rise of domestic extremism and hate incidents across
the country.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of
hate groups increased by four percent from 2016 to 2017, from
917 to 954 respectively. Additionally the Anti-Defamation
League found that Anti-Semitic incidents increased 57 percent,
57 percent from 2016 to 2017. That is 1,267 incidents in 2016
to 1,986 incidents in 2017. These statistics exemplify the
threats nonprofit organizations across the country face and the
need to take these threats seriously.
Therefore I urge this subcommittee to continue this
critical funding for NSGP. Finally, I would like to discuss the
importance of the assistant to firefighter grant AFG and
staffing for adequate fire and emergency response, SAFER grant
programs. Fire departments and emergency response personnel in
my Congressional district have benefited greatly from these
programs. They provide much needed resources including
personnel, training and equipment.
AFG and SAFER have had an enormous impact on public safety,
but the demand for these resources continue. I urge the
committee to continue to fund these vital grant programs that
help keep our communities safe. I realize the tough budgetary
decisions that lie before this subcommittee and I greatly
appreciate your consideration of my priorities, your
willingness to let us come and speak before you and your work
in addressing the fiscal requirements for fiscal year 2019.
Thank you.
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Mr. Carter. Thank you, Congressman Schneider and yes, we do
pay a lot of attention to these comments when people come in
and we certainly will take them into consideration. We have
notes of what you just said and we all read them and we will do
the best we can to accommodate you.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Roybal-Allard, any comment?
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Again just thank you for highlighting
some very critical programs.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Anyone else on the committee would like to
comment? Thank you very much.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, have a great day.
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HON. BILL JOHNSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Carter. Congressman Johnson. Welcome.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I assume I am
recognized.
Mr. Carter. You are now recognized. Yes, you are.
Mr. Johnson. OK, well thank you. Well, thank you, Mr.
Chairman and thanks to the committee for holding this important
hearing today and providing me with an opportunity to say a few
words. As some of you might know, I represent eastern and
southeastern Ohio and I am here today to speak about the
importance of resolving the current H-2B visa shortage directly
impacting small businesses, seasonal businesses, particularly
in my district and around the country.
Earlier this month, in her testimony before this
subcommittee, Secretary Nielsen stated that one of the core
missions of the Department of Homeland Security is to preserve
and uphold the nation's prosperity and economic security.
Unfortunately, this critical mission continues to be impeded
every year as the demand for H-2B visas surpasses the annual
cap, leaving thousands of small seasonal businesses in jeopardy
of closing their doors when their labor needs go unfulfilled.
Our Nation's prosperity and economic security is highly
dependent upon the quality and quantity of workers and with
nearly six million unfilled jobs across the United States, it
should come as no surprise that businesses continue to suffer
from this nationwide labor shortage when it comes to meeting
their seasonal needs. Put simply, seasonal businesses need the
resources to do the jobs that are available and the federal H-
2B visa program provides a solution to the current labor
shortage by enabling companies that qualify for the H-2B visa
program to acquire temporary foreign workers to fill non-
agricultural positions.
The H-2B visa program is a small but necessary part of
American economic landscape, helping to create and sustain jobs
in my district and across the country. According to a U.S.
Chamber of Commerce survey of employers, hiring H-2B visa
workers allows companies to sustain and expand the volume of
their business and this in turn enables them to hire more U.S.
workers.
This temporary worker program is critical for many seasonal
businesses, but it is by no means perfect. As the nationwide
labor shortage continues, the seasonal businesses relying on
the H-2B visa program are facing yet another challenge this
year when it comes to obtaining the necessary workforce. The
current demand for H-2B visas has again surpassed the annual
cap of 66,000 per fiscal year.
Now, I fully acknowledge that Congress bears some
responsibility for this problem, because up until 2016
employers could get an exemption for returning guest workers,
thereby not counting against the caps. That exemption expired
in 2016 and Congress has not been able to reauthorize it. But
in the recently passed consolidated appropriations act for
fiscal year 2018, Congress did give DHS the authority to
increase the caps by another 63,000 and DHS should do that.
On March 1, 2018, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services announced that employers sought several thousand more
seasonal farm workers this spring than there are visas
available, resulting in a lottery for the H-2B visas, the first
time a lottery has ever been conducted for H-2B visas.
Such a lottery method gives no consideration to the many
small seasonal businesses that have had returning guest workers
for years and their business models have made them dependent on
this workforce for their very survival. We are in uncharted
waters when it comes to the federal H-2B visa program and in
order to carry out its mission to preserve and uphold the
nation's prosperity and economic security, Secretary Nielsen
must provide these businesses with a sustainable H-2B cap
relief. Small and seasonal businesses are desperate, as
participation in the H-2B program is not their first choice. It
is the last resort after unsuccessfully carrying out extensive
recruitment efforts to secure American workers.
My district is home to many amusement and landscaping
companies that will face irreparable harm if the Department of
Homeland Security does not provide H-2B visa cap relief
immediately. In fact, 66 percent of businesses seasonal labor
needs will go unfulfilled this spring without immediate action
according to the Ohio Landscape Association.
In fact, without substantial and immediate cap relief, some
of the very same small businesses that we work so hard to help
with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are at risk of losing everything
because they can't get their seasonal workers. One of my
constituents, Chris Ponzani of the Ponzani Landscaping Company,
will be unable to meet his business obligations and will be
forced to default on his contracts, lay off dedicated fulltime
U.S. workers, cancel orders with U.S. vendors and in the worst
case scenario, he will have to close his 27-year business if
additional H-2B visas are not released.
This is just one of the many seasonal businesses in my
district that are facing the same uncertain future because they
can't obtain legal H-2B visa workforce. I know members on this
committee are no strangers to stories like this, as similar
stories have emerged in states and districts across America, so
I am hopeful everyone here can agree when I say we need
immediately substantial H-2B visa cap relief, and we must do
everything we can to urge Secretary Nielsen and the Department
of Homeland Security to make additional H-2B visas available
just like we told them they could do recently in the
legislation that passed and was signed into law. And this is
going to help the small and seasonal businesses that we work so
hard to protect, the 60 percent of businesses that provide the
60 percent--or I am sorry, the small businesses that provide
over 60 percent of the jobs in America.
And, Mr. Chairman, it is a desperate situation. We saw it
happen last year as it unfolded and--and this lottery system is
just totally, totally unfair and inconsiderate of businesses
that have been out there for years and they are--they are
victims of inaction by Congress and an agency that for whatever
reason is moving too slowly to try and remedy the problem in
the near term. So I urge the committee to do what they can to
help them with that. I yield back and I will answer any
questions that you might have.
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Mr. Carter. Thank you. Are there any--Lucille?
Ms. Roybal-Allard. This is a serious issue and I thank you
for being here.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Carter. Comment?
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank
Mr. Johnson for shedding light on this issue. It is all over
the country. You are absolutely right even up in the Pacific
Northwest and you and Mr. Long will bring a very important
issue forward and hopefully we can do something to remedy the
situation. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson. With the committee's indulgence, can I give
one more example? County fairs, county fairs, rural America,
that is the heartbeat. I mean that is where life happens in
rural America. If you can't get merry go rounds and roller
coasters and vendors set up for county fairs and they have to
cancel those county fairs, 4H livestock shows, demolition
derbies, arts and crafts, you name it, the heartbeat of our
country is at risk here of shutting down because of a glitch
here in Washington, D.C. Please urge the Department of Homeland
Security to move immediately to do what Congress has given them
the power to do and allocate those additional 63,000 H-2B visas
for this year.
We will work on a bigger solution next year, but let us get
the problem solved this year and get it solved now. Waiting
until July and August, many of those businesses will have
already been shut down because the contracts will be too late,
the field will be too wet to plow.
Mr. Carter. Yes, Mr. Cuellar, go ahead.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree. Congress
took some action and we are waiting for the administration. Mr.
Chairman, I don't know if I am missing something, but I thought
we are the ones that enact the laws. So if we did that, why are
we waiting? Why can we not--I mean why do we have to wait?
Because you are right, I mean I see that in different parts of
my area also, they are waiting for this. And we changed it, so
why are we waiting?
Mr. Johnson. I thank my colleague for asking that question.
Here is my understanding of the problem. It is not a problem--
well, first of all, Congress, as I mentioned, bear some
responsibility because we allowed that returning guest worker
exemption to expire back in 2016. That would have solved this
whole problem because then businesses that have a history of
getting these workers, they wouldn't even counted toward the
caps and it would only be new businesses that we are dealing
with.
So that is where Congress is culpable. But the problem is
not so much in the House. We passed legislation out of the
House that went to the Senate in the consolidated
appropriations bill that we passed just a few weeks ago. It is
the language in the Senate that makes this difficult, but the
Department of Homeland Security can help us and help the
American people by responding to the temporary fix we gave them
to go ahead and just approve the caps up to 63,000. Let us
worry about fixing a permanent fix next year.
I am trying to give Homeland Security a little bit of the
benefit of the doubt. This is a problem that we created by
letting that exemption expire, but they can help us resolve it
since we haven't been able to get it resolved legislatively.
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, I want to work with you and the
Ranking Woman and, you know, it looks like it is a very
bipartisan request and whatever we could do, you know, I want
to help, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Well, to go on the record, I have raised the
number every year since I have been chairman. In addition I
supported the returning worker exemption that we should have
that. It was a large, during the political season, a large
uproar from the members of USCA and some other people that
jammed that issue.
Mr. Cuellar. Sure.
Mr. Carter. They are concerned about people staying and all
that stuff. It is a necessary need of the country everywhere we
are. And just to give you another example, I have got 168,000
homes in Houston Texas above our normal 50,000 a year building
rate that have got to be repaired and we don't have laborers to
do it. And there is no bigger disaster than that, all those
people around getting money from the government and living
outside of their homes.
Mr. Johnson. In all due respect, Mr. Chairman, you guys are
probably getting some of the seasonal workers that my folks
ought to be getting because you have all of that work down
there to do.
Mr. Carter. I don't know. We have got them.
Mr. Johnson. But that is a good thing. That is a good thing
that we got that much more work to do, but I appreciate the
concern.
Mr. Carter. Well, I am very much in favor of increasing
this and we will be--I will be raising that issue.
Mr. Johnson. Well I thank the committee very much for
indulging my time. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, if you are going to excuse me, I
know you are a judge also, but I do have a federal judge from
San Antonio, so I am going to say hello recognize Judge Xavier
Rodriguez from San Antonio, one of our federal judges.
Mr. Carter. We try to keep him in line, it is a lot of
work. But you know him, so you know what we are talking about.
Welcome, Judge.
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HON. FRENCH HILL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ARKANSAS
Mr. Carter. Congressman French Hill from the great state of
Arkansas.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Judge. I am proud to be with you today
and ranking member, thanks for having me and members, I
appreciate the time to be together. Mr. Cuellar, as he departs.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of you today
in support of the assistance to fire fighters grant program and
the staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Act
Program.
Fire departments need adequate staffing, equipment and
training to keep our communities safe and these programs have a
significant impact on our fire departments in my home state of
Arkansas.
While I have been in office, fire departments in my
district have received more than $3 million of these grants, 13
individual fire departments have received over 19 awards, with
the highest award being $600,000 from North Little Rock
Arkansas and the smallest being $19,000 to Burnt Ridge
Arkansas. This shows that even the smallest award changes the
lives of those living in their communities.
With the $19,000 received by the Burnt Ridge Fire
Department, they were able to purchase thermal cameras, cameras
which is a game changer when responding to serious calls. Burnt
Ridge was also able to purchase a new brush truck. Before they
received FEMA funding, they were using a converted 1965
military truck to transport water. In Arkansas' second
congressional district, our departments need new self-contained
breathing apparatus desperately especially in our smallest
compartments, they are old and out dated and no longer are
certified for operation.
Radios are also a big need. For example, the Little Rock
Fire Department currently needs 90 mobile radios and 202
portable radios at a total cost of $1.3 million. Finally,
departments typically need turnout cabinets. Fire fighters are
putting their lives on the line not just in the immediate risk
of bodily harm, but in the increased risk of harmful
contaminants. These units cost $30,000 each which is well over
the budget for most departments in my district. They need to
have these units to clean their turnout gear after runs to
remove harmful contaminants.
In Central Arkansas, we have a strong community spirit and
the fire fighters know that if one department is able to
purchase one of these turnout cabinets, then the area
departments, especially volunteers, will be able to maintain
their turnout gear safe and well. Assistance to fire fighter
grant funding is necessary for fire fighter departments across
my district.
Often the needs are too great for them to do it alone and
we are proud to support them in their applications. These
grants have changed their communities and make the area
expeditiously, in my view, and immeasurably safer. Now, with
your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will attach to my testimony
the total grant awards in the second congressional district.
Mr. Carter. Hearing no objection.
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Mr. Hill. I thank the Chairman. This data shows how far
this grant money can go for our small towns and fire
departments across our congressional districts, they keep our
communities safe. Thank you very much and I appreciate your
consideration of both the SAFER Grants and the work done in our
Homeland Security Department and by FEMA, and thanks for the
opportunity to appear.
Mr. Carter. Thank you for your input and we do take these
requests seriously. Be sure and get any written request you
have in. OK, Ms. Roybal-Allard do you have anything else?
Thank you, sir. And our final person is on her way, so we
will--we will be ready shortly.
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HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
TEXAS
Mr. Carter. We welcome Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of
the great state of Texas. Ms. Jackson Lee, we are ready to hear
from you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much and again, all of
us appreciate the work of the Appropriations Committee and
particularly those of you who are here today. I sit on the
Budget Committee and I know when we do member input, it is
appreciated by the members and I certainly appreciate you.
I am going to ask unanimous consent to place my statement
in the record and just give a few points. This morning I----
Mr. Carter. Without objection.
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Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you. And it will give a list of
pre-disaster mitigation, port security, TSA and others, but I
do want to and I made mention, but I do want to just comment
since, Judge, all of us, I know that Congresswoman Roybal-
Allard has been in the midst of disasters as well. But we are
still dealing with Hurricane Harvey in Texas and I know that
there are a number, Maria in Puerto Rico we heard this morning
in the meeting Mr. Chairman that one of the cities in Puerto
Rico, a good portion of the cities, I think it is Ponce is
without electricity still.
In the hearing this morning with the secretary of Homeland
Security, I want to just emphasize these points and the
Appropriations Committee, I think it can be very effective in
some of these concerns. Let me say that I believe that the
department is less diverse than it has ever been and this is
not a question of someone's political views, but I know that
there are competent people of like mind that could be hired
that are Latino, African-American, Asian and it is just not
there. In particular, the secretary's office has no diverse
person in her immediate office.
That is a question of recruitment, retention. I think we
are all well aware that the department is lacking in the
necessary resources. Number, two if you will, we are very
unclear on how enforcement proceeds with dreamer, status
dreamer persons, meaning that they are status.
And what we hear is that the border patrol still drills
down on dreamer-statused individuals as they cross the border.
And I didn't get a satisfactory answer as well as the fact that
I think it is important for appropriators to ask the question.
I know that we have a difference of opinion, but whether or not
with the court decisions that are not clear, that it would be
appropriate for new applications to take in--be taken in as
well as those who are re-upping. And I just think these are
questions that we who have oversight responsibility should.
I used to be the chairwoman of the Transportation Security
Committee on Homeland Security and so I worked very much with
the Transportation Security Administration. One of the issues
that is extremely important and should be considered and
forgive me, I have not looked to see whether there was an
increase in compensation for those TSOs, but as I have travel
the airports, I engaged with a management at every airport to
find out how many FTEs they have, TSOs and what is the level of
success that they are having.
So clearly the question of retention is crucial for the
Transportation Security Administration. They are losing people.
It is great to think of this agency as a stair step, but there
are many who view is as a professional opportunity. And what
they argue is they need more support on retention and
professional development, and we should assess, which may have
been done, but I want to make and put this on the record their
compensation. What happens is that they go to DEA, they go to
the FBI if they are able to do so and ATF and other federal
agencies which certainly is a credit. But I believe that the
Transportation Security Administration and I know this
committee has worked very hard on--the ranking member has
worked very hard on professionalizing TSA which is a first line
of defense in the nation's airports and I think that that is
extremely important that we look at that.
Final off the hand comment I want to make and then I will
make one or two, I didn't notice, I think maybe I have gone off
time, so please forgive me. The FEMA structure----
Mr. Carter. Your time is OK, we are not keeping time.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right, and I think we have all worked
on this, there are good people in the FEMA operation, the
administrator, I have worked with all of them. And as good
human beings, I would never question, but I do think that all
of us need to look at a reconfiguration of FEMA to the rescue
period which is when you rush in and you bring in the
generators and people from all over the country and you are
standing up shelters and you are helping people. I remember not
my city, not Harris County, but a city that Port Arthur which
is a neighbor and a neighbor to my colleague. When I say
neighbor, a neighboring city, another colleague's district, but
people reached out because I was on Homeland Security.
And they were so small that they just didn't know what to
do. They literally had people out on the street. This is in the
immediate aftermath of hurricane Harvey, and clearly didn't
know how to reach the state to get permission, to get some kind
of temporary housing, tents, whatever. They were trying to get
on barges and they were being rejected. Somebody came up and
said, I can get you on some barges and frankly they were able
to get through to the state which helped them with some form of
housing.
The point is that there should be the immediate rescue
period and then the recovery period. So I am dealing with
people right now who are being put out of hotels and however
you want to characterize them, they are put in the category of
not eligible, but you still have people who are without homes.
And if there was the rescue and then there was a long-term
recovery, those individuals could at least have a long-term
response to what they should be doing.
They don't have that. And I came to say this because I was
really shocked. We are working on it right now, a constituent
who we directed to the last remaining DRC said, they are
laughing at us. And it may be people are exasperated, they are
overworked, they are from out of town, but that is just
something no matter what area of disaster you may fall in, it
is not even a year for these people. It looks like if I might
say, these are the not doing anything for themselves people. I
can say that we have a shortage of affordable housing in a big
city like Houston, we have lost a lot of them. We lost some to
Hurricane Harvey to be very honest. And so these people need a
long-term hand holding and it is not even August.
And as many of you know, we in the Gulf, are coming into
our hurricane season. And I just think as partners on Homeland
Security authorizing and working, that we should find some way
to bolster FEMA's really important two-pronged task, is they
are, I mean, immediate responders of which you hear people say
FEMA, FEMA, FEMA up there. The state operator, the emergency
center, they are there, the shelter standup that they do, but
then these people, and they are all over in many jurisdictions
need that extra help.
So I am trying to or am drafting a reconfiguration of FEMA
in those two prongs. I certainly hope to listen to FEMA about
how that would work. We have already talked to them to get
their input as to how that would work and how that will be
effective.
The other point is that in the hearing that Mr. McCall and
we had as the Homeland Security field hearing, our cities and
you may be facing the same, have not gotten their reimbursement
for school reimbursement and other assistance that they have
sent the invoice if you will, and they have not yet gotten that
funding. And I don't think it was tied to the recent omnibus
because I think they have certainly got money in the last go-
round that we gave.
All of this is to say we have good people working. FEMA
personnel that come from faraway places who stand up to work as
contract, whatever the structure is, I know they are good
people. But again, you can't laugh at my constituents. You
can't laugh because they come in and whatever they missed
getting, whatever they didn't do right, they are still
homeless, they are still short out of this hotel. And they are
still in a place that has people living in homes that are
nothing but shells. They don't have any--they haven't put the
dry wall up, they haven't done anything. I mean they just got
it out and they are there.
This is the plight of disasters which we as a country I
think have always had a big heart for trying to restore people,
but we have got to have the system to help us restore people as
well. So the--in this I have this funding for FEMA's hazardous
engagement assistance, emergency food and shelter which is
important, staffing for adequate fire and emergency response
and the U.S. is 750 for that, the transit security.
But I close on this, the first responders are wonderful and
as we understand the president's budget, some of those dollars
for them were cut and I certainly want to speak for them today
to say that those--that funding dollar should be there. I have
got things like port security, but I want to submit this into
the record, $45 million for university programs, Homeland
Security centers of excellence for HBCUs and expanding serving
institutions. They have been a wonderful to train Homeland
Security experts.
With that, I appreciate your tolerance and as well the
opportunity to appear before you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee and we too do take
seriously all the requests that come in here, we will look at
them within the resources that we have got available and we
will try our very best. As you know I am a native Houston, my
heart is in Houston. And I am very, very concerned. I speak
about it almost every day, just had people requesting H-2B
visas in here, we desperately need them in Houston. We just--
there is a lot of need in Houston and we will do the best we
can.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Just to say thank you and I echo what
the chairman said, we will do our best.
Mr. Carter. Any further comments for the committee? All
right, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming in, Ms.
Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much. We will be working
together.
Mr. Carter. That is the end of the hearing. We are
adjourned.
W I T N E S S E S
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Page
Albence, Matthew T............................................... 75
Prepared statement........................................... 78
Benner, Derek N.................................................. 88
Prepared statement........................................... 78
Hill, Hon. French................................................ 219
Prepared statement........................................... 221
Jackson Lee, Hon. Sheila......................................... 223
Prepared statement........................................... 224
Johnson, Hon. Bill............................................... 211
Prepared statement........................................... 214
Long, Hon. Billy................................................. 201
Prepared statement........................................... 203
Long, Hon. Brock................................................. 137
Prepared statement........................................... 141
McAleenan, Kevin K............................................... 59
Prepared statement........................................... 62
Nielsen, Hon. Kirsten............................................ 4
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Schneider, Hon. Brad............................................. 206
Prepared statement........................................... 208
Zukunft, Admiral Paul F.......................................... 171
I N D E X
----------
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Page
Antiterrorism Grants............................................. 47
Border Wall Detention Beds....................................... 51
Border Security:
Immigration Judges, Border Patrol Agents..................... 28
National Guard............................................... 43
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction........................... 27
Cybersecurity:
Working With State and Local Governments..................... 33
Working With the Private Sector.............................. 50
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals........................... 36
Department of Energy National Laboratories....................... 37
Department of Homeland Security: Vision.......................... 14
Detention: Pregnant Women........................................ 14
H-2B:
Number of VISAs, Application Process......................... 31
Timeline for Certifications.................................. 49
Opioid Detection................................................. 27
Refugees......................................................... 38
Sanctuary States: Federal Preemption............................. 31
Temporary Protected Status: Haitians............................. 48
Unaccompanied Children........................................... 52
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Protection
Border Security:
Apprehensions..............................................122, 128
Asylum................................................123, 127, 128
Barrier Prototype............................................ 90
Catch and Release............................................ 126
Construction................................................. 92
Crime........................................................ 118
Gates........................................................ 93
Human Trafficking............................................ 131
Mexico....................................................... 129
National Guard.............................................108, 110
Operation Streamline.......................................131, 132
Property Procurement......................................... 93
Prosecution................................................132, 133
Wall......................................................... 60
Wall Replacement............................................. 92
CBP:
Border Checkpoints........................................... 120
Border Crossings............................................. 98
Border Security.............................................. 99
Facilities................................................... 61
Hiring....................................................... 60
Port of Entry................................................ 119
Trade Enforcement............................................ 120
Workforce Staffing.........................................111, 124
Child Separation................................................. 95
Combating MS-13 Gang Activity.................................... 89
Combating Narcotics.............................................. 121
Combating Opioids................................88, 107, 109, 112, 114
ICE:
Compliance Center............................................ 103
Detention Beds..............................................76, 114
Enforcement Discretion....................................... 105
Enforcement and Removal Operations........................... 75
Homeland Security Investigations............................. 88
Immigration Enforcement......................................97, 98
Infrastructure............................................... 90
Judge Workforce.............................................. 119
Opioids...................................................... 99
Parental Interest............................................ 94
Removal Enforcement Prioritization........................... 105
Sanctuary Policy............................................. 98
Targeted Enforcement Operations.............................. 114
Transportation and Removal................................... 77
Workforce................................................75, 76, 90
Workforce Compliance Targeting........................102, 119, 130
License Plate Readers: Modernization............................. 118
Mobile Surveillance Capability................................... 118
National Targeting Center........................................ 61
Non-intrusive Inspection Technology.............................61, 111
Sanctuary States: California:.................................... 114
Trade Facilitation/Enforcement................................... 61
Worksite Enforcement............................................. 89
[all]