[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2021 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 3, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-64
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
41-954 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Mike Rogers, Alabama
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island Peter T. King, New York
Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey John Katko, New York
Kathleen M. Rice, New York Mark Walker, North Carolina
J. Luis Correa, California Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Xochitl Torres Small, New Mexico Debbie Lesko, Arizona
Max Rose, New York Mark Green, Tennessee
Lauren Underwood, Illinois John Joyce, Pennsylvania
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Dan Crenshaw, Texas
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri Michael Guest, Mississippi
Al Green, Texas Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey
Dina Titus, Nevada
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Nanette Diaz Barragan, California
Val Butler Demings, Florida
Hope Goins, Staff Director
Chris Vieson, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Alabama, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Witness
Honorable Chad Wolf, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
For the Record
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Statement of Anthony M. Reardon, National President, National
Treasury Employees Union..................................... 66
Appendix
Questions From Honorable Torres Small for Honorable Chad Wolf.... 73
Questions From Honorable Michael Guest for Honorable Chad Wolf... 74
A REVIEW OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2021 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
----------
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bennie G. Thompson
(Chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Thompson, Langevin, Richmond,
Rice, Correa, Torres Small, Rose, Underwood, Cleaver, Green of
Texas, Clarke, Titus, Coleman, Demings; Rogers, King, McCaul,
Katko, Walker, Higgins, Lesko, Green of Tennessee, Joyce,
Crenshaw, Guest, Bishop, and Van Drew.
Chairman Thompson. The Committee on Homeland Security will
come to order.
The committee is meeting today to receive testimony on the
administration's budget request for the Department of Homeland
Security.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare the
committee in recess at any point.
Acting Secretary Wolf, you are here today under
extraordinarily troubling circumstances. Americans are
rightfully concerned about the coronavirus that spreads across
the globe and claimed the lives of thousands, including at
least 6 here at home. They are looking to their Government for
leadership and guidance.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration has not been equal
to the task so far. In the face of this potential pandemic, the
President has downplayed this threat, overstated how close
scientists are to developing a vaccine, and muzzled experts in
his own administration who disagree with him. As the crisis
unfolds, the President has continued to hold political rallies,
including a recent one where he called the coronavirus a hoax
perpetrated by Democrats. Even for a President who has a casual
relationship with the truth, this is not only an outrageous
lie, but also incredibly dangerous.
The President must not shirk his responsibility. The
country needs him to step up in a time of crisis, like
Presidents of both parties have done throughout our Nation's
history. That means acknowledging the threat, prioritizing the
health and security of the American people above political
consideration or the stock market, and allowing doctors,
scientists, and other qualified experts to offer candid
assessments of the situation and direct the Federal response.
As for the Department of Homeland Security, I remain
concerned about the lack of steady leadership and persistent
vacancies, especially during this critical time. Mr. Wolf is
the fifth person to sit--serve as Secretary during 3 years of
Trump administration. It has been 328 days since the Department
of Homeland Security has had a Senate-confirmed Secretary. It
is not even certain that Mr. Wolf's appointment is valid.
Moreover, a Federal court ruled in recent days that the
acting deputy secretary's appointment as USCIS director was
unlawful, calling into question his position at the Department.
Unfortunately, the President appears to prefer chaos to order,
and political expediency to good government.
Make no mistake, the on-going vacancies and lack of steady
leadership have consequences, especially at a time like this.
For example, since 9/11 the Federal Government has invested
heavily in developing doctrine to define roles and
responsibility for incident response. But no one in the
administration seems to be familiar with them. As Americans
face a potential coronavirus pandemic, the administration
appears to be caught flat-footed, scrambling to figure out who
is in charge.
Meanwhile, the President's proposed budget prioritizes his
draconian immigration campaign promises at the expense of our
core homeland security activities and responsibilities,
including agencies and programs that are integral to the
coronavirus response. I remain committed to ensuring the
Department receives the funding it needs to carry out its
mission on behalf of the American people.
Similarly, Members of both parties rejected the President's
recent lowball coronavirus emergency supplemental request.
Apparently, the President is happy to spend an unlimited amount
of U.S. taxpayers' money on a useless border wall. But faced
with the prospect of a global pandemic, he would have nickel-
and-dimed our response. This is unacceptable. Now is certainly
not the time to leave Federal agencies engaged in the response
short of resources. In the coming days we will send the
President a bill providing the funding necessary to fight the
coronavirus.
Before I close, I want to address the challenges associated
with the Department's refusal to cooperate with the committee's
oversight efforts. Under the Trump administration the
Department has failed to provide the documents requested by
this committee as part of its Constitutionally-mandated
oversight efforts. Even under subpoena, when the committee does
receive documents, they are incomplete or heavily redacted so
as to render them useless.
The behavior of the Department gives the impression that it
is seeking to evade oversight, or has something to hide. I hope
that is not true. If we can't trust the Trump administration to
be transparent with regular Congressional oversight, how can we
trust it to be honest with the American people in a time of
crisis?
In the past time for the President and his administration
to be the leaders the American people need and deserve. They
are counting on the administration to secure the Nation, and on
Congress to hold you accountable. Please know that we will
uphold our responsibility, Mr. Acting Secretary. I sincerely
hope the President and his administration uphold theirs.
[The statement of Chairman Thompson follows:]
Statement of Chairman Bennie G. Thompson
March 3, 2020
Acting Secretary Wolf, you are here today under extraordinarily
troubling circumstances. Americans are rightfully concerned about the
coronavirus that has spread across the globe and claimed the lives of
thousands, including at least 6 here at home. They are looking to their
Government for leadership and guidance. Unfortunately, the Trump
administration has not been equal to the task so far.
In the face of this potential pandemic, the President has
downplayed its threat, overstated how close scientists are to
developing a vaccine, and muzzled experts in his own administration who
disagree with him. As the crisis unfolds, the President has continued
to hold political rallies, including a recent one where he called the
coronavirus a ``hoax'' perpetrated by Democrats. Even for a President
who has a casual relationship with the truth, this is not only an
outrageous lie but also incredibly dangerous.
The President must not shirk his responsibility. The country needs
him to step up in a time of crisis, like Presidents of both parties
have done throughout our Nation's history. That means acknowledging the
threat; prioritizing the health and security of the American people
above political considerations or the stock market; and allowing
doctors, scientists, and other qualified experts to offer candid
assessments of the situation and direct the Federal response.
As for the Department of Homeland Security, I remain concerned
about the lack of steady leadership and persistent vacancies,
especially during this crucial time. Mr. Wolf is the fifth person to
serve as Secretary during 3 years of Trump administration. It has been
328 days since the Department of Homeland Security has had a Senate-
confirmed Secretary.
It is not even certain that Mr. Wolf's appointment is valid.
Moreover, a Federal court ruled in recent days that the Acting Deputy
Secretary's appointment as USCIS director was unlawful, calling into
question his position at the Department.
Unfortunately, the President appears to prefer chaos to order and
political expediency to good government. Make no mistake--the on-going
vacancies and lack of steady leadership have consequences, especially
at a time like this.
For example, since 9/11, the Federal Government has invested
heavily in developing doctrine to define roles and responsibilities for
incident response. But no one in the administration seems to be
familiar with them. As Americans face a potential coronavirus pandemic,
the administration appears to be caught flatfooted, scrambling to
figure out who is in charge.
Meanwhile, the President's proposed budget prioritizes his
draconian immigration campaign promises at the expense of our core
homeland security activities and responsibilities, including agencies
and programs that are integral to the coronavirus response.
I remain committed to ensuring the Department receives the funding
it needs to carry out its mission on behalf of the American people.
Similarly, Members of both parties rejected the President's recent low-
ball coronavirus emergency supplemental request.
Apparently the President is happy to spend an unlimited amount of
U.S. taxpayer money on a useless border wall, but faced with the
prospect of global pandemic he would have nickeled-and-dimed our
response. This is unacceptable.
Now is certainly not the time to leave Federal agencies engaged in
the response short of resources. In the coming days, we will send to
the President a bill providing the funding necessary to fight the
coronavirus.
Before I close, I want to address the challenges associated with
the Department's refusal to cooperate with the committee's oversight
efforts. Under the Trump administration, the Department has failed to
provide the documents requested by this committee as part of its
Constitutionally-mandated oversight efforts, even under subpoena.
When the committee does receive documents, they are incomplete or
heavily redacted so as to render them useless. The behavior of the
Department gives the impression that it is seeking to evade oversight
and has something to hide. I hope that is not true.
If we can't trust the Trump administration to be transparent with
regular Congressional oversight, how can we trust it to be honest with
the American people in a time of crisis? It is past time for the
President and his administration to be the leaders the American people
need and deserve. They are counting on the administration to secure the
Nation and on Congress to hold you accountable.
Please know that we will uphold our responsibility, Mr. Acting
Secretary, and I sincerely hope the President and his administration
uphold theirs.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking
Member of the full committee, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
Rogers, for an opening statement.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing today. Thank you, Mr. Acting Secretary, for being here.
We look forward to hearing from you.
This past year has been a challenging one for DHS. Last
year this country saw a record number of migrants crossing our
Southern Border, over a million men, women, and children
swamped our immigration system in a matter of months. It
strained the resources of the Department. But the men and women
of DHS responded to the crisis with dedication and
professionalism.
Congress was slow to act, but we finally provided
supplemental resources to address the crisis, and it was a
crisis. Yet 1 year ago last week, my Democrat colleagues
tweeted, ``There is no National emergency at the border, plain
and simple.''
Because of this administration's bold actions, we are no
longer seeing the record-breaking levels of migration at our
Southern Border so far this year. I am deeply disappointed
that, for political reasons, folks can't and won't acknowledge
this simple fact: President Trump's policies are succeeding,
where other administrations have failed.
The President's budget fully funds his successful border
strategy, and rightly doubles down on the wall. However, the
Department faces more challenges in the year ahead. Election
security, cybersecurity, and the coronavirus response will test
DHS's resources and management.
I am concerned about cuts to CISA, slashing critical FEMA
grant programs, and the termination of the CFATS program, and
removal of the Secret Service from DHS. I know the Chairman and
I agree on this. Those cuts directly impede important efforts
to secure our country.
While I disagree with parts of the 2021 budget request, I
believe Congress also has failed DHS. We owe it to Department
to provide direction in a regular, comprehensive
reauthorization. We cannot expect the Department to function
with haphazard direction and funding authorizations from 2002.
I understand that the Majority intends to mark up a bill to
reform part of DHS headquarters next month. Mr. Chairman, you
and I have both called for a full, robust DHS authorization. I
hope that is what this committee considers in April. We may
have different approaches and proposals, but we want the same
thing. We want this Department to function correctly. I look
forward to discussing this legislation, Mr. Chairman.
I also wanted to address the evolving coronavirus outbreak.
Our hearts go out to those who have lost their loved ones, and
those who are currently undergoing treatment. This pandemic is
a global event, and I am concerned not only with our
preparedness, but the global response.
I remain concerned that the Chinese officials knowingly
withheld essential information from both public and
international health communities in the most critical stages of
this outbreak. I am sure that the early days of this outbreak
will be under intense scrutiny once the crisis is over.
My deepest concern for the moment is the level of
preparedness at the State and local level. I hope to hear from
the Secretary today, and from witnesses over the next week,
about our efforts to prepare communities.
Last week I urged the House to act in a swift and
nonpartisan fashion to approve an emergency supplemental for
this public health emergency. Hopefully, the House can live up
to this moment and act quickly.
Thank you again, Mr. Secretary, for joining us.
[The statement of Ranking Member Rogers follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Mike Rogers
Mar. 3, 2020
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. Thank you,
Mr. Acting Secretary for being here today with us. We look forward to
hearing for you
The past year has been a challenging one for DHS. Last year, this
country saw record migrants crossing our Southern Border.
Over a million men, women, and children swamped our immigration
system in a matter of months.
It strained the resources of the Department. But, the men and women
of DHS responded to this crisis with dedication and professionalism.
Congress was slow to act but we finally provided supplemental
resources to address the crisis. It was a crisis.
Yet, 1 year ago last week, my Democrat colleagues tweeted:
``There's no national emergency at the border, plain and simple.''
Because of this administration`s bold actions, we are no longer
seeing the record-breaking levels of migration at our Southern Border
so far this year.
I'm deeply disappointed that, for political reasons, folks can't
and won't acknowledge this simple fact: President Trump's policies are
succeeding where other administrations have failed.
The President's budget fully funds his successful border strategy
and rightly doubles down on the wall.
However, the Department faces more challenges in the year ahead.
Election security, cybersecurity, and the coronavirus response will
test DHS resources and management.
I'm concerned about cuts to CISA, slashing critical FEMA grant
programs, the termination of the CFATS program, and removal of the
Secret Service from DHS.
I know the Chairman and I agree on these points. Those cuts
directly impede important efforts to secure our country.
While I disagree with parts of the 2021 budget request, I believe
that Congress has also failed DHS.
We owe it to this Department to provide direction in a regular,
comprehensive reauthorization.
We cannot expect the Department to function with haphazard
direction and funding authorizations from 2002.
I understand that the Majority intendeds to mark-up a bill to
reform part of DHS headquarters next month.
Mr. Chairman, you and I have both called for a full and robust DHS
authorization. I hope that is what this committee considers in April.
We may have different approaches and proposals, but we want the
same thing. We want this Department to function.
I look forward to discussing this legislation with you Mr.
Chairman. I also wanted to address the evolving coronavirus outbreak.
Our hearts go out to those who have lost their loved ones and those
who are currently undergoing treatment. This pandemic is a global event
and I'm concerned not only with our preparedness but the global
response.
I remain concerned that Chinese officials knowingly withheld
essential information from both the public and the international health
community in the most critical stages of this outbreak.
I'm sure that the early days of this outbreak will be under intense
scrutiny once the crisis is over. My deepest concern for the moment is
the level of preparedness at the State and local level.
I hope to hear from the Secretary today and from other witnesses
over the next week about our efforts to prepare communities.
Last week, I urged the House to act in a swift and non-partisan
fashion to approve an emergency supplemental for this public health
emergency.
Hopefully the House can live up to this moment and act quickly.
Thank you again Mr. Secretary for joining us.
Mr. Rogers. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Other Members of
the committee are reminded that, under the committee rules,
opening statements may be submitted for the record.
I want to welcome our witness, Acting Secretary of Homeland
Security Chad Wolf. Mr. Wolf has been acting secretary since
November 2019. He is the confirmed under secretary of the
department of--Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans.
Previously, he served as the acting under secretary and chief
of staff to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.
Without objection, the witness's full statement will be
inserted in the record.
I now recognize Acting Secretary Wolf to summarize his
statement.
STATEMENT OF HONORABLE CHAD WOLF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Chairman and Members of the committee.
Before I share with you my oral testimony, I wanted to
address an issue this morning and share some additional
information regarding the evolving situation in Washington
State.
Late last night, the Department was made aware of a
situation involving a DHS employee. Out of an abundance of
caution, and following recommended procedure, I ordered a DHS
facility in King County, Washington State, to close beginning
today, and directed those employees to telework, if possible,
in order to reduce the threat of community spread of the
coronavirus. At this time, the affected offices will remain
closed for 14 days, and all employees have been directed to
self-quarantine for 14 days.
We made this decision to close the offices because an
employee had visited a family member at the Life Care facility
in Kirkland, Washington, before it was known that that facility
was impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. Though the employee
did not report to work when they felt ill, we are taking these
steps, again, out of an abundance of caution.
I am pleased to report that this employee embodied what it
means to lead by example. The employee and their family took
every precaution, and followed the guidance of public health
officials. They stayed home from work when they felt ill, and
the family self-quarantined and reported the exposure and their
condition to their employers and other officials.
As this unfolds, I know many at the Department of Homeland
Security--myself included--will be thinking about and praying
for our employees, their families, and all Americans affected
by the coronavirus. Again, I think I speak for everyone when I
thank the employee and their family for taking the advice and
direction of health care professionals.
As an employer, it is our utmost responsibility to protect
our work force. In addition to the travel restrictions and
enhanced medical screens that we put in place, which I will
talk about a little bit later, DHS continually engages our work
force with guidance on protective and preventative measures.
Again, from the headquarters level, we will begin--we began
sending all employee messages on January 22 regarding
coronavirus, regarding procedures they need to take as this
continues to unfold. We will continue to do so.
At this time a rapid response team back at DHS headquarters
is working with the CDC and State and local officials on
further guidance regarding this particular incident, and I will
be sure to keep the committee updated as this unfolds.
So thank you for allowing me to do that. Let me jump into
my prepared oral testimony.
Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, and distinguished
Members of the committee, it is certainly a privilege to appear
before you today to discuss the Department of Homeland
Security's mission to keep the Nation safe, and to present the
President's fiscal year 2021 budget for the Department.
As Acting Secretary, my priorities are guided by
determination to assure that the Department is robust,
resilient, and forward-leaning, prepared to address today's
threats, as well as those of tomorrow.
The fiscal year 2021 President's budget is not only a
reflection of those priorities, but a path to achieving them.
As this subcommittee knows, the Department of Homeland
Security's missions span air, land, sea, and cyber domains, and
our work force, 240,000 strong, stands watch for the Nation 24
hours a day, 365 days a year. They serve a unique dual
imperative: Keeping our Nation safe and secure, while keeping
it prosperous, and by facilitating lawful trade and travel. As
I often say, economic security is homeland security, and the
Department plays a critical role in this mission.
The President's budget ensures that our work force has the
resources needed to execute these critical responsibilities. It
includes $49.8 billion in net discretionary funding, and $5.1
billion for the disaster relief fund.
Consistent with years past, our budget priorities remain
securing our borders, enforcing our immigration laws, securing
cyber space and critical infrastructure, transportation
security, and American preparedness.
Recognizing that threats to the homeland are more dynamic
than ever before, the budget positions us to respond to
emerging threats, including those emanating from nation-states.
The Department also continues to help manage the U.S.
Government's response to the coronavirus. To be clear, the lead
Federal agency of this response is and remains the Department
of Health and Human Services. DHS remains focused on assisting
travelers arriving at our land--at our air, land, and maritime
ports of entry. The administration took early action to
prohibit foreign nationals with travel to China from entering
the United States. That--those same restrictions now apply to
foreign nationals traveling from Iran.
Every day the men and women of DHS are making sure that
these travel restrictions are properly enforced. They are also
ensuring all American citizens with recent travel to China or
Iran are funneled through 11 airports, where the Department has
stood up and continues to do enhanced medical screening on
behalf of the CDC and others.
The Department is also closely monitoring cases of the
virus that have appeared here in our hemisphere. On Friday, the
first--last Friday the first case of coronavirus was confirmed
in Mexico, with 5 additional cases reported since. That same
day, unfortunately, a misguided court in California suspended
the migrant protection protocols. Hours later, private
attorneys and NGO's demanded entrance of over 2,000 illegal
aliens, causing CBP and Mexican officials to temporarily close
a handful of ports of entry for several hours.
Thankfully, the court entered a temporary stay. But I will
say that MPP has an uncertain future. We know from experience
that the journey to the U.S. border puts migrants in very poor
conditions, and they often arrive with no passports, no medical
histories, and no travel manifest. This administration will
continue to closely monitor the virus globally, as well as in
our hemisphere, and we will adjust our proactive measures as
necessary.
Let me highlight a few specific priorities also included in
the budget.
The Department must continue to grow our digital--defense
cyber threats grow in scope and severity. Election security
remains a top priority to preserve our electoral process, and
to secure our systems against interference. The President's
budget invests $1.7 billion in the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency to strengthen our cyber and
infrastructure security mission.
Security of our Nation's border also remains a primary
focus for the Department. Most notably, the budget includes $2
billion for the construction of approximately 82 miles of new
border wall system, as well as funding for advanced technology
and staffing. While securing our borders is vital, the
integrity of our immigration system requires that we enforce
the law, as written. It remains the priority of the Department
to protect our citizens by identifying, detaining, and removing
criminal aliens from our country. The budget includes over $3
billion to ensure that our law enforcement officers have the
resources they need to faithfully execute the law.
As true today as it was in the wake of 9/11,
counterterrorism is our Department's core mission. Importantly,
the President has increased funding for targeted violence and
terrorism prevention programs by 500 percent, for a total of
$96 million in the fiscal year 2021 budget. This funding is
critical to identifying at-risk individuals and preventing
their radicalization to violence.
The budget also invests in modernizing the fleet for the
United States Coast Guard. It provides $555 million to fund the
construction of the second polar security cutter, which
supports our National interest in the polar region.
While physical capabilities and technologies are important,
the Department's greatest asset remains our work force. In the
budget--the President's budget provides funding for 500 new
cybersecurity employees across the Department--at CBP, 750 new
Border Patrol agents and 126 new support staff, as well as
funding to sustain the 300 Border Patrol processing
coordinators that Congress provided in fiscal year 2020. At ICE
the budget calls for 2,800 new law enforcement officers,
approximately 420 new ICE attorneys, and nearly 1,400 support
staff. At TSA the funding sustains over 47,000 transportation
security officers, ensuring that we continue to match pace with
the passenger volume growth.
These priorities are only a few included in the budget. I
would say that DHS, as the committee knows, has one of the most
diverse and complex mission sets in all of Government. I am
constantly amazed by the dedication of our professionals.
Therefore, I ask your support in providing them the resources
they need to keep this--Homeland Security--the President's
fiscal year 2021 budget request.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to address you
today.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wolf follows:]
Prepared Statement of Honorable Chad Wolf
March 3, 2020
Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, and distinguished Members
of the committee: It is a privilege to appear before you today to
discuss the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) critical mission
functions that keep this Nation safe and to present the President's
fiscal year 2021 budget for the Department. This budget will serve as a
catalyst to assist DHS in maintaining pace with adversaries attempting
to circumvent our laws and threaten our citizens and our way life.
My priorities are guided by a determination to ensure the
Department is 3 things: Robust, resilient, and forward-leaning. The
fiscal year 2021 President's budget is not only a reflection of those
priorities but a path to achieving them.
DHS is comprised of 8 major components and many support components
and employs more than 240,000 men and women who stand ready to respond
to a wide variety of threats in some of the most extreme and austere
environments. These harsh conditions include Border Patrol agents
patrolling the U.S. border in southern Arizona where temperatures reach
upwards of 120 degrees, to the crew of the United States Coast Guard
Cutter POLAR STAR, breaking ice as thick as 21 feet in the Antarctic
Region where temperatures fluctuate between 40 to 90 degrees to conduct
National security missions.
These men and women continue to make significant contributions to
the larger homeland security apparatus as they stand watch 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, (or 366 days this year given it is
a leap year). Our mission is to protect Americans and the homeland from
threats by land, air, sea, and cyber space while promoting the Nation's
economic prosperity through the facilitation of legitimate travel and
commerce. This balance to ensure security without impeding the freedom
of movement is a very delicate one and the men and women of the
Department of Homeland Security continue to execute it with tenacity
and compassion.
The Department's key budget priorities remain consistent with
recent years; Securing Our Borders, Enforcing Our Immigration Laws,
Securing Cyber Space and Critical Infrastructure, Transportation
Security and American Preparedness. However, there are emerging threats
that underscore the importance of the Department's global reach. This
budget recognizes that fact and positions the Department to respond.
Though the United States has long faced isolated threats from
China, Iran, and Russia, we are at a critical time in our Nation's
history as it relates to threats emanating from these nation-states.
While the administration works trade negotiations with China toward the
goal of achieving a fair and balanced trade deal that both countries
can call successful, we must increase pressure on the Chinese
government for the on-going violations of Intellectual Property Rights
(IPR) laws. These violations continue to reduce market opportunities
and undermine the profitability of United States businesses as sales of
products and technologies are undercut by competition from illegal
lower-cost imitations. Additionally, there are increasing concerns with
the Chinese government's continued investment into U.S. interests and
their impact to National and economic security. Specifically, as the
United States builds out capacity within the 5G network, we must
maintain a proactive posture in addressing a multitude of cybersecurity
threats and vulnerabilities.
The increased tension with Iran forced the Department to assume an
enhanced security posture, particularly in the cybersecurity domain to
prevent threats aimed at revenge for the recent death of Iranian
General Qasem Soleimani. The Department's Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) continues to monitor an uptick in
malicious activity by pro-Iranian hackers and social media users as
Iran possesses the capability and tendency to launch destructive cyber
attacks. The 2016 election is a stark reminder that Russia remains a
significant threat to our democratic process. And with a Presidential
Election this November, it has never been more important to increase
our digital defense to prevent cybersecurity threats from influencing
electoral outcomes.
To emphasize the variation in threats facing the Department, the
Coronavirus (COVID-19) which originated in Wuhan, Hubei Province,
China, continues to spread to other parts of the world at a pace that
has the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and DHS at the
ready. On January 31, 2020, the Secretary of Health and Human Services
declared COVID-19 a public health emergency in the United States, and
the President signed a Presidential Proclamation (Proclamation 9984)
using his authority pursuant to Section 212(f) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act to suspend the entry into the United States of foreign
nationals who pose a risk of transmitting COVID-19. As of 5 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time on February 2, 2020, foreign nationals, other
than immediate family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent
residents and other individuals falling within narrow exceptions to the
Proclamation, who were physically present in the People's Republic of
China, excluding Hong Kong and Macau, within the last 14 days will be
denied entry into the United States. On February 29, 2020, President
Trump expanded Proclamation 9984 to also include most foreign nationals
who have been to Iran within the last 14 days.
DHS, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA), continues to work very
closely with our CDC partners to route all admissible persons who have
been in mainland China or Iran in the last 14 days to one of 11
designated ports of entry where the Federal Government has focused
public health resources. As the DHS lead for coordinating with
interagency partners, the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office
(CWMD) is currently supporting these enhanced health screenings through
contracts with local EMS, public health, and/or first responders. Based
on current information, the risk from COVID-19 to the American public
remains low and we are taking measures to keep the threat low and
prevent the virus from spreading. Sadly, 6 deaths in the United States
from COVID-19 were reported over the past several days. As we have said
from the beginning, we expect to see additional cases in the United
States and as such DHS is responding with proactive safeguards and is
prepared to increase these measures should it become necessary.
The fiscal year 2021 President's budget for DHS includes $49.8
billion in net discretionary funding and an additional $5.1 billion for
the disaster relief fund (DRF) to support response to and recovery from
major disasters in the homeland. By providing the men and women of DHS
the necessary resources to execute their important and extremely
complex missions, the President's budget ensures we continue our
current trajectory of reinforcing the security of our Nation through
enhanced border security, immigration enforcement, transportation
security, resilience to disasters, and cybersecurity.
To help frame the rising threat, I would like to highlight some of
last year's operational achievements. U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) processed and cared for an unprecedented number of
migrant families and children. Encounters and apprehensions totaled
more than 851,000 along the U.S. Southwest Border (SWB) alone. This
total included more than 76,000 unaccompanied children and
approximately 474,000 family units. This was a 110 percent increase
over fiscal year 2019 apprehension totals (404,142). They inspected
over 410 million travelers, arrested almost 13,000 wanted individuals
and prevented nearly 299,000 inadmissible travelers from entering the
United States. Additionally, their combined efforts with CBP's National
Targeting Center (NTC), the Immigration Advisory Program and the
Regional Carrier Liaison Group prevented the boarding of almost 19,000
high-risk travelers from boarding flights inbound to the United States.
AMO executed nearly 93,000 flight hours and more than 33,000 float
hours in balancing law enforcement and humanitarian operations. This
effort included 300 flight hours during a 2-week period to provide
relief to Bahamian citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian and
3,600 flight hours dedicated to the migrant caravan surge along the
SWB.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) worked
tirelessly alongside Federal, State, and local election officials
leading up to the 2018 mid-term elections and in preparation for the
upcoming 2020 Presidential Election. Over 500 CISA employees supported
election security preparedness Nation-wide, including providing
technical cybersecurity assistance, information sharing and expertise
to election offices, campaigns and technology vendors, this included
staffing a Nation-wide virtual watch floor. As part of Active Shooter
Preparedness, CISA also provided information to the critical
infrastructure community and general public to help prepare emergency
action plans and education on steps to increase incident survivability.
Specifically, 39 in-person workshops with over 3,600 participants were
conducted; nearly 87,000 people successfully completed an on-line
course and a website focusing on active-shooter training was viewed
more than 937,000 times by the public.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
naturalized 833,000 new citizens, an 11-year high in new oaths of
citizenship. The number of refugee applicants interviewed nearly
doubled from fiscal year 2018 to 44,300 (from 26,000). These interviews
supported the admission of 33,000 refugees to the United States which
was a 32 percent increase over last year. USCIS also completed 78,580
affirmative asylum applications, and experienced a 6 percent rise in
credible fear cases processed to 103,235.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) deployed over 12,300
FEMA personnel and 519 FEMA Corps personnel in support of 99 major
disaster declarations including Hurricane Dorian, 22 emergency
declarations and one Fire Management Assistance Grant declaration
across 45 States, Tribes, and territories.
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed
nearly 268,000 individuals from the United States and arrested over
143,000 individuals. Homeland Security Investigations made nearly
50,000 arrests, approximately 80 percent of which were criminal
arrests, including over 4,300 gang leaders, members, and associates.
These gang arrests included 452 Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang members.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened
approximately 839 million passengers, 1.9 billion carry-on items and
510 million checked bags in fiscal year 2019. This was a 4.3 percent
increase in checkpoint volume which equates to an average increase of
over 95,000 passengers per day. They enrolled over 2.1 million new
individuals in TSA's PreCheck Application Program which is designed to
increase security throughput by expediting trusted travelers and
reducing security screening times.
The United States Coast Guard (USCG), through their search-and-
rescue efforts, saved 4,335 lives and prevented over $41 million in
property loss. Over 400 of those lives saved were during Hurricane
Dorian response efforts. Simultaneously, while executing their law
enforcement responsibility, they removed over 458,000 pounds of cocaine
and 63,000 pounds of marijuana with estimated wholesale value of $6.2
billion.
The Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office completed
155 surge deployments of the Mobile Detection Deployment (MDD) Program,
enhancing interdiction efforts and expanding law enforcement partners'
ability to protect the Nation from a Weapon of Mass Destruction threat.
This was an increase of over 115 percent from fiscal year 2018 (72
deployments). Additionally, CWMD conducted more than 100 training
exercises, training events, and informational briefings with partners
and stakeholders to develop doctrine, create training curriculum, and
validate readiness.
The United States Secret Service conducted protective advances for
nearly 6,500 visits and traveled overseas with protection details on
395 foreign visits. The Secret Service seized $369 million in
counterfeit U.S. currency, an 81 percent increase over the previous
year. Finally, the Secret Service closed 1,718 Cyber Financial Crime
cases, an increase of 160 percent over fiscal year 2018 and experienced
an 18 percent rise in Cyber Financial Crime cases opened, while the
Cyber Financial Potential Losses Prevented increased by 36 percent
($5.2 billion to $7.1 billion) during the same year.
Last year's operational achievements serve as a baseline from which
to determine the incremental growth of threats to the homeland in the
coming years. Analyzing the previous year's statistical achievements
also allows DHS to plan for future threats accordingly. The fiscal year
2021 President's budget for DHS is an opportunity for Congress to
provide the men and women charged with executing complex missions with
the necessary prevention, response, and recovery resources.
The security of our Nation's borders remains a primary focus area
for the administration and this Department. Border security is National
security as any nation's sovereignty begins with its ability to secure
its physical borders. Securing the border is extremely complex and
requires a multifaceted approach. The Department has long executed a
defense-in-depth model when it comes to border security. There are
5,000 miles of border between the United States and Canada and over
1,900 miles shared with Mexico. The President's budget is a step toward
enhancing border security through investments in staffing,
infrastructure, and technology. Without a strategy that involves these
key investments, border security would be unattainable.
The President's budget includes $2.0 billion for the construction
of approximately 82 miles of new border wall system. This funding
supports real estate and environmental planning, land acquisition, wall
system design, construction, and oversight. While a physical barrier
alone does not solve all border security concerns, it remains
foundational to a strategy for achieving operational control of the
SWB. A physical barrier is a proven deterrent as well as a mechanism
for channeling activity to predetermined points along the border which
allows DHS to allocate response resources with much more precision.
Domain awareness is a vital component to border security and
complements a physical barrier by providing increased opportunities for
actionable intelligence, especially in remote areas with little
infrastructure. To complement the physical barrier, the budget includes
$28 million to increase domain awareness through the deployment of 30
Autonomous Surveillance Towers (formerly Innovative Towers) across the
Southwest Border. The towers are designed to provide persistent
electronic surveillance in remote areas of the border without the need
for a permanent Border Patrol agent presence. The data derived from
these sensors will be relayed in real-time to the Air and Marine
Operations Center and local Border Patrol Stations and/or Sectors for
processing, threat determination, and response execution.
The President's budget seeks funding for a number of CBP's airframe
and sensor modifications, conversions, and/or upgrades. These platform
improvements are multi-purposed as they provide increased levels of
domain awareness and are instrumental in interdiction and humanitarian
operations. They include $15.5 million to convert an Army HH-60L to
CBP's versatile UH-60 Medium-Lift Helicopter configuration. UH-60's are
the only assets in CBP's fleet that have medium-lift capability and are
rugged enough to support interdiction and life-saving operations in
extreme or hostile environments (desert, extreme cold, or open water).
The budget includes $14.3 million to upgrade a DHC-8 Maritime Patrol
Aircraft. These aircraft operate under broad operational spectrums,
including coastal/maritime boundaries in the Caribbean and Latin
America. The budget also requests $13.0 million for the replacement of
obsolete, out-of-production aircraft sensor integrated mission systems.
Systems requiring replacement include non-High Definition (HD) Electro
Optic/Infrared (EO/IR) sensors, outdated mapping systems, video
displays, recorders, and data links that facilitate real-time data
exploitation.
While technology plays an important role in the Department's day-
to-day missions, our most critical resource remains our personnel. As
the Department remains focused on threats from those attempting to
circumvent existing laws, we cannot lose sight of the year-over-year
increase in the volume of legitimate trade and travel. This volume
increase, can limit the time CBP has to conduct necessary threat
analysis down to minutes or seconds without impacting the legitimate
movement of people and goods.
The President's budget seeks funding for additional personnel
within several Departmental components including; $161 million for 750
Border Patrol agents and 126 support personnel, with an additional $54
million to sustain 250 agents hired in fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year
2020; $544 million for ICE to add an additional 2,844 law enforcement
officers and 1,792 support personnel; and, $3.5 billion to fund 47,596
Transportation Security Officers, which supports the projected 4
percent increase in volume. The fiscal year 2021 budget also accounts
for a 3 percent pay increase for the uniformed men and women of the
Coast Guard, a 1 percent civilian pay increase, and an additional 1
percent increase in award spending, along with annualizing the 3.1
percent civilian pay raise in 2020.
The majority of these personnel increases are targeted for front-
line agents and officers. However, across the Department there will be
staffing increases in various support positions. U.S. Border Patrol,
for example, will use Processing Coordinators to perform non-border
security, non-law enforcement officer activities such as support
activities related to processing or providing humanitarian support.
This additional increase will allow front-line agents and officers
currently assigned to perform administrative duties out of necessity,
to focus more time on operational responsibilities.
DHS is committed to enforcing immigration laws across the Nation,
including the interior of the United States. Our priority is to
identify, detain, and remove criminals from the United States that are
here illegally with particular attention focused on those individuals
posing a threat to public safety. The Department does not intend on
stopping there; those employers who knowingly break the law for the
self-serving purpose of cheap labor will be identified and brought to
justice.
Fiscal year 2019 apprehensions between the ports of entry along the
Southwest Border increased 115 percent when compared to fiscal year
2018. This unprecedented spike in illegal crossings drove a
corresponding increase in the ICE average daily population (ADP). The
resulting effect was an increase in historical occupancy levels within
DHS detention facilities. Forecasting models reinforce the need for an
increase in ICE's detention beds to 60,000 (55,000 adult and 5,000
family). The budget includes $3.1 billion for this capacity increase
and ensures ICE is able to maintain pace with projected migration flows
and enhance enforcement activity within the interior of the United
States.
We must continue to increase our digital defense as cybersecurity
threats grow in scope and severity. The fiscal year 2021 President's
budget is poised to continue investments in the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to assess evolving cybersecurity
risks and protect Federal Government information systems and critical
infrastructure. CISA continues to work tirelessly to ensure cyber
attacks are unable to compromise or disrupt Federal networks. With the
November Presidential Election fast approaching, CISA is also working
with State and local organizations in all 50 States to ensure American
elections are decided by Americans without outside interference.
Accordingly, the President's budget seeks $1.1 billion in CISA
cybersecurity operational costs and investments for programs to include
the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program and the
National Cybersecurity Protection System in order to strengthen the
security posture for government networks and systems. The budget also
includes $157.6 million for the Emergency Communications program which
enables improved public safety communications services throughout the
Nation. This program also manages funding, sustainment, and grant
programs to support communications interoperability and builds capacity
with Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial stakeholders.
The Coast Guard is a unique component given it is the only branch
of the U.S. Armed Forces within DHS. As a military service and a law
enforcement organization with a regulatory responsibility, they possess
broad jurisdictional authorities and flexible operational capabilities.
This combination necessitates an inherent need to ensure they are
postured for rapid response to a variety of missions with a modernized
fleet that supports these requirements.
The President's budget includes $555 million to support the Polar
Security Cutter (PSC) program management and to fund the construction
of PSC 2. This acquisition recapitalizes the Coast Guard's heavy polar
icebreaker fleet to support national interest in the Polar Regions and
provide assured surface presence in ice-impacted waters. The budget
also includes an additional $153 million for existing airframe
modernization (combines $88 million for Fixed-Wing Aircraft and $65
million for Rotary-Wing Aircraft). These improvements will help ensure
the Coast Guard fleet is appropriately equipped for the complex
missions they are charged with executing. This modernization effort
aligns the Coast Guard's recapitalization of airframes with the
Department of Defense Future Vertical Lift acquisitions to create
additional acquisition efficiencies. Finally, $564 million is included
for the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC). This funding supports the
production of OPC No. 3 and Long Lead Time Materials for OPC No. 4
along with technical and program management costs.
The fiscal year 2021 President's budget includes $96 million in
additional resources, distributed across several components to fund the
Targeting Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) program. This
program is designed to support early detection and prevention of
radicalization of individuals prone to violence by interrupting those
efforts with appropriate action by leveraging civic organizations, law
enforcement and community organizations. The Department's investment
includes components vested in research and development, early
detection, and response.
What makes the United States great is its resiliency in the face of
adversity and hardship. Throughout our storied history, there are
dozens if not hundreds of examples of that resiliency displayed. And
though the people of this country are resilient by nature, it is
important that we as a Department appropriately plan ahead for things
we know are coming including hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires. One of
FEMA's strategic goals is to Ready the Nation for Catastrophic
Disasters. The fiscal year 2021 President's budget helps FEMA achieve
this goal by funding numerous initiatives aimed at preparedness and
disaster recovery. FEMA continues to invest in State and local
governments to increase preparedness and resiliency. The budget
includes $2.5 billion to support State, local, Tribal, and territorial
governments in the form of non-disaster grants and training. These
funds are key in sustaining and building new capabilities to prevent,
protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate high-
consequence disasters and emergencies in our Nation's high-risk transit
systems, ports, and along our borders.
In addition, the Nation's transportation systems are inherently
open environments. Part of TSA's mission is to protect these systems to
ensure the free and secure movement of people and commerce. U.S.
transportation systems accommodate approximately 965 million domestic
and international aviation passengers annually, that number is in the
billions when you factor in, over-the-road buses and mass transit
systems.
Ensuring effective screening of air passengers remains a top
priority for TSA. In an effort to balance the need for increased
security without impeding freedom of movement for legitimate travelers,
the President's budget includes $28.9 million to expand TSA's Computed
Tomography (CT) Screening capability. CT Screening is the most
impactful property screening tool available today. Not only is it more
effective against non-conventional concealment methods but it
eliminates the need for passenger to remove electronic items from
carry-on bags. This combination improves security and expedites the
screening process to increase passenger throughput efficiency. To
offset TSA operations, a $1.00 increase is proposed in the Aviation
Passenger Security Fee. This minimal increase would generate
approximately $618 million in additional revenue and help defray the
increasing cost of aviation security.
Finally, the fiscal year 2021 President's budget proposes to
transfer the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) functions, personnel, assets,
and obligations along with the functions and responsibilities of the
Secretary of Homeland Security related to the Secret Service over to
the Department of the Treasury.
I have only touched on a handful of priorities included in the
fiscal year 2021 President's budget for DHS. This is not intended to
convey a message of less importance for those components, resources, or
initiatives not highlighted. DHS executes its vast mission
responsibility using a defense-in-depth strategy and much of DHS's
success is predicated on this approach to execution. Components within
the Department have individual mission responsibilities however, they
cannot disassociate themselves from one another as their daily
activities are intertwined to close gaps in security, resiliency, and
economic prosperity. Accordingly, those components, resources, or
initiatives not listed remain just as important.
I continue to be amazed by the professionalism, dedication, and
tenacity displayed daily by the men and women of this Department. Their
resolve and genuine commitment to the complex homeland security mission
is above reproach and we should all sleep better at night knowing they
are on duty. Despite their continued commitment, they cannot safely nor
effectively execute their mission without the proper resources.
Therefore, I ask for your support in providing them the resources
needed to keep our families safe through the fiscal year 2021
President's budget.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and discuss the
Department's fiscal year 2021 budget submission and I look forward to
taking your questions.
Chairman Thompson. I thank the Acting Secretary for his
testimony.
I will remind each Member that he or she will have 5
minutes to question the panel. I will now recognize myself for
questions.
One of the responsibilities, Mr. Secretary, we have is the
oversight of the Department. For the 14 months the committee
has been trying to get information from the Department about
the death of 2 children in CBP custody, as well as the
separation of children from their parents, among other topics.
On January 4, 2019 I sent a letter to the Department
requesting, ``any document related to the care of children in
CBP custody,'' including documents relating to the death of
Jakelin Caal Maquin and Felipe Gomez. The Department produced
some documents, including lots of publicly-available documents,
but clearly did not comply with the request. On November 20 the
committee issued a narrowly-tailored subpoena by voice vote for
documents relating to the kids who died, and the kids who were
separated from their parents, among other topics.
Last week, more than a year after the first requests, the
Department produced Felipe's medical records. Clearly, Felipe's
medical records were responsive to my first letter, as well as
the committee's subpoena. Why were there--why were Felipe's
medical records produced to the committee just last week, 1
year after the request?
Mr. Wolf. So thank you, Chairman. I would say that I fully
respect Congress's role in oversight. I think we talked about
this when we first met in November, and you have my commitment,
you continue to have my commitment in providing the committee
any and all documents.
I will say, regarding those 2 children, obviously, our
inspector general has had an open investigation, which has
concluded recently, regarding those deaths, as well as others.
So we wanted to make sure that that independent investigation
had all the information that they have.
I will say that we have responded a number of times, not
only to the original January request, but also, as you
mentioned, the subpoena. So we have produced over 11 document
productions, thousands of pages. I believe it is over 6,000.
Specifically, I think we have addressed 3 out of the 4 major
concerns of the subpoena. We are working on the fourth issue,
which is an additional production.
As we continue, we will continue to produce that, continue
to provide the committee documents. I believe we have also
provided in-camera review of over 70 hours of tape, which the
committee requested, and continue to make ourselves available
to provide that information.
Chairman Thompson. Well, I thank you. But the point is,
after a year, when we get them, I want to put on the screen 2
pages of information that we got.*
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* Information has been retained in committee files.
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Chairman Thompson. I think, just from the redaction, that
is--there is--of no use to us, even when we get it. Can you
explain why those 2 pages are redacted like that?
Mr. Wolf. Well, I don't have the--I don't know the exact 2
pages that you are referring to, although I see them on the
screen.
I will say that, obviously, we go through a review process
of all the information that we turn over, because there are
certain Executive branch's interests that not only this
administration, but previous administrations adhere to, so we
do redact certain information.
But again, we provide any and all information to the
Congress that we can. Again, we will continue to do that,
continue to provide the video, which I know the committee is
very interested in, as well. We have done that, and we will
continue to provide that.
Chairman Thompson. So who would know what privilege is
being claimed with redactions like this?
Mr. Wolf. I am sorry, what was the question?
Chairman Thompson. Yes, you provided us these redacted
documents. Who is responsible----
Mr. Wolf. So that goes through a lengthy review process at
the Department--obviously, through our general counsel's
office, but there are several other offices within the
Department that looks at it. Depending on the subject matter--
again, I am not sure what that document is. If it comes from
CBP, obviously, CBP attorneys----
Chairman Thompson. That is just a sample. But I think my
point is we need to know what privilege is being claimed when
we ask for the documents. They are just redacted, so we don't
know.
Mr. Wolf. OK, I am happy to--we can take that back, and
share that information.
Chairman Thompson. So you don't know what person is
responsible for the final push-out on this?
Mr. Wolf. That would be responsible--again, it probably--it
would go through our OGC, our Office of General Counsel. So our
acting general counsel would be the individual ultimately
responsible. Obviously, they coordinate with the administration
on Executive branch interests there. So it is a coordinated
effort. But, yes, our general counsel at the Department would
ultimately approve those redactions.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. We will follow up with it.
We will probably have a second round of questions. I want
to talk to you a little bit about the committee's interests in
this potential pandemic we are addressing. You addressed some
of it in your opening statement. But in order for us to do our
job, we will have to have access to certain information. So are
you prepared to provide the committee that information that is
in your jurisdiction?
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
I yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I share your
concerns. I think those examples were unacceptable, and we
can't do oversight unless we have more cooperation. This is not
something that is limited just to the DHS. As you know, I serve
on Armed Services Committee. We have the same broad with DOD.
This just broad over-classification is just unacceptable.
Secretary Wolf, talk to me about how you arrived at these
budget priorities, and what drove your priorities.
Mr. Wolf. So Ranking Member, I would say that the budget
process is in--a laborious process. It gets built many, many
months in advance. I was actually in a different position at
the Department when some of the 2021 budget priorities were
being formulated, and then transitioned over, and then
transitioned back.
So I would say, again, our priorities remain. I outlined
them at the beginning of the oral--continue to be border
security, enforcing our immigration laws, cybersecurity,
American preparedness, transportation security. So we have some
high-level priorities. Then, obviously, we had to look at the
resources that we have, and prioritize specific programs under
each of the--our overall strategic goals, and our funding
goals, as well.
So it is a give-and-take. We have to look at programs that
perhaps have been funded in the past to see if they continue to
be useful, and we base that against the threat. We will
continue to evaluate that, and work with Congress to set those
priorities.
Mr. Rogers. Well, you rightly cited cybersecurity in that
list of priorities. I don't understand, then, why you would cut
CISA's budget. That is something the Chairman and I have both
expressed dismay about.
Mr. Wolf. So I will say that, when you compare it to the
President's fiscal year 2020 budget request, the funding in the
fiscal year 2021 budget request is an increase. I do understand
that it is a decrease from what was enacted last year by
Congress.
I will say that it fully funds all of DHS mission sets,
including election security as we look to fiscal year 2021.
Obviously, we are in the middle of a Presidential election year
in fiscal year 2020, and I thank Congress for the funding that
it provided. Obviously, CISA is doing a lot of important work
now on the election security front, but it does fully fund
their mission and their requirements as we look at 2021. Some
of the funding that they have received over the past fiscal
years will continue to be made available to them as they look
at 2021, as well.
Mr. Rogers. As you know, today is Super Tuesday in Alabama,
like about 12 other States that are having a big election. Tell
me about the state of our election security today, and as we go
toward November.
Mr. Wolf. Sure. I would say that what we saw in 2018 was
one of the most secure elections, I believe, that we have had,
and we are continuing to build on that progress as we go into
2020.
I will say that CISA, under the leadership of Director
Krebs, has been very forward-leaning. I would say that the
relationships that we have now in all 50 States, over 2,300
jurisdictions, it is really night and day to what we saw in
2016, where we had very few relationships, very few contact
information, and weren't talking to them. So we share a number
of information. We push intelligence as we can to these State
and local election officials. We also provide them any number
of no-cost tools that they can utilize: Penetration testing,
vulnerability assessments, and a variety of others.
So we continue to work with the State and local election
officials. Those are the individuals that run elections. The
Federal Government does not. So we want to make sure that they
have all the resources and tools that they need to do that.
Of course, I would say a vital component of this is also
the voter, so making sure that the voter has information,
continuing to push information to the voter to recognize what
perhaps might be disinformation, or not reliable information,
continuing to educate the voter that, if you have questions
about your particular election, go to a trusted source, go to
your State or local election officials and get information
directly from there. Don't rely on information that you are
seeing on social media, on your Facebook or your Twitter
account. So making sure that they continue to go to the trusted
source is also very important.
So there is a number of things that we are doing, and I
think we are better-positioned today than, like I said, where
we were 4 years ago.
Mr. Rogers. Great. I recognize that Health and Human
Services, as well as the Center for Disease Control, are the
lead agencies when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus.
But what role, if any, does DHS have?
Mr. Wolf. So, obviously, we are a partner. So we take our
lead from the medical professionals at both HHS and CDC. Again,
primarily responsible for screening passengers as they come
into our airports of entry, our land ports of entry, and our
maritime ports of entry.
So, as of today, at airports of entry, CBP and our medical
staff that we have set up have screened over 50,000 passengers.
TSA also works with the CDC to make sure that the individuals
on the ``do not board list'' run by CDC are appropriately not
allowed to travel. We have seen a number of folks from the
cruise line that was quarantined outside of Japan perhaps not
be repatriated back into the United States, wanted to stay
there or go elsewhere, and then try to travel to the United
States.
So again, our primary mission is making sure that sick
individuals are not traveling to the United States that we have
identified in certain areas of the country--of the world. So we
will continue to do that, again, not only at airports of entry,
but also land ports of entry on our Northern Border and our
Southern Border.
Then the Coast Guard has a very prominent role in our
maritime ports of entry.
I will also say that S&T, our science and technology
directorate, in their NBACC facility, is also working to
characterize the virus, and they are doing that at the
direction of CDC.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you for your service, and I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Acting Secretary
Wolf, I want to welcome you before the committee today. Thank
you for your testimony and the job you are doing at Homeland.
Acting Secretary, I understand that you served as chief of
staff under former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Is that correct?
Mr. Wolf. That is.
Mr. Langevin. So, as Secretary, she warned about the threat
of cyber attacks exceeding the risk of physical attacks. In
fact, in March 2019 she described the cyber domain as, ``a
target, a weapon, a threat vector all at the same time.'' She
warned that, ``the nation''--that nation states, criminal
syndicates, hacktivists, and terrorists were preparing to,
``weaponize the Web.''
So do you agree with your former boss's assessment
regarding the nature of the cyber threats to the United States?
Mr. Wolf. I do.
Mr. Langevin. So the DNI's January 2019 world-wide threat
assessment identified cyber threats among the top threats
facing the United States. Yet, as I understand it, the
President's fiscal year 2021 budget request would cut the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is the
Nation's premier cybersecurity agency, by nearly $250 million,
including a $150 billion cut to its cybersecurity division.
Additionally, the budget would cut funding for the Science and
Technology Directorate, CyberSecurity and Information Analysis
Network. Is that correct?
Mr. Wolf. Yes, sir. Those are the reductions, I believe,
that----
Mr. Langevin. OK.
Mr. Wolf. Are in the budget.
Mr. Langevin. So, obviously, over the past year it has
become clear that the Russian Government is going to continue
its election-meddling efforts, as well as its efforts to gain
access to critical infrastructure networks. In addition, the
Chinese government has continued to push for the integration of
Huawei technology and 5G networks. China continues to engage in
cyber espionage and intellectual property theft enabled by
cyber intrusions.
Under these circumstances, how would the cuts that you
proposed to DHS cybersecurities activities make Americans
safer?
Mr. Wolf. Again, as I indicated, as you look at the
President's fiscal year 2020 budget request, what we see in the
fiscal year 2021 budget request is an increase for CISA's
overall budget. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I do recognize
it is a decrease, or a reduction in funding, from what was
enacted in fiscal year 2020.
What I can tell you is that I have talked to Director Krebs
very specifically about the budget, and he is fully confident,
I am confident to--that for CISA to do their full mission in
fiscal year 2020, that the 2021 budget requests fully funds all
of their mission sets where they need it to be.
Mr. Langevin. But the cuts that are being proposed here
clearly, even on its face, don't meet the threats that the
country is facing. I am deeply troubled knowing that, not only
is the--is there greater demands for protecting the country
with respect to election security, but it is--CISA is not just
the election security agency, which is a important part of its
mission, but it is a--it is the cybersecurity agency, and also
responsible for protecting and working with private sector on
protecting critical infrastructure.
So you are asked--being asked to do much more. The threats
to the country have gone up proportionately and exponentially.
Yet this--these types of deep cuts are not helping your--that
agency do its job for the country. I don't understand the deep
threat--the deep cuts that are being proposed. Just shuffling
the deck chairs around doesn't make the agency have the
resources that it needs to do its job.
Mr. Wolf. Again, I would--what I would say--and thank you
for highlighting, yes, obviously, CISA does much more than
election security: Soft target supply chain security, looking
at 5G in a number of areas that they are focused on.
Again, I will say some of the funding that CISA has gotten
over the last several years--again, thank you for Congress for
providing that--is carrying over, and they are able to fund
some of their mission sets as we look at 2021, as well. So we
continue to look at the totality of what CISA is funding at.
Again, as we look at 2021--2020 is, obviously, a
Presidential election year. There is a lot of election security
focus. The election security funding in the fiscal year 2021
budget sustains that work, continues that work, as well as in
their other mission sets.
Mr. Langevin. Well, I--Mr. Chairman, I know my time is
expiring, but I just want to make it clear that I--for the
record, I firmly disagree with the Acting Secretary's
assessment.
For the past year I have served on the Cyberspace Solarium
Commission, alongside members of--from DHS, including
Administrator Pekoske, Director Krebs. They have made it clear
to me that we need to strengthen CISA, and our report would
clearly call for that. I, for the record, I am just deeply
disappointed that administrator's budget--the administration's
budget continues to de-prioritize these desperately needed
investments, as I see it.
I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. I think there is
very little disagreement that cyber--CISA's budget should not
have been cut. As you know, we just approved a bill authored by
Mr. Richmond that provides additional monies just for that
purpose because of some shortcomings.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
King.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary, I want to thank you for your appearance here
today, and thank you for doing a good job under very tough
circumstances.
Listen, I am the first to acknowledge that coronavirus,
immigration, cybersecurity are major issues, major problems,
crises facing the Department. But I also go back to the reason
this committee was formed in the first place. Without taking
anything away from the other issues, the fact is terrorism is
still a major issue, and I--when I see the cuts that are in
this budget, 25 percent, I guess, of almost $240 million from--
the fact that local governments are being asked to kick in 25
percent of the cost, I mean, I can tell you in New York and
others--I am sure other cities and regions have their own
expenses, their own programs they have to fund.
We have more than 1,000 police officers working entirely on
counterterrorism in New York City. In addition to that, we have
police officers in Nassau, Suffolk, State police all working on
counterterrorism. This is extremely expensive.
We also--again, just in where--the areas I represent, Ms.
Clarke, Ms. Rice, Mr. Payne, we have millions of people every
day on the trains, subway system, commuter lines. We have the
New York City subway system. We have Amtrak. We have Long
Island Rail Road. We have Metro North. Then we have the Ports
of New York in New Jersey. We are the major terrorist target in
the country.
I am not trying to diminish anyone else's concerns, but I
have to be very concerned this--you know, this is where the
major attack was. When I see these types of major cuts, I don't
see how the law enforcement and fire department personnel can
handle them. It is me--again, we always focus on the issue of
the day, and I understand that.
But the underlying issue is still there, and we can be
doing everything we can on coronavirus, and we have to,
everything in immigration we have to, everything in
cybersecurity that we have to. But if we lose 3,000 or 4,000
people on an attack in New York or Chicago or Boston or Los
Angeles, that will be the front page. It will be, again,
tremendous casualties and losses, both human loss, economic
loss.
So, again, I know every year--and both administrations have
done this, they submit a budget with drastic cuts to homeland
security, and then Congress puts it back in. But I am afraid,
with all these other things going on, that somehow maybe this
year--I hope not this year--but that game is not going to work,
and we are going to end up short-changed. Then the attack will
come, and people say, ``Why did it happen?''
Even when we see coronavirus, it brings back the issue of
germ warfare, chemical warfare, and how easy it would be to
have terrorists in a major metropolitan area cause enormous
casualties by that. The only way that can be done--stopped, is
really through detection.
We are not talking--listen, we are not talking about rapes
or robberies or kidnappings, which are local issues. We are
talking about an attack, which, if it comes, is going to be a
responsibility of the Federal Government. But the local
governments are being asked to pay for it to defend themselves.
Now we are being cut back. And to me, I can't accept that.
I would ask what the rationale and justification for that
is.
Mr. Wolf. So, Congressman, what I would say is, over the
life of the Department, I believe we have provided over $53
billion in grant funding. As you know, the New York City
Metropolitan Area is our top recipient year over year. So we
continue to provide the capabilities.
I think, over time, what we try to do is build up
capabilities of certain jurisdictions, and not have that be a
sustaining part of their budget. So, again, building up
capabilities across the country, across the Nation, making sure
that those communities are more resilient. But we need to make
sure that we have the right cost share, and we have the right
share responsibility between the Federal Government and the
State and locals, and making sure that that grant funding,
again, doesn't become baseline in their budget. It is there to
build up their capabilities, build up their capacity. That is
what you see reflected in the 2021 budget request.
Mr. King. Yes, but again, when you talk about building up
defenses, we are not just talking about building a wall, or
building a structure. The fact--this is on-going, it requires
on-going surveillance, on-going monitoring, on-going
cooperation, dealing with other States and cities--in some
cases, deal with other countries. The expenses remain. It is
not like you could just build something and it is over. The
threat goes on. The threats change.
In many ways, I would say the terror threat--I know it is
not on the front pages, and I understand that. But the terror
threat is as serious today as it was on September 10, 2001. The
enemy has adapted, and we have to continue adapting with them.
If we say that--again, there has to be cost sharing. In
effect, you are asking the local governments to pay for what
the Federal Government should be doing.
Second, as far as the cost share, it is not as if the
threat has ended, or it is not as if they have stopped. The
fact is they are changing their tactics and methods every day
and every month and every year. We have to stay up with it.
So I understand the position you are in. I am just saying I
think this is very dangerous. It could involve the loss of
life. Again, major metropolitan areas--and it is--a Democrat or
Republican, a blue or red--the fact is these are Americans
whose lives are going to be at risk.
I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Richmond, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Richmond. Mr. Wolf, representing New Orleans, that has
been home to many natural disasters. I read this morning the
tornadoes in Tennessee. Have you, FEMA director reached out to
the people in Tennessee to offer assistance? Will you all be on
the ground there?
Mr. Wolf. Yes, we have. We are monitoring that, not only at
FEMA, but also our officials at CISA. Obviously, it is a
primary State. So primary voting is there, as well. So we are
not only looking at it from a FEMA perspective, but also from
an election and election security perspective.
Mr. Richmond. OK. Now, look, I am going to ask you some
very direct questions, and not aimed to get you in trouble, but
I just need to know, because it would lead my other
questioning.
Is the budget document just a statement of principles, and
we needed to cut money, so we listed a whole bunch of cuts in
there?
I mean, do you believe in those cuts in your budget you
presented?
Mr. Wolf. I support the administration's fiscal year 2021
budget request for the Department. There are trade-offs. It is
a big budget. But we have a big mission----
Mr. Richmond. Well, let me ask you this, then, very
pointedly. If we enacted that budget, as presented to us, would
Americans be more or less safe?
Mr. Wolf. I would--I strongly believe they would be more
safe.
Mr. Richmond. So you think they would be more safe if we
eliminated the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards
Program? Because your budget proposes eliminating CFATS.
Mr. Wolf. It proposes transferring that to a voluntary
program, just like CISA operates in a number of other sectors.
CFATS is the only mandated program that CISA operates. So it
would transition that from a mandatory program that reaches
about 3,300 facilities to a voluntary program that we could
reach up to 40,000 chemical facilities.
Mr. Richmond. Right. But the 3,000 are the ones that you
all deemed to be the highest risk in the country. That is why
we have them follow certain standards.
In fact, the program was implemented under Secretary
Chertoff, based on the conclusion from the intelligence
community that chemical facilities could be weaponized by
terrorists. And on January 15 of this year, DHS issued an alert
warning about heightened threats from Iran, specifically for
the chemical sector. Those chemical facilities are located
smack dab in people's neighborhoods.
My district is the home to probably the largest
petrochemical footprint in the country. Mr. Higgins has
petrochemical facilities in his. Now there is an increased,
heightened risk, but we are going to move it from mandatory to
voluntary, and assume that we are protecting those facilities
and the people who live around them.
Mr. Wolf. So, again, the budget request, I wouldn't look at
it--and I certainly don't view it--as a lessening of an
interest or a priority of the Department on chemical security.
Again, the idea here is to move it to a voluntary program,
so that we can reach more individuals. Right now we have a
budget of about $75 million dedicated to this, so that is $75
million looking at 3,300 facilities. What we would like to do
is to be able to reach more facilities, again, in that
voluntary manner, just like CISA does with critical
infrastructure, election security, and a number of other--their
other missions sets, to transition it to that type of program,
moving forward.
Mr. Richmond. Look, you are a great soldier for the
administration, but I think if you hear what is--people up here
are kind-of talking about, is there some areas where we can
keep the mantra ``We need to do more with less.'' But there are
some areas where that just does not work. When we talk about
terrorism, you are talking about officers on the ground in New
York, you are talking about protecting chemical facilities, you
are talking about response to coronavirus. The answer is not
``We can do more with less.'' Sometimes you have to have the
resources to protect the American people.
I don't want to put you--my goal is not to put you in an
adversarial position with the administration. But my goal is to
make sure that we understand that we are talking about
protecting American lives, whether it is a virus, whether it is
a terrorist threat. That is real.,
So let me just switch for a quick second to coronavirus. In
your written testimony you said the risk to the American public
remains low, and we are taking measures to keep the threat low
and prevent viruses from spreading. That is not consistent with
what the CDC is saying. I would just hope that the
administration, through HHS, DHS, everybody, can get together
and give the American people some reassurance that we know this
is serious, and speak with one message, and that we are going
to invest the resources to make sure we protect the American
people.
There are people that are terrified to send their children
to school, or their spouses off to work. I just believe that we
owe it to them. I am not trying to score points, but we owe it
to them for you all to get one message, one plan, and start to
implement it.
With that I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for your service in
difficult times.
Let me--I want to echo my colleagues across the aisle. I
stood up and authorized into law the Cyber Infrastructure
Security Agency. With the threats that I see all over the world
from--in cyber, I don't think this is the right time to be
cutting that agency, and I will join the Chairman and Ranking
Member in their efforts with the appropriators on that issue.
On coronavirus, let's not forget where this came from. I
mean, we can do a lot of political finger-pointing here, but it
came out of China, and it was a very irresponsible move on the
part of the Chinese Communist Party trying to cover it up,
detaining 8 prisoners, having them retract statements and give
apologies for reporting the truth. It just got worse. I would
put the sole blame on China and the way they handled this
crisis now that is becoming almost not an epidemic, but
pandemic.
When we chaired the Ebola hearings, Chairman Thompson and I
authorized under the law the chief medical officer within DHS
to coordinate with HHS. Can you tell me how that is working in
this crisis?
Mr. Wolf. So--absolutely. So our chief medical officer is
doing just that. So they are in daily contact, I believe it is
twice daily, certain meetings, but obviously in telephonic
contact with HHS and CDC. Specifically as I mentioned at the
top of the hearing with DHS facilities, they were on the phone
last night with CDC professionals addressing that.
So I would disagree a little bit from a comment made
earlier. I believe that the administration is talking with one
voice on this issue. As Secretary Azar has said, and the Vice
President has said, the threat continues to remain low, and we
continue to--to Americans. But that is because some of the
measures that we have put in place early on will continue to
put in proactive measures, will continue to lean forward, will
continue to do things, as I mentioned at the top, closing
facilities if we need to do that, at least from a Departmental
perspective.
So I think the administration has been very clear on that.
Vice President Pence is holding almost daily press conferences
and news conferences, and pushing information to the public. I
know that we brief Congress weekly, if not biweekly. So we are
pushing as much information, being as transparent as possible,
sharing what we know and what we don't know.
Then, of course, from the Department's perspective, making
sure that we work at our land ports of entry, air ports of
entry, sea ports of entry. Our chief medical officer is,
obviously, involved with HHS and CDC on trying to make some of
these medical calls, not only for our work force, but also in
the mission that we do. S&T and their NBACC facility is also
involved----
Mr. McCaul. I am glad to see it is working the way we
envisioned that. I think we saw this coming back then.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. McCaul. I know that a Governor's task force actually
recommended the idea that the--a Vice President be put in
charge of an epidemic or pandemic, which is what is happening
now.
In addition, I think the appointment of the Ambassador to
PEPFAR, which is HIV infectious diseases, was a very wise
choice, as well.
Can you tell me about the specific travel bans and
screening, as it relates to affected areas like China, South
Korea, and Italy?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. So we have 2 specific what we call 212(f)
orders from the President, specifically regarding China and
Iran. So that is any individual that has been in those affected
areas in China or Iran in the last 14 days, or have traveled to
those places. So in some cases, as you know, we see individuals
coming to the United States with broken travel. So it is not
necessarily they come directly from China or Iran, but they
could have had 3 stops in between.
Again, through the CBP National Targeting Center, working
with the airlines and others, as we are identifying those
individuals that may have not come directly from China or Iran,
but perhaps have that broken travel. So when--again, when they
arrive at 1 of the 11 funneled airports, the first individual
they see is a CBP officer. That is a normal immigration officer
that is going to do that immigration work. They are then
referred to medical contract staff that our CWMD office stood
up.
So, again, all those individuals then go and take--and get
a screening by that medical staff, and then they are referred
to CDC, if needed, for additional evaluation. Then a number of
quarantine decisions are made by CDC professionals. So we are
doing that at airports of entry. We are also doing similar--
although we see lesser numbers at, obviously, our land ports of
entry and our maritime ports of entry----
Mr. McCaul. Now, I think the threat unseen--that it does
cause a panic and terrifies people, but they want to have
assurances our Government is protecting them from people--
threats coming into the United States.
Last question. Border Security Trust Fund. We proposed this
idea in a bill last Congress that failed. Acting Secretary
McAleenan supported it last Congress. This would take the fees
collected at the border and return a greater percentage to the
border for infrastructure and technology and needs at the
border.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. McCaul. Travel, trade. Do you agree with this idea?
Mr. Wolf. I certainly do agree with that concept. I think a
lot of our ports of entry, the infrastructure down there, not
only from a security perspective, but just that trade and
facilitation, is outdated, and certainly needs some additional
resources.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, sir. I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
New York, Miss Rice, for 5 minutes.
Miss Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Acting Secretary Wolf, just a few days ago, a district
court judge ruled that Ken Cuccinelli was not lawfully
appointed to serve as the Acting Secretary of U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services. In light of that ruling, is Mr.
Cuccinelli still the senior officer performing duties of the
director at USCIS, as stated on the Department's website
yesterday?
Mr. Wolf. He is. Well, I think that he is the first
assistant. I will say that that case is currently in
litigation, so I am going to limit what I say. But I would--I
will say that DOJ and DHS currently looks at--is looking at
that decision, obviously, to make sure that we fulfill our
obligations there, but also looking at appealing that decision.
Now, that decision had to do with certain decisions that he
made in that position. So we are taking a look at that, as
well.
Miss Rice. Is he still the senior official performing the
duties of the deputy secretary of the Department?
Mr. Wolf. He is.
Miss Rice. Which was stated on the Department's website
yesterday?
Mr. Wolf. He is.
Miss Rice. So how--I understand that this is in litigation,
and you are prophylactically saying you are not really going to
be able to say anything about this, but how is it that you are
keeping him in a position that a court found violated--his
appointment to which violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act?
Mr. Wolf. Again, I will limit my comments, but I will say
that that court decision is on specific decisions that he
signed out at USCIS, and that is what that litigation is about.
So we are addressing that.
Miss Rice. So are you internally reviewing--looking to set
aside the reduced time to consult, and the prohibition on
extension directives that Mr. Cuccinelli introduced?
Mr. Wolf. Yes. So that is what we are taking a look at,
determining what to do with those limited decisions that he had
signed out.
Miss Rice. I would like to turn now to your own--so are you
precluding him from making any such determinations about any
other issues, and enacting any kind----
Mr. Wolf. We will certainly do that with the advice and
counsel of our attorneys.
Miss Rice. So have you been advised to stop Mr. Cuccinelli
from implementing anything like he did with the reduced time to
consult and the prohibition on extensive----
Mr. Wolf. Again, he is not making those specific calls at
USCIS. Like I said at the beginning, we are taking a look, not
only at our obligations, but our ability to appeal that
decision. So, yes, we are doing----
Miss Rice. Given that, are you kind-of putting a halt on
his decision making?
Mr. Wolf. Again, at the advice of our counsel, which is--it
is a very specific focus of that case on specific decisions
that he made at USCIS--it does not affect his current position
that he fulfills at the Department.
Miss Rice. Well, you can't kind-of say he is really not
doing that stuff when he is actually implementing rules that
are having an effect on people, real people.
I would like to turn now to your own appointment, Mr.
Acting Secretary. On November 8, 2019 you were appointed Acting
Secretary of Homeland Security after Kevin McAleenan, which
made you the fifth person to lead the Department of Homeland
Security in less than 3 years of the Trump administration.
I want to understand whether that appointment was within
the law, because at the time you were named Acting Secretary,
Mr. McAleenan, who was himself Acting Secretary of Homeland
Security--which, in and of itself, is just a persistent
problem, there has never been anyone that was confirmed to run
an agency of such importance--but he, himself, was Acting
Secretary of Homeland Security at the time. He had to sign an
order amending the order of succession to name you to the
position.
Now, as I am sure you are aware, Mr. McAleenan changed the
order of succession, despite his testimony before this
committee just days earlier, sitting in the same chair you are
in, in response to my question that he had no plans to do so.
Now it appears as if this change to the order of succession may
not have been valid, given that Mr. McAleenan issued the
amendment after his own appointment as Acting Secretary appears
to have expired.
So I think it begs the question: Are you legally the Acting
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security?
Mr. Wolf. I am.
Miss Rice. Is that your own determination?
Mr. Wolf. No, that is the determination by not only DHS
attorneys, but other attorneys in the administration.
Miss Rice. So how can you be the Acting Secretary if Mr.
McAleenan was no longer Acting Secretary when he changed his
order of succession?
Mr. Wolf. Again, I don't believe that that was the case. I
believe that he altered the order of succession before he left
that position.
Miss Rice. If it turns out your appointment is, in fact,
invalid, what will that mean for all of the actions that you
have taken as Acting Secretary?
Mr. Wolf. Well, we will certainly defer to not only DHS
attorneys, but the Department of Justice to determine what
actions that we need to take.
Miss Rice. Last month intelligence officials warned Members
of Congress that Russia is again interfering in the 2020
Presidential election. Do you condemn these attacks from the
Russian Government to interfere in American elections?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely. We----
Miss Rice. Have you----
Mr. Wolf. Sorry.
Miss Rice. Sorry?
Mr. Wolf. We see an on-going influence campaign by Russia.
We would not be surprised if other adversaries are not also
looking at what they are doing. So, you know, their ultimate
design is to sow discourse, distress, you know, the American
democracy and our institutions of Government.
So, yes, we continue to see that. From a system
perspective, making sure that we secure election
infrastructure, we continue to take a number of actions to
address that.
Miss Rice. Have you spoken to the President about these
recent attacks?
Mr. Wolf. Yes, we have spoken to him about election
security on a number of cases.
Miss Rice. What was his response, specifically to your
telling--your informing him that the Russian government is
interfering in----
Mr. Wolf. Again, I am not going to get into discussions I
have had with the President, but I will say that he is informed
of all of the threats, the same information that I see--of
course, he sees more. But he is aware of the threats to our
elections, specifically as it relates to foreign interference.
Miss Rice. So Director Krebs has been wonderful, I think,
in terms of what he has done regarding election security, I
just want to be assured that you are doing proactive outreach--
at least now, because the only primary we are having is a
Democratic primary, 2 Democratic Presidential candidates--to
share what you know, which is something that Director Krebs
said was going to happen.
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely. So, obviously, we are not only
sharing that information with State and local election
officials, but, as you indicated, both political parties, but
also every campaign that asks for it, as well. So I know CISA
Director Krebs has been in touch with all of the campaigns,
sharing that information, and sharing the no-cost services that
I have indicated----
Chairman Thompson. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Miss Rice. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. Secretary Wolf, will you provide us the
letters that the attorney certified that you were legitimately
put in the position?
Mr. Wolf. I--yes, Chairman, I will take that back and
provide that information.
Chairman Thompson. By March?
Mr. Wolf. Let me take that back. I will get you an exact
date on when we can--we are able to----
Chairman Thompson. Well, we would like to have it by the
15th of March.
Mr. Wolf. OK.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr Walker.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wolf, thank
you for testifying today. I appreciate your work over the last
4 months to help protect American safety.
While the turnover in the Department has been frustrating,
that has no bearing on you. We should be pulling for you, and
hope you do the very best job. The evidence that we have seen
so far is certainly to be commended. So thank you very much.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you.
Mr. Walker. We have heard a lot about the resources being
allocated to screen for overseas travelers traveling through
designated airports. However, there are still 700,000,
approximate, travelers who arrive daily through land ports, and
tens of thousands of others on passenger vessels.
How is DHS, including CBP and the U.S. Coast Guard, working
with the CDC to detect individuals entering the United States
through land ports and waterways who may be carrying either
this virus or something else?
Mr. Wolf. So it is very similar to the procedures that we
have at the 11 airports. So again, as you come into a land port
of entry, or even a maritime port of entry, and you are coming
into the United States, you are going to see a CBP officer from
an immigration perspective, and then you are going to go
through this enhanced medical screening that we do at the 11
airports. We do a similar procedure at the land ports of entry,
and then will, again, be referred to the CDC if needed.
But again, our CBP officers do this on an every-day basis.
So, outside of coronavirus, you know, going back 2 years, a
year ago, they look at every individual, not only for
immigration purposes, but to determine whether or not they may
or may not be sick, and then, of course, refer them to
secondary.
So, again, to answer your question, though, specifically,
the measures that we have in place at the 11 airports that are
screening--as I mentioned earlier, over 50,000 passengers--we
continue to refuse entry to passengers that are on that 212(f)
order. We have the same procedures in place at our land ports
of entry. Of course, the Coast Guard is doing that at our
maritime.
Mr. Walker. Well, thank you for that. There are strong
accusations that Iran, certainly China, and maybe other
countries are covering up the full extent of the coronavirus
outbreak in their country. The numbers--as well as the numbers
infected and death tolls are significantly higher than reported
by their government and health officials.
In what ways is DHS combating disinformation and cover-ups
from other countries to ensure both a--U.S. agency officials to
make sure they have the necessary information to take the
necessary reactive and proactive measures to ensure the
outbreak does not occur?
I guess the second part is to warn U.S. citizens about the
risk of traveling to these locations.
Mr. Wolf. Sure. So I will take the second part first. There
is a number of travel advisories that the administration has
put in place to a number of countries. So those are just
advisories at the moment. So those are voluntary, or
individuals can still travel to those locations, but they are
being advised not to. Central travel only in some cases, and
then no travel in other cases.
We continue to work with CDC and HHS, making sure that the
medical professionals there understand what is occurring in
China. So I know CDC--my understanding from the CDC is they
have several individuals on the ground in China as part of a
WTO team looking at that. I think there is always a question of
whether the deaths, the number of deaths, are being under-
reported by China, and the information coming from China is as
transparent as we would like.
So, again, I would refer you to the CDC. They are the ones
that are in constant contact with the medical professionals in
China, trying to ascertain that information. Again, what we try
to do is to make sure we support HHS and CDC. If we need to
change--if they need to change their medical strategy, we
change as a result of that.
Mr. Walker. CISA has stated that their team is closely
monitoring the coronavirus, and is working with critical
infrastructure partners to prepare for possible disruptions
that may stem from wide-spread illnesses. In 2017 DHS
designated systems and networks used to administer elections as
critical infrastructure, and has since been one of CISA's
highest priorities. With the elections today, and many more in
the coming weeks, do you have any plans to prevent any type of
disruption?
Mr. Wolf. Well, I think that is currently what we are
doing. So we are not only doing that through CISA, they
continue to look at the supply chain, they continue to look at
the critical infrastructure to see about any slowdowns in that
supply chain and how it affects. We will continue to look at
that.
I would say, as we do across the board, not only with CISA,
but with CBP, we continue to have all options on the table. So
we are continuing to look at what we can do, and we will,
again, proactively take measures where needed.
Mr. Walker. Last question. Does the fact that areas of the
United States have seen outbreaks--where those outbreaks have
occurred changed your strategy in preventing the spread to
other patients?
Mr. Wolf. So, again, we converse daily with CDC and HHS.
Right now we continue with the strategy that is in place.
Obviously, we have a number of community spread and person-to-
person transmission, as well. So the CDC is on-site, monitoring
those. Again, from a DHS perspective, we are, obviously, very
concerned about what is coming into the country.
Then, of course, at TSA, you know, people are going to
continue to travel inside the air transportation system. So
what I will say is there is nothing that we are doing today
that I am announcing, but I will say that we continue to plan--
the Department continues to plan on all fronts for worst-case
scenarios. So we continue to look at different procedures that
we may have to put in place across our transportation system,
across DHS facilities should this continue to worsen.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. One question in
light of that one. You talked about those people who are
traveling by air. What about our land ports? Do we have that
same robust capacity at our land ports of entry?
Mr. Wolf. We do. So I mentioned we have the same screening
procedures that we have at the 11 airports of entry. We are--
those same procedures are occurring at our land ports of entry.
Obviously, we have more land POEs than we do the 11 airports.
So we continue to, I would say, transition that type of care.
CDC is not on-site at every land port of entry. We have
phone calls with them, so that is sort-of a telemedicine/
teleconsult that we have with CDC. But we do have medical
professionals at our largest land ports of entry looking at
individuals as they come into the country.
Chairman Thompson. So it might not be as robust as we need.
I mean, that is--I mean I think that is what I am hearing.
Mr. Wolf. From DHS's perspective, it is very robust, and we
will continue to keep it that way. We stood up contracts,
again, not only in the air ports of entry, but we also have
medical professionals that we surge from Coast Guard and other
parts of the Department at our land ports of entry. So we feel
very confident in the procedures that we have there.
Chairman Thompson. OK, the gentlemen from California, Mr.
Correa, for----
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Chairman Thompson, for holding this
most important hearing. I want to welcome Acting Secretary
Wolf. Thank you for being here today.
I am going to shift a little bit, and, actually, I am going
to follow up on your question and Mr. Walker's question on
border security, prevention of coronavirus, and state of the
state, so to speak.
You mentioned that--low-level threat right now, Nationally.
Is that where we are at?
Mr. Wolf. That is what the CDC continues to communicate
with the public.
Mr. Correa. Sunday I was at Mass. The priest said, ``All
those that are coughing, sneezing, please leave. Go home. Don't
come until you are better.'' There is concern out there that we
are talking out of a lot of--messages are being, essentially,
put out there. We are talking right now about border security,
checking people that are coming into the country.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Correa. The last time I went to San Ysidro 2 weeks ago,
we had a lot of folks coming through that border.
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Mr. Correa. Trying to put your finger--trying to stop
international travel is probably going to be very difficult, at
best. Are you coordinating internationally with big trading
partners, Canada and Mexico, to make sure that their agencies
are prepared, and they are watching, monitoring?
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Mr. Correa. Holding immigrants at the border and turning
them back is probably not going to stop this virus, because we
still don't know how it is spread. Can you give me a little bit
of information here, so I can take back to my constituents?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely, and I would agree with you. Some of
our busiest land ports of entry, it is going to be a very
difficult assignment. So, again, we will continue to screen
those individuals.
Mr. Correa. So do we have lessons learned? I don't have
much time, sorry to cut you off. Lessons learned, are we
coordinating right now actively with other countries----
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely.
Mr. Correa [continuing]. To make sure that our border
security isn't the border, but extends to working with other
international health care agencies?
Mr. Wolf. We reached out over a month ago, I would say well
over a month ago, with not only Canada, but with also Mexico to
understand the procedures that they were doing, not only on
their border, but just generally writ large.
So, yes, we continue to communicate with them. Canada--both
Canada and Mexico have been a partner trying to understand the
virus. Obviously, we are also looking at flights in--but--into
Canada and Mexico from those affected areas, as well. We are
encouraging similar restrictions. So, yes, we have a robust----
Mr. Correa. Lessons learned----
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Communication plan with them.
Mr. Correa. Next year, the year after, we will come up with
another virus. Are we putting together implementing a system
where we can react a whole lot faster and more coordinated than
we did this time around?
Mr. Wolf. Yes. I will say since 2013 the Department has had
a pandemic response plan that we executed, that we will
continue to execute. Obviously, not every pandemic is the same,
and they all affect the Department and the----
Mr. Correa. They are not the same.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Country differently.
Mr. Correa. You have a program in place to react. Yet the
early messages were a little bit confusing, discerning, and not
clear to a lot of folks that panicked.
Mr. Wolf. Well, I would say that the Department was on the
forefront, along with the President, of instituting travel
restrictions earlier than any other country out there. So we
continue to that, and we had to enforce that, and we had to
make that a reality. We had to change our targeting rules. We
had to do a number of things from a CBP perspective to make
sure----
Mr. Correa. If I can I want to interrupt you again. I would
like to see if we could work with your agency to see what your
plan is, who you have contacted, who you are working with
internationally, in terms of coordinating an international
response to this. I think the----
Mr. Wolf. OK.
Mr. Correa. Not only do our constituents--but I think the
world is looking to us for leadership and coordination.
We have the best pharmaceutical industry in the world. We
have the best research and development, and our health care
system is really good, as well. I just want to see us continue
to be the leaders when these kinds of pandemics break out.
Mr. Wolf. I agree, and we will continue to do that.
Mr. Correa. Thank you. Mr. Chairman I yield the----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, a point of order, if
I could. Mr. Chairman, a point of order.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. I will be brief, and it is about
the virus.
Speaking as a physician, I just want to make sure we are
all speaking the same language. You mentioned, sir, that we
didn't know how it spread. That is a very specific term,
terminology. We do know how it is spread. It is respiratory
droplets. Now they have confirmed that it is fecal-oral spread,
as well. So we just want to make sure that we are saying
correct things. We do know how the virus spreads, and I just
wanted to make that point of order.
Mr. Correa. Mr. Chairman, my reference was that we have a
lot of people that are actually infected who we don't--we
haven't mapped out how they were actually--we have that
contact, which is still not clear.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Correa. So, physically, they do spread in the way
described, but we don't know how these people were infected in
our communities. People that have not been out internationally,
have not touched international travelers who are now infected.
So to say that somebody is safe because you cut off the
border travel, or because you have quarantined yourself, and
that community is essentially now, you know, not in danger, I
think----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Your point is well-taken. But the
language has got to be clear.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman is----
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Green, for clarifying that
position.
Chairman Thompson [continuing]. Recognized.
Mr. Correa. OK.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. That is all I wanted to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Correa. OK.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Louisiana for 5 minutes, Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wolf, are
you here voluntarily today, or under subpoena?
Mr. Wolf. Voluntarily.
Mr. Higgins. I commend you for being here voluntarily
today, sir. I am going to help America understand the title of
today's hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. in this room, Tuesday,
March 3, ``A Review of the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Request for
the Department of Homeland Security.'' Is that the hearing you
intended to participate in today?
Mr. Wolf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. My colleagues have used this hearing to launch
partisan attack after partisan attack against our President and
the administration across every imaginable spectrum that has
anything to do with the Department of Homeland Security.
Earlier the Chairman posted a couple of heavily-redacted
pages, do you recall that, Mr. Secretary?
Mr. Wolf. I do.
Mr. Higgins. The redacting procedures of Federal documents
that have some level of classifications before you send them to
Congress, these procedures are common across DHS and under your
supervision?
Mr. Wolf. I would say they are not only common across the
Department, it is across the Government.
Mr. Higgins. Well, you are quite a gentleman, sir, as you
responded to those pages, because why do you think those 2
pages were selected of the over 1,600 pages that was the batch
of documents that you provided to this committee? Why were
those 2 pages selected? Because they were more redacted or less
redacted? What do you think, Mr. Secretary?
Mr. Wolf. I don't know. I would say----
Mr. Higgins. The answer is because they were more redacted.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. They were probably more redacted.
Mr. Higgins. I hope America is watching, because this is
exactly the kind of theater that this town has produced.
Now, my colleague just said we can't cut the budget. I
disagree. Are you mission-focused, Mr. Secretary?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely.
Mr. Higgins. This town, under Republican and Democratic
leadership, the establishment of this realm has accumulated the
$22 trillion debt to burden our Nation for generations yet
unborn. If this body were to run a $1 billion surplus--which it
will not, America, unless forced--this body will never decrease
deficit spending, will never balance the budget, unless forced.
If this body were to run a $1 billion surplus, meaning we spent
$1 billion less in Federal expenditures than we took in in
revenue, it would require 22,000 years of a $1 billion surplus
to address a $22 trillion debt. So may I say that, on behalf of
many Americans, yes, good sir, not only should we decrease our
budget, but we must, for the future prosperity and
sustainability of our republic.
Mr. Secretary, you advised you are mission-focused. You--do
you stand by that statement?
Mr. Wolf. I do.
Mr. Higgins. If you had a mission that called for 100
agents, and you had 97, would you take the hill?
Mr. Wolf. We need those agents.
Mr. Higgins. Damn straight.
The President's budget, as submitted, is 2.8 percent less
than last year's fiscal outlay, 2.8 percent. American families
and businesses from sea to shining sea have to know what it is
to deal with a 2.8 percent decrease in budget, if they have
deficit spending that they know is unsustainable.
So I thank you, Mr. Secretary, for, first of all, being
courageous enough to appear before this body without a
subpoena. You are a better man than me.
We have a duty to secure our border and the sovereignty of
our Nation. Mr. Wolf, regarding the budget, your budget, do you
feel confident, as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security, that the budget, which includes a 2.8 percent
decrease in fiscal spending, do you feel confident, as the
Secretary, that you can perform your mission and secure our
homeland?
Mr. Wolf. With the President's fiscal year 2021 budget
request, the Department, across our many missions, can fully
not only support, but we can excel in our mission space in
fiscal year 2020 with the budget request, as requested.
Mr. Higgins. You tell me that, cop to cop, man. You can
perform your mission?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely, because it is not just my opinion, or
my statement, it is the statement of the entire Department
leadership. I have had discussions with all of our component
heads, our operation component heads, as well as our support
component heads about their budget and their ability to do
their mission. They all agree that they can do their mission,
support their mission, and, in some cases, grow their mission
with the fiscal year 2021 budget request.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you for your answers.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Just for the
record, those documents that were redacted were not Classified
documents. You are aware of that, right?
Mr. Wolf. I am aware that some were not, yes.
Chairman Thompson. So this notion that they are redacted
because they were Classified for the sake of my request, we did
not request Classified documents.
Mr. Wolf. I understand.
Chairman Thompson. So we are clear.
The other issue is for the last 3 years we have had budgets
way out of balance by this administration. It is not--I don't
understand the Ranking Member's concern about a balanced
budget, when we were way out of balance, and those of us who
came from other units of government, we were mandated to have
balanced budgets annually. It was the law. So--but the last
three budgets----
Mr. Higgins. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Thompson. I will not.
Mr. Higgins. Since I was named, Chairman----
Chairman Thompson. I will not.
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. I ask that you yield.
Chairman Thompson. I will not yield to the gentleman.
So the notion is----
Mr. Higgins. That is very clear.
Chairman Thompson. Is that we have not had balanced
budgets.
So beyond that, the--I want to be sure that we invited you
to come to present your budget, which is the normal course of
action, and you accepted. Am I correct?
Mr. Wolf. I did.
Chairman Thompson. Were you threatened with a subpoena or
anything to come?
Mr. Wolf. I was not.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New Mexico, Ms.--
well, Mrs. Watson Coleman from New Jersey.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Acting Secretary--sorry. I would like to talk about the
Trump administration's policy that resulted in the intentional
separation of thousands of young children from their parents in
the summer 2018. I am concerned that many of those children
have not been reunited with their families a year-and-a-half
later.
Appallingly, the Department still cannot even accurately
account for the total number of children separated from their
parents. Of the 3,014 children DHS was able to identify in
response to a court order, only 2,155 children have been
reunited with their parents, according to a November 2019 DHS
inspector general report. That means 859 children are still
separated from their parents, or were at that time.
Have all the remaining 859 children now been reunited with
their parents?
Mr. Wolf. So this is an area that we report to the court
periodically, through the Department of Justice, on where the
statuses on each of the individual----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I am asking you to be--I am asking you
the question.
Mr. Wolf. There is a number of children----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Specifically----
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. And a number of parents who have
refused reunification. There is a number of reasons why not all
of those children have been reunited. Some are for the health
and safety of the child. I would say, for the vast majority of
them, over 2,000 have been reunited.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thanks. Do you have a number beyond
that, beyond that 2,155? Do you have a number as to how many of
the 859 children I am asking about? How many of those have been
reunited? How many of those are still not reunited?
Mr. Wolf. I can get you----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. We can talk about the reason for
that----
Mr. Wolf. Again, we report through the court to the judge
on specifically where those individuals in those----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. OK, when did you last report this----
Mr. Wolf. I am happy to provide that----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. When did you last report this to the
court?
Mr. Wolf. It would be periodically. I would get you the
exact date. I don't have the exact date on the last report, or
the reporting----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. OK, thank you. I would like to have
the exact number.
Mr. Wolf. It is through the Department of Justice that we
do that.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. OK, but you have the numbers, and I
would like to see them.
Mr. Wolf. Sure, absolutely.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. If there are children who are not
reunited for health and safety reasons, I specifically want to
know how many are in that category.
Mr. Wolf. We outline where those remaining ones----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I want to know.
The inspector general has also found an additional 1,369
children that the DHS separated from their parents, and failed
to accurately record and report to the court. How is it that
the Department apparently lost track of the fact that it took
those 1,369 children from their parents?
Mr. Wolf. Well, we continue--the Department continues, in
some cases, again, for the health and safety of the child. In a
number of instances we do separate a child from a parent,
again, from the health and safety----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Yes, this is an issue that really----
Mr. Wolf. We have done that not only----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Isn't necessarily
drilling down into whether or not you are separating children
for their safety. This is the fact that you all apparently
lost--either lost track or failed to report to Congress or to
somebody else 1,369 children who were separated from their
parents.
So my question is, how do we lose that many children in the
system?
Mr. Wolf. The Department has not lost any children.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So then, if you didn't lose them, you
just--you failed to report them.
Mr. Wolf. We have not failed to report. We have not lost
any children. As you know----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, if you haven't reported any----
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. No children remain in DHS custody,
they are all referred and transferred----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. All right.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. To HHS custody.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Are you familiar with that number,
1,369 children?
Mr. Wolf. I am familiar with a number of numbers.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Then I would like to know the status,
on behalf of this committee, of those 1,369 children who were
separated from their families, and the information was not
reported by your Department when asked.
I would also like to know when do you think these children
will be reunited, and when will their status be cleared,
clarified, verified if for some reason they cannot be reunited?
Then, what will you be doing with them?
Mr. Wolf. We will get you the status of those 1,369 that
you referred to. I need to look and see if it is part of that
court case. Obviously, they expanded the scope of that. So we
will continue to report to the Congress--or, sorry, to the
court. But we will provide you an update, as well.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So thank you so much. I appreciate
that.
Of particular interest to me is that the President's budget
does increase as it relates to dealing with those things that
happen on the border. So I would like for us to be able to
respond in a very timely manner, because then we have to
respond in a very timely manner in what we think that the
budget should look like.
Mr. Wolf. OK.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I want to thank you for clarifying
that the issue with regard to redactions is not just this--what
this Department does, it is what this administration does to
every request from this Congress.
Thank you. With that I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
Can you get that information Congresswoman Watson Coleman
wanted by the 15th, also?
Mr. Wolf. We will do our very best. I believe we can.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. For 5 minutes.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Secretary Wolf, for appearing here
today, and for your testimony and the work that you and your
Department do for us at securing our border and enforcing our
immigration laws. Every day the brave men and women of ICE,
CBP, and USCIS go to work to defend this Nation from grave
threats, and are too often criticized or disparaged for doing
the job that simply keeps us safe.
The President's budget request again contains a strong
commitment to border security. While I know that border
security has not been in the news as much recently, it is still
so critical that we secure our border, and this remains a
primary focus area.
Specifically, the President's budget makes investment in
staffing levels by hiring an additional 750 Border Patrol
agents, 300 Border Patrol processing coordinators, and over
2,800 new law enforcement officers at ICE.
Also extremely important is the request for nearly $2
billion for 82 miles of a border wall system.
Secretary Wolf, can you please speak to how these new
resources will be deployed?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. Well, when we talk about securing the
border, I talk about it in a number of different ways. It is
not only the physical infrastructure that we need, and the
capabilities that we have with a new border wall system that we
are constructing, but it is also additional technology, it is
also the resources and the people and the staff there to do
that job.
So it is--what we talk about is a three-legged stool there.
So making sure that we have enough border wall system, we have
that impedance and denial on the Southwest Border. We have
completed over 130 miles of wall. We have another--over 200
under construction, and another 400 in the pre-construction
phase. What that is designed to do is to make areas of that
border that are difficult for Border Patrol to patrol--put that
infrastructure up, funnel the illegal flow to areas that Border
Patrol can better patrol, and use their resources accordingly.
So there is that piece.
Obviously, we have a number of technologies outside of the
border wall system that Border Patrol and CBP uses to secure
the border that we continue to ask for in the 2021 budget
request, not only in between ports of entry, but at ports of
entry with our non-intrusive inspection technology. So we
continue to do that.
Of course, we need the resources. So we need the resources
not only to interdict the number of illegal individuals coming
into the country, but the illegal narcotics, the contraband,
and the like.
But I think what I would emphasize is you not only need
those individuals to apprehend that information, you need the
investigators and the other law enforcement officers to
actually look into if we seize a car at the border with drugs,
now we need to investigate that. So it is not enough just to
seize it. We need the additional staff at ICE, Homeland
Security investigations, and other places that can investigate
that, that can follow leads, and continue to go down that road.
Mr. Joyce. Secretary Wolf, with this increased funding, do
you see a positive effect on the drug crisis that is affecting
so many counties, States throughout the United States right
now?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely. I would say that that is a whole-of-
Government approach. So certainly DHS is involved in that, and
there are many others, as well.
So, when I talk to local law enforcement along the
Southwest Border, they talk to me about not only the illegal
flow, but what that means for their communities. Certainly
narcotics, opioids, and the range of narcotics is a major
concern for them. Human trafficking is a major concern for
them. So there is a number of issues that they deal with
because of that illegal flow on our Southwest Border that we
are certainly concerned about.
The--again, the President's budget request continues to get
at that, not only with the border wall system, with--but the
additional resources and staffing that we are asking for, as
well.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Secretary Wolf, for your testimony,
for your hard work, and for your leadership.
Mr. Chair, I would like to yield back my remaining time to
Mr. Higgins from Louisiana.
Mr. Higgins. I thank the gentleman.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. I thank the Chairman. I thank the gentleman,
since my Chairman was unable to yield to my request earlier
doing our fiscal discussion.
He expressed some wonderment that I might be concerned
about a $22 trillion debt. My voting record has clearly
expressed my concern when we were in the Majority, or when my
colleagues were in the Majority. Deficit spending is out of
control.
But, since my Chairman has expressed his own concern, I ask
you, good sir, do you support a balanced budget amendment to
the Constitution?
I yield.
Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
New York, Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this
hearing today.
Acting Secretary Wolf, I did want to do a follow-up,
because you mentioned earlier that there were DHS employees at
a Washington office that had to close, and self-quarantine. You
said that they would telework.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Ms. Clarke. What happens to those who don't have the
wherewithal to telework?
Mr. Wolf. So they won't. I mean they will be self-
quarantined. We ask those that are able to work, that perhaps
aren't showing symptoms, aren't sick, if they are able to
telework, please do so. But if those that don't have the
ability--and, of course, you have to go through a certification
process----
Ms. Clarke. Yes, I was going to ask. What--how do you
account for their time?
Mr. Wolf. Again, if you are self-quarantined, you are going
to do that. Again, if you don't have the ability to work, or
you haven't gone through that certification process through the
Department, then you are not going to telework. We are not
going to force you to telework in those cases.
But again, we would ask those individuals who aren't sick,
aren't----
Ms. Clarke. Are they on sick leave? Do they get paid? How
does that work?
Mr. Wolf. They would be--they would get paid, but I can get
back to you specifically on what type of leave----
Ms. Clarke. Very well.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. They would be on.
Ms. Clarke. You recently announced a massive expansion of
the Muslim ban, this time banning nearly all Nigerian,
Eritrean, Kyrgyzstani, Burmese from obtaining permanent visas,
and ending diversity visa eligibility for Sudanese and
Tanzanian nationals.
Last month I led a letter, along with my colleagues,
Congresswomen Jayapal, Chu, Velazquez demanding a Congressional
briefing on this new policy by no later than February 28. Today
is March 3, and I haven't heard a word from you.
Sixty Members of Congress signed my letter. More
importantly, approximately 300 million people are banned from
the United States under this latest ban, including the Rohingya
flying--fleeing genocide and countless Africans simply seeking
to connect with family members already here in the United
States.
Have you ignored this letter? Have you received this
letter? When will we be getting this briefing?
Mr. Wolf. I am happy to take that back. I am happy to
provide a briefing. I am not aware, specifically, of that
letter and that request, but I am happy to talk to you.
I think the Department has a very good new story about what
we did to institute these measures, and----
Ms. Clarke. All I need is a response and a date for the
briefing.
Mr. Wolf. Sure. We are happy to provide that.
Ms. Clarke. Very well, thank you.
This committee, along with the Oversight Committee, wrote
to you requesting documentation by February 20 regarding the
Department's justification for barring residents of New York
State from the Trusted Traveler Program, including Global
Entry. Along with Representative Rice I also co-led a letter to
you demanding answers.
By what date will all of the documents requested by the
committees, as well as by Representative Rice and myself be
produced to us?
Mr. Wolf. I know that production is under way. I can get
you an exact date. We are happy to provide----
Ms. Clarke. It seemed like you guys were very quick at
making this determination, but very slow in giving your
rationale. There had to be a rationale behind it, right?
Mr. Wolf. I--absolutely.
Ms. Clarke. OK, so I just----
Mr. Wolf. I would disagree, we have been----
Ms. Clarke [continuing]. Like to get the response.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Up front and very public about why
we took certain actions.
Ms. Clarke. I would like to get a response.
Mr. Wolf. I am happy to do that.
Ms. Clarke. Very well, I appreciate that.
In a letter the committees provided an interim response to
our document request, Secretary Cuccinelli states that the--
excuse me, Secretary Ciccone states that the decision to bar
residents of New York from the Trusted Travelers Program,
``involves the Department's primary objective of ensuring that
our homeland and all of those within it are kept safe and
secure.''
Can you please explain how it makes the United States safer
to allow residents of several foreign countries to enroll in
the Global Entry program, but to bar residents of New York?
Mr. Wolf. The specific law that New York enacted prohibits
information-sharing specifically with ICE and CBP. In this
case, for our Trusted Traveler Program, when an individual
applies for the Trusted Traveler or Global Entry, as you
indicated, we have----
Ms. Clarke. Those same standards are being given to foreign
nationals that are on our Global Entry----
Mr. Wolf. We have a number of agreements with foreign
nationals----
Ms. Clarke. Right?
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Providing reciprocity.
Ms. Clarke. We would like to see those documents, as well.
Mr. Wolf. But what I would say is that the information that
we require to vet a Trusted Traveler from New York----
Ms. Clarke. From New York State.
Mr. Wolf. From New York State, we do not have all of that
information----
Ms. Clarke. Right, very well.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Because of information is
restricted.
Ms. Clarke. Yes, we understand.
Mr. Wolf. So I----
Ms. Clarke. So I would like to just do a comparative
analysis with all of your foreign folks who are coming in. You
can provide us with that information, right?
Mr. Wolf. I am happy to provide----
Ms. Clarke. Absolutely. Thank you.
A driver's license is not needed to participate in the
Trusted Traveler Program. Addresses can also be verified
through other means, such as passport information,
fingerprints, background checks, interviews Trusted Traveler
applicants are required to go through in order to participate
in the program.
Prior to your February 5 letter to New York State, what
outreach efforts did the Department or any of its affected
components undertake to inform New Yorkers about its perceived
security concerns?
Mr. Wolf. Well, obviously, New York passed their law, they
were very specific--it is a very prescriptive law, so they
clearly knew what they were doing.
Ms. Clarke. Yes, what were your efforts?
Mr. Wolf. We reached out to them. We sent them a letter. We
indicated that we had concerns, and that we were shutting down
the program.
What I had to take into account was making sure that the
whole Global Entry system was not compromised, but we continued
to vet and enroll individuals----
Ms. Clarke. There was no other way of doing that, other
than banning all New Yorkers?
Mr. Wolf. Without the information that we have to vet----
Ms. Clarke. There is no other way of doing it?
Mr. Wolf. There is not. There is information that----
Ms. Clarke. OK, very well, I just wanted to have that on
the record.
Mr. Wolf. There is information in the DMV database----
Ms. Clarke. I want to urge you to reverse this decision,
and to avoid using your authority as the Acting Secretary of
DHS for other retaliatory actions against States with different
viewpoints, moving forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Pursuant to the
gentlelady's request, can you provide us with whatever
information you used to cancel the Trusted Traveler Program? I
think there was a letter sent that you referenced. If there is
any other documents, please provide those documents, along with
the letter.
Mr. Wolf. May I respond?
Chairman Thompson. Sure.
Mr. Wolf. I would just say, again, New York law
specifically prohibits CBP from going into that DMV database.
They need information contained there that they can only get
there to vet trusted travelers. They have done that above and
beyond any other State. There is no other State that prohibits
that information. So that is specifically why we took that
action with New York, and for that action alone.
Chairman Thompson. So I think the question was, when you
found that out, what kind of engagement did you do with New
York. Did you call? Did you send emails? Did you text? What did
you do, once you found that out? I think that is what the
gentlelady was trying to get.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina,
Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, Secretary
Wolf, I am new to Congress. It is an extraordinary thing, I
think, for someone who is new here to watch what you are going
through, and the questioning from this panel. We are all,
presumably, interested in the same objectives, particularly at
this time, when we face the crisis that we face with
coronavirus. I would think DHS, in particular, the mission of
DHS, would warrant all of us striking a more cooperative tone.
Further, the comments of Mr. Higgins, my friend from
Louisiana, about the overall fiscal picture, I was struck
that--so we got that $22 trillion indebtedness that amounts to
$176,000 per American household, just 2 Federal programs over
the next 30 years are anticipated to run a deficit of $103
trillion at this point, which is $824,000 per American
household.
So I would say, with respect to the budget submittal that
we are having this meeting to discuss, I am appreciative of the
efforts of the administration to identify ways to accomplish
efficiencies. The gentleman, Mr. Richmond, commented when he
was still in the hearing that there is--sort-of disparaging the
idea of efficiencies. But, you know what? We expect American--
the American private sector to accomplish improvements in
productivity every year. That is key to our private sector's
growth, so that the public sector can be fed by the revenues
that come from the private sector.
So, as a general proposition, do you believe that there
is--that achieving new efficiencies is a necessary part of
effective governing of the Department?
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely. I mean, we have to make sure that we
are stewards of the taxpayer money, and we are using that
funding provided by Congress effectively.
So we continue to look at the threat, we continue to look
at our programs to see how they evolve, make sure that the
resources are lined up with that threat, make sure--a variety
of different considerations going into that budget. There are
trade-offs. We don't have unlimited resources. So we do have to
make tough decisions, and we will continue to work with
Congress. Obviously, Congress has the final say on the
Department's budget, so we will continue to have those
discussions, and continue to talk about those trade-offs.
Mr. Bishop. I wonder if you could speak to the ways in
which robust border control, which this Congress seems
sometimes, by some portions of this Congress, to oppose, how
robust border control contributes to the United States'
preparedness and capacity to mitigate the harm from the
coronavirus virus, COVID-19?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. I think, specifically, probably what you
are referring to is not only the measures that we have put in
place at airports of entry, but also at land ports of entry.
So, when I look specifically at the Southwest Border, and I
look at today we are seeing anywhere from 1,200 to 1,300
individuals coming across that border illegally, so as the
virus continues to grow, that is of concern.
Because again, those individuals usually are not showing up
with medical history, or not providing--in most cases, but not
all, but in most cases--truthful answers to our Border Patrol
when they are asking them questions. So, whether they are
trying to hide a particular health history, that is a concern
as this continues to grow.
Now, we will continue to talk, regarding another question I
received with Mexico, to increase their capacity and to
determine what they are doing to control cases that they have
in Mexico and--being reported of what they have. So we will
continue to do that. But I would say the nature of the
Southwest Border, and the fact that we continue to see over
1,000 individuals a day cross that border illegally, is
certainly concerning to me.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I want to yield my remaining time to Mrs. Lesko.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Bishop, for yielding time, and
thank you, Mr. Wolf, for your work----
Chairman Thompson. The gentlelady from Arizona is
recognized.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry about that.
I have to go back to Rules, so I am going to ask a quick
question.
There is a decrease--I am the Ranking Member on the
Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee, which deals
with TSA. There is a decrease in funding of $58 million from
this year's budget to TSA, and there is reduced funding for CT
scanners and check-baggage screening. That kind-of concerns me.
Can you tell me why the--you did that?
Mr. Wolf. So when we talk about the CT scanners in--I
believe in previous years, but including the fiscal year 2021
budget request, we will have about 521 new CT systems deployed.
So we are continuing to look at how do we continue to up that
number. Obviously, we want to see more CT scanners at our
Nation's airports. They are detecting the right type of threat
material that we need them to do. So we will continue to push
on that front.
I will say TSA has received a lot of money in 2019 and 2020
for those systems. So just getting those units out in fiscal
year 2021 will be a challenge. We will likely see, in future
budgets, to come back with further funding requests for
additional CT systems.
But what we are very cognizant of is making sure that we
spend the amount of money that Congress has appropriated in a
timely manner, and pushing those systems out before we come
back and ask for, again, very large pots of money.
Chairman Thompson. The gentlelady's time----
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you very much.
Chairman Thompson [continuing]. Has expired. The Chair
recognizes the gentlelady from Florida, Mrs. Demings, for 5
minutes.
Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Secretary
Wolf. Thank you for being with us again, and thank you for what
you do every day to keep our Nation safe.
I know you know who you are and where you are. I have to be
reminded that we are the Committee on Homeland Security, and
that you are the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security. Yes, we should all share a common goal and a common
purpose, and that is to keep the Nation safe. I believe you
said that was your mission.
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely.
Mrs. Demings. But I am completely disappointed at some of
the conversation I am hearing today, because it is so laced
with politics.
Secretary Wolf, true leaders don't need to be praised every
day. They don't need Members of Congress to, every time they
open their mouths, say what a great job the administration is
doing. I think true leaders are much more interested in results
that directly benefit the American people.
I just want to--before I get into what I really want to
talk about, UASI, I just want to make one thing clear. With the
coronavirus, I thought we would dominate the time talking about
your budget and how we can better respond to the coronavirus.
But doggone it, I have heard quite a bit of talk about the
wall, and how the wall--and that just simply amazes me.
You started off your comments earlier, you were talking
about your employees, and how you had to close an office, and
particularly looking at travel from China or Iran. Then you
talked about illegal aliens. That just kind-of took me by
surprise, because I want to make sure, Secretary Wolf, you were
not certainly surely suggesting that the problem that we are
seeing in this country with the coronavirus is the result--or
it was caused by undocumented immigrants coming across the
South Border. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Wolf. No, I did not say that.
Mrs. Demings. OK, what did you say? Just for the record.
Please clear that up for me, because if we stay on that track,
and what I am hearing from some of my colleagues, we are not
going to do this correctly. We are going to be--have a screwed-
up response, and we got to get it right.
Please tell me what your words--why you put the two
together. What were you saying?
Mr. Wolf. My point that I made in the opening comments, and
specifically to the question I just got, was the concerns that
we continue to see. So we continue to see a number of concerns
specifically at the Southwest Border in our land ports of
entry, not only the Southwest Border, but the Northern Border.
How do we control the illegal immigration that is coming in?
Oftentimes we--they don't travel with medical history.
Right? So that is of concern, because the individuals that are
coming in at our 11 airports that are being funneled, we have
very good information of their travel history, of their medical
history. We are not going to have that same set of fidelity for
the individuals if this continues to grow at the Southwest----
Mrs. Demings. Did anyone give you any instructions to tie
the coronavirus to undocumented immigrants coming across the
Southern Border?
Mr. Wolf. No.
Mrs. Demings. No one told you to say that?
Mr. Wolf. Again, no----
Mrs. Demings. Let me ask you this. Do you believe that the
President's obsession with his campaign promise to build a wall
jeopardizes critical programs to DHS?
Mr. Wolf. Do I believe that----
Mrs. Demings. The President's obsession with his campaign
promise to build a wall----
Mr. Wolf. No.
Mrs. Demings. Jeopardizes critical programs at DHS?
Mr. Wolf. No, it does not.
Mrs. Demings. OK, let's talk about you UASI because, you
know, we all represent districts. Doggone it, our first concern
should not be praising the administration during a crisis, but
making sure that the men and women that we represent are safe
and secure, because that is your mission to keep our----
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mrs. Demings. Nation safe. We have seen significant--we
have seen an increase in public threats, which--that is what
keeps me up every night, not--but anyway, but I have also
noticed that funding for UASI has been cut. We know how
critical it is to local communities. We know how critical it is
to airports, for example.
But I know that some of the funding responsibility has been
shifted to local and State jurisdictions. Could you talk a
little bit about that, please?
Mr. Wolf. Sure, and it is the same discussion I had with
with Congressman King. So we----
Mrs. Demings. I am sorry I missed it.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Look at--not, that is--we continue
to look at all of the security grants the Department provides.
Since the Department's inception, I believe it is about 53
billion that we provided to State and locals to build up their
capacity.
So what we are concerned about is making sure that State
and locals can build their capacity, but they don't build those
grants into their baseline budget. So we want to make sure that
we continue to build capacity, not only in the New York
Metropolitan Area and others, but for new recipients, as well.
Mrs. Demings. Do you build capacity by cutting the budget?
Mr. Wolf. Specifically with the grant program?
Mrs. Demings. For the UASI funding, yes, for the grant
funding.
Mr. Wolf. Well, again, part of that budget proposal is
cost-sharing, again, between the Federal Government, State and
locals, and having that shared responsibility. So, yes, that
is--part of the budget proposal is not only reducing that, but
it also is that cost sharing part of it.
Mrs. Demings. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Chair, I am out of time. I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Van Drew.
Mr. Van Drew. Good morning, Secretary Wolf, it is good to
have you here. I am sure you are having a lot of fun.
I just want to say, from my viewpoint, we maybe shouldn't
be just saying what a great job the administration or the
people that work in all the various functions do, but I would
also like to say we just shouldn't say what a bad job
everything is, and how wrong everything is, and how terrible
everything is, because there was a lot of good that was done,
whether it is at the border--I was there relatively recently.
Things have improved a lot, but they still need to get better.
We do need the rule of law, whether it is--and I would like
to associate my viewpoint with Mr. Joyce, the calm that we need
to correct during this coronavirus, the fact that we were the
first to have travel restrictions up, that we were sure to
work--and we are working with the drug companies to see if
there are any new vaccines that can be created, and that we
have isolated folks very immediately that had it.
If it wasn't for America, if it wasn't for the United
States of America, this world and this globe in this crisis
would be in much worse shape. That is largely due to you and
your people, and the work that you have done. So let's really
talk about what America does, and what you have done.
Now, I digressed for a second, because I thought this was
going to be about the budget, and some of the budget issues. I
am really interested in the Coast Guard, and I am just going to
make a statement, and then maybe hopefully have time to ask you
a few questions.
You know that Air Station Atlantic City is the largest air
station in the Coast Guard's fifth district. We also know that
the Training Center Cape May is the Coast Guard's exclusive
intake and training facility for folks. The Coast Guard is
important to my community. It is important to the Nation. It is
important to everyone, and we need to make sure they have the
resources that they need.
While testifying before the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Homeland Security, you stated that the
readiness of the Coast Guard continues to be an issue and a
concern, and that, with the limited budget, you have to focus
resources. One of the questions, if you can remember them,
because I just want to go through the whole thing, is the Coast
Guard adequately funded to perform its missions, which are so
important? Does it have the resources?
The second thing is I have been told the Coast Guard has a
large infrastructure gap. What vulnerabilities does the gap
create, do you think? Are they serious? What is the Coast
Guard's strategy for addressing this gap with a limited budget?
Again, I thought this was about the budget, so I am sorry,
but that is what I am focusing my issues on.
Next, I wanted to commend the Trump administration, because
something we didn't talk--they included an additional $386
million in the 2021 budget for requests the Coast Guard
operations and support made. So authorizing the funding request
will help the Coast Guard address the urgent problems of
infrastructure gap, which is serious.
Finally, the Training Center Cape May is, unfortunately,
falling victim also to the infrastructure gap. There is need to
authorize and appropriate funds for the renovation of the
barracks facilities. This project aims to recapitalize the
barracks to meet the modern standards, and accommodate both
male and female Coast Guard trainees. It is the most valuable
part of the organization that make people work. I would like to
advocate for the project's funding inclusion and authorization
in this budget so that our Coast Guard men and women can start
their careers with the facilities and the resources they need.
As you know, and you deal--these are great men and women--
--
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Van Drew [continuing]. Who serve this country and
sacrifice for this country. I think that is the conversation we
should be having.
Mr. Wolf. Well, I would say I would agree with all of those
points. I would say that the Coast Guard is, obviously, really
some of the unsung heroes of the----
Mr. Van Drew. They are.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Department. They often don't get the
limelight or the attention that they rightfully deserve.
When we look at the fiscal year 2021 President's budget
request, there is a couple of priorities in there for the Coast
Guard, specifically, that the commandant is very forward
leaning on. One is the second polar security cutter, so there
is funding in there for that, but also for their offshore
patrol cutter program. I believe there is funding in there for
3 to 4 of their offshore patrol cutters, which will, again,
sort-of--there is really a push forward. So those are two
capital assets that they are pushing. The third one, as you
mentioned, is readiness, making sure that not only their aging
infrastructure, but also their budget that supports all of
their capital expenditures--so their operations and support
budget--continues to match pace.
What we see with the Coast Guard, because they are in the
Department of Homeland Security and they are not in DOD, is
that some of the plus-ups that we continue to see on the DOD
side, which--rightfully so--we don't often see that----
Mr. Van Drew. Exactly.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. On the Coast Guard side. So, you
know, over time--and again, not pointing any fingers, but over
time that that starts to add up.
So when I talk about readiness, when the commandant talks
about readiness, we need to make sure that we address that in
the long term. We start at that in the fiscal year 2021 budget
request, so there is some assistance and some help that we are
requesting there, but it is not going to be solved in one
fiscal year, so we need----
Mr. Van Drew. I know, but I would like to get on the road.
I would love to talk, speak with the commandant, and even have
the President take a look at this, because it is important, as
well. They are the best men and women that just sacrifice for
us. As you said, because they are not in DOD, they get the
short end of the stick.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Van Drew. So thank you for your service.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes Ms. Torres Small.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Secretary Wolf, for being here today.
Let's talk about drug seizures at our ports of entry. As
you know, transnational criminal organizations continue to
smuggle lethal drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, and
fentanyl, the primary driver of the opioid crisis, through our
land ports of entry. However, only about 15 to 16 percent of
commercial vehicles, and less than 2 percent of passenger
vehicles that enter the United States through land ports of
entry are currently scanned with non-intrusive inspection
technology to detect contraband.
Now, you know this is a problem. I really appreciate your
comments about how we need--how our infrastructure at ports of
entry is outdated, and that we need to invest in them. It is a
bipartisan issue, and we can--that we would all like CBP to
prioritize. So when does the DHS intend to reach 100 percent
deployment of non-intrusive inspection technology at our ports
of entry?
Mr. Wolf. Well, what I can tell you is the funding that
Congress provided in fiscal year 2019, which was about $570
million, and then additional funding in fiscal year 2020, will
give us about 660 NII, so that is the large, small, and medium.
That----
Ms. Torres Small. My question is about when we are planning
to get to 100 percent.
Mr. Wolf. So I am getting there. So by--I hope to have that
deployed by 2022.
Ms. Torres Small. 2022? That is great news.
Mr. Wolf. So that will get, you know----
Ms. Torres Small. You have a comprehensive plan?
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Screening from----
Ms. Torres Small. I am sorry, that is 2020. That was my--I
appreciate it. Just--do you have a comprehensive plan for how
you will get to 100 percent deployment by 2022?
Mr. Wolf. So we won't--we will not be at 100 percent of
deployment of those--of that infrastructure, yes, we have a
deployment plan. When we get deployed by 2023--you mentioned
passenger vehicles being screened. We hope to go from 1 to 2
percent up to 40 percent by 2023. On the commercial side, 15
percent, up to 72 percent, again, utilizing the funding that
Congress provided for, again, the large, the small, and medium
NII systems at our ports of entry.
Ms. Torres Small. That is great. So I am pleased to hear
that there is a clear plan for getting to 70 percent of
commercial trucks and 43 percent of passenger vehicles.
Do you have a longer-term plan for getting to 100 percent
deployment?
Mr. Wolf. We do. Obviously, that depends on appropriations
and support. So we are happy to share that, too.
Ms. Torres Small. That is fantastic. I would love to get a
copy of that, and we will add that to--if you can supply it, in
addition to your testimony later on. Great. Thank you so much.
I think the reason why it is so important that we have 100
percent deployment is that, when we get to 73 percent, cartels
wise up, they shift their routes to less--under-staffed or
under-utilized ports of entry, where the infrastructure is less
secure. So I look forward to getting that report for the full
100 percent.
So next, just shifting to Border Patrol processing
coordinators, last year I worked closely with CBP and other
Members of this committee to draft legislation to authorize the
hiring of Border Patrol processing coordinators. I am pleased
that DHS has started the process to hire the first class of
processing coordinators.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Ms. Torres Small. This position will be particularly
important. The fiscal year 2020 appropriations bill directed
the Department to brief Congress on the training requirements
for processing coordinators.
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Ms. Torres Small. When do you plan to brief us?
Mr. Wolf. Any time that you would like.
Ms. Torres Small. OK. Well, wonderful. Do you have the
information now on what the training is going to look like?
Mr. Wolf. I don't have the specific training. What I can
tell you is those--I believe it is 300 processing officers----
Ms. Torres Small. Two hundred, I believe.
Mr. Wolf. Two hundred will be on board between May and
September of this year.
Ms. Torres Small. So I--we have--I know we have gone
through a few Secretaries and multiple points of juncture
where, you know, the--first I requested information about the
training plans from former Secretary McAleenan and others. We
all recognize this is a need. We need the information on how
folks are going to be trained.
Mr. Wolf. OK.
Ms. Torres Small. So if you can also supplement your
testimony with that, I deeply appreciate it.
Last year's bill appropriations also directs CBP to provide
humanitarian training to processing coordinators, such as
emergency medical care and child abuse and neglect. How have
you ensured that processing coordinators will get that type of
training?
Mr. Wolf. Again, I am happy to provide the training that
they will receive. Obviously, they--we build that training with
CBP's training program. So I am happy to get that for you.
Ms. Torres Small. Great. Thank you so much. Continuing on
the training and the important work that we need for them to
do, one of the key reasons we needed them is to help transport
migrants, especially on long rural routes. The transportation
duties can take Border Patrol agents off the field. But I have
recently learned that coordinators will contact transportation
tasks with an agent escort. Can you please confirm that that is
the current plan?
Mr. Wolf. I can't, but I will take that back and let you
know.
Ms. Torres Small. OK. That is something I am concerned
about. Because, as we know, if--part of the reason we
authorized this money was so that we could keep Border Patrol
agents on the line. So then continuing to use a Border Patrol
agent----
Mr. Wolf. Sure.
Ms. Torres Small [continuing]. To help escort really
undermines the efficiency of that work.
Mr. Wolf. Let me discuss with CBP, and we will get you
those answers.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you, Secretary Wolf.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Green.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. You probably need to punch
your mike on.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. How is that, sir? Better? Thanks.
I just want to make everybody aware that TEMA has announced
19 dead now in Tennessee. So if you could keep Tennesseans in
your prayers, we would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. You are doing a
great job. Thank you.
When we cobbled DHS together at 9/11, we took 22 agencies
and kind-of put it all together. Unfortunately, we didn't
change the requirements for reporting mechanisms to Congress.
So you report to, like, over 100 committees and subcommittees.
Could you tell me how much of your budget is wasted reporting
to so many committees?
Mr. Wolf. I think that is a tough question to answer. There
is a lot of time that goes into responding to all the different
requests from the committees and, obviously, different letters.
Again, it is part of the oversight process. We are happy to do
that, but it is exponential at the Department----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. It is arduous, I am sure.
Mr. Wolf. At headquarters, just alone, we receive anywhere
between 40 and 50 letters a month. That is just at
headquarters. Obviously, our individual components receive
similar amounts. So having to respond to research, it does take
individuals off the front line of their primary security
responsibility to produce documents, to go back and make sure
that that is presentable----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Is it----
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. To various Members of Congress. So
it is a very, very heavy lift. We are happy to provide that
oversight, but yes, I would----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. If you----
Mr. Wolf. I would certainly encourage trying to shrink down
the amount of oversight that the Department has.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Well, it is not that we want to
minimize oversight, we want to streamline it.
You know, if you look at DOD, they report to, like, 40
committees, and they are 3 or 4 times--probably 4 times the
size of DHS. So I just want us to try to provide some
efficiencies for you.
Also, it is the same with your task organization. It looks
in the task organization as if you have 22 different agencies
all reporting to you. Is there some kind of streamlining that
you could do that would save money, save--make your Department
more efficient, in terms of your task organization?
Mr. Wolf. Well, we do. We have a number of operational
components. They, obviously, report to the front office, so
they do that not only with the Secretary, but also with the
Deputy Secretary at DHS.
As of right now, I would say that the organization of the
Department is solid.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. OK.
Mr. Wolf. I have looked at it. I know previous Secretaries
have looked at it, have made changes over the years. But where
it is at now, we can always fine tune, we can always do a
little bit better. But I don't see any wholesale reorganization
of the Department, in my view.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. OK. On those redactions, I assume
that migrants are eligible for the protections of HIPAA. I know
there are other medical personnel on the committee, and maybe
they can comment on this. But I would suggest that that may be
the reason why--the Health Information Portability Protect Act
is why there is so much redactions on those medical forms. But
that is, I am guessing, what your legal counsel is doing.
Let me go on to something else, too. The Chairman mentioned
increasing screenings of COVID-19 patients at the border, yet
others on the committee have beaten you up for mentioning that
the Southern Border is a risk for COVID. I just want to assert
that I think that is a little bit hypocritical. I agree with
the Chairman. I think those screenings need to be increased.
Could you clarify, too, that--does this budget increase CBP
positions?
Mr. Wolf. It does.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. OK. Do you have CBP vacancies right
now?
Mr. Wolf. I am sure we do. What I can tell you is, over the
last 2 fiscal years, we have been able to hire more Border
Patrol agents than we have lost.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Oh, good.
Mr. Wolf. So it wasn't----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. So you are on a net positive for
the----
Mr. Wolf. We are. So that wasn't always the case. We have
historically had a difficult job hiring and bringing those
individuals on board. So I would say we are on a good
trajectory over the last----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. So you are a net positive, and that
is to be commended, by the way, because I think that is a
relatively new thing at CBP.
So my question, then, may not be necessary. My question was
what are you going to do to ramp up recruiting efforts. It
sounds like you have done so, and you have got a positive
response. Now, if you want to elaborate----
Mr. Wolf. So we do. We have a fairly expansive recruiting
effort, retention bonuses, we have a whole plan to not only
bring in new Border Patrol agents, but to make sure that we
keep those that are there.
We do that through change of where they operate. Obviously,
sitting--you know, being on the border year over year, some
individuals in the Border Patrol want to go to different duty
locations.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Sure.
Mr. Wolf. So we provide that. We also provide retention
bonuses, and the like. So we have an aggressive campaign to
make sure that we hold our best and brightest, but also bring
in new Border Patrol agents.
I would just say that I was in Artesia, New Mexico probably
3 weeks ago, and had the opportunity to preside over a
graduating class of the Border Patrol. There were 25 or 30
folks there, just really excited to be part of the Department,
to be part of Homeland Security, and to be part of securing our
Nation.
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Thanks. Good job. I yield.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Just for the
record, HIPAA doesn't apply to Congress. So----
Mr. Green of Tennessee. Oh, it doesn't?
Chairman Thompson. No, it doesn't.
Let me recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can, I would
take 30 seconds to say--because I think sometimes we create
problems not because we are just mean-spirited or something,
but maybe we don't know.
I have been here a while. In fact, if I had not had to
leave this committee, I would be the third person in seniority
on this committee. So people--when we have Secretaries, no
matter what department, Congress Members, Republicans,
Democrats, San Francisco 49ers, any--I mean everybody asks
questions about that Department. If they have specific
questions about the budget, they will ask those questions.
So I--this may be a fight we don't even need to have. This
has been going on long before any of us came to Congress, or
maybe even were born. So you know, we have a lot of this little
chirp-chirp-chirping today, and any other committee you go to,
people are going to ask questions that they want to ask the
Secretary.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you.
Mr. Cleaver. From whom do you need approval to make a
statement, issue a press release, or do whatever about coercive
monopoly, coercive price gouging, also known as coercive
monopoly?
There are reports that hand sanitizers and other products
that now--that Americans are using are--the price is being
raised all over the country. I don't know what--it is
unimaginable to me that a walking, talking, breathing human
being can do something so nasty at a time like this for money.
Can--is there a short answer you can give me about what we
can do?
Mr. Wolf. I wouldn't--you know, again, from my position, I
wouldn't specifically--you asked if I could issue a press
release or a statement. I wouldn't specifically do that. I make
sure that, when I issue statements or press releases or
anything else from the Department, it is specifically to our
mission, to our authorities, and to our budget, making sure
that we do that.
So I would work with, obviously, the larger task force. I
believe you are referring to the coronavirus and----
Mr. Cleaver. Yes.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Some of the medical issues there,
and hand sanitizer, and the like. So, obviously, we would work
with the task force to make sure that we address.
Mr. Cleaver. All right, thank you. It--we don't have a
Federal law. There has been an attempt to do it a number of
times. But a number of States do have those laws, because of--
like Florida, you know, a hurricane hits, and prices go up,
which I think is just morally obscene.
The other thing--and I will do this quickly and, if you
can, answer it quickly--my Congressional district includes
Kansas City, Missouri. What we find is UASI funding has been
cut. If you look at the list of the cities that get UASI
funding, they are, generally, the largest in the State, and--
except when you come to Missouri. I don't know if somebody just
failed to look--Kansas City is significantly larger than any
other city in the State of Missouri. We have 116 communities,
3,800 square miles. We are the second-largest rail hub in the
country.
So our UASI funding is zero, and I don't understand it.
Maybe you could check, or have somebody on your staff to check
to find--yes, sir?
Mr. Wolf. Well, what I would offer is to have the
individuals at FEMA--so there is sort of a complex decision-
making matrices that they go through to identify those
jurisdictions and those areas that are available for that
funding. So I am happy to have them come up and walk you
through, and they will talk to you about different categories,
and how your specific area, Kansas City, ranks against others,
and what they are looking for to make that list. So I think
that is probably going to be the best thing I can do.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you. That would be helpful, because I
can give them--I can answer questions----
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Cleaver [continuing]. From the business community and
others.
There are a number of reports that have detailed racist and
sexist comments posted by CBP personnel on Facebook. I think it
is called ``I'm 10-15,'' something like that. Then an article
in the Washington Examiner quoted, you know, some of the Border
Patrol leaders as making some very nasty statements. One of the
gentlemen--I mean, the--actually, the Washington Examiner named
an individual.
So did CBP or DHS investigate this issue surrounding
Facebook and 10-15?
Mr. Wolf. Yes, I believe that would--occurred last year. So
the investigation has been completed, a number of individuals
have been removed from office.
I would say that, obviously, what I saw of that, from my
position in the Department, is not representative of 99.9
percent of Border Patrol agents. So I want to say that at the
outset. The vast majority of those were not involved in there.
So I want to make sure that--we always have a few bad apples,
and we will deal with that, and we will address that, we will
investigate that, and we will take appropriate personnel action
against that. But it is not--it certainly doesn't reflect on
the entire Border Patrol.
Mr. Cleaver. Yes, I didn't suggest that I--I am interested
about--in this situation. It looks like it has been handled. If
I could get information on that, that would be helpful.
Mr. Wolf. OK. There will be some privacy issues, but we
will share everything that we are able to.
Mr. Cleaver. OK----
Mr. Wolf. About specific individuals, obviously.
Mr. Cleaver. Yes. I mean, that's why I didn't call the name
of the person.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Cleaver. I was down on the border 2 weeks--3 weeks ago,
and I didn't tell them I was a Member of Congress, I didn't
wear my pin. I went--and they thought I was an attorney. I have
to say that the security personnel down there were 100 percent
respectable. I--you know, and I shared that--my thoughts with
them when I was leaving, because somebody walked in and saw me,
and said, ``Congressman Cleaver,'' and blew my cover.
But I think I needed to say----
Mr. Wolf. Which port of entry were you at?
Mr. Cleaver. We were in Brownsville.
Mr. Wolf. OK, I will pass that along to them. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman from Missouri's time has
expired.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
Check with your lawyers, Mr. Secretary. I think they will
tell you the privacy law doesn't apply to Congress, either. So
try not to get an answer back with a bunch of redactions. I am
trying to get Mr. Cleaver his information.
Mr. Wolf. Sure.
Chairman Thompson. So, Mr. Cleaver, I am sure you will get
it.
Can he get it by the 15th?
Mr. Wolf. I will check. Yes, Chairman. My intention will be
to get it to you by----
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms.
Underwood, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Underwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by
following up on something that Secretary Wolf just disclosed in
his opening statement.
Last night you closed a DHS facility in Washington State in
response to the coronavirus, sir, and ordered its employees to
self-quarantine for the next 2 weeks. Then, this morning, the
Washington Post reported that a DHS employee in Newark reported
to work on his--on her boss's orders, in violation of a
coronavirus quarantine.
DHS personnel have been on the front lines of responding to
the coronavirus at airports, at the border, in helping to
prepare, and risk management over at FEMA, and coordinating
outbreak response with other agencies. In these front-line
roles, they have also had an elevated risk of exposure.
As of today, do you expect further closings of DHS
facilities or facility-wide DHS staff quarantines due to the
coronavirus?
Mr. Wolf. We will take that on a case-by-case basis. What I
can tell you is that we continue to provide our CBP officers,
our TSA officers all of the information, training----
Ms. Underwood. Sure.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Their protective equipment that is
required, as well----
Ms. Underwood. But certainly you have a scope that exceeds
ours right now, sir. So I am looking for a yes or no. Do you
expect to need to make additional closings----
Mr. Wolf. I am not going to contemplate on what could be
potential closings. We will take that on a case-by-case basis.
Ms. Underwood. As a nurse, a public health expert, and a
former senior advisor at HHS's ASPR, I know that a whole-of-
Government approach is necessary to respond to the coronavirus.
Last week you were asked about a coordination with CDC. Can
you please provide a detailed update on exactly how DHS is
working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
State and local public health departments to respond to the
coronavirus?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. So we are working with them every day. So
every single day we have task force meetings, not only at the
senior level of the task force, but also individually.
We talked about--earlier about our chief medical officer
talking with and collaborating not only with HHS, but with CDC.
We have other individuals collaborating with ASPR, as well. So
we are fully linked up with both HHS, CDC, and others on making
sure that, if we need to change our operational tempo, our
operational requirements, and the decisions that we have taken,
which I have outlined here, that we do so from making sure that
the medical strategy, once it changes, as it evolves, that we
change our operations at our air ports of entry, our land ports
of entry, maritime, we continue to support in a supporting role
HHS.
So, as I talked earlier, our science and technology
directorate, our NBACC facility is also characterizing the
virus on behalf of the CDC. So we are providing support to
them, and will continue to do that. They tell us to change
direction, we will change direction.
Ms. Underwood. Great. This weekend, when I was back home in
Illinois, I heard concerns from families whose kids had been
studying abroad in countries like Italy and in Korea, with
active outbreaks. What is your Department's role in
coordinating with CDC, the Education Department, and other
Federal entities to bring these kids home safely?
Mr. Wolf. So we will continue, again, through the task
force. There has been a number of travel advisories----
Ms. Underwood. Sure.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. That we have put out, and so we are
part of that process, and that collaborative process to inform
the administration. Then, certainly, the administration, State
Department, issues those travel warnings. CDC issues travel
warnings separately----
Ms. Underwood. Right.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. As well----
Ms. Underwood. I was speaking about the experience of these
Americans that are being repatriated. So I just want to see if
there is anything specifically that you are doing with these
young people.
Mr. Wolf. Again, you are talking about specific students
that are overseas studying, that are then coming back?
We will continue--as we saw in China, when we repatriated
individuals from China, specifically, that was mainly through
the State Department. DHS will, obviously, play a role in that,
as we process those individuals coming back into the country.
But that is mainly a State Department role if they--as they
repatriated a number of individuals from China on specific
flights.
Ms. Underwood. OK. So let's return to the DHS employees on
the front lines of the coronavirus response. Their job is to
keep us safe. To require them to violate CDC's best practices
for keeping themselves safe from the coronavirus, not only do
they interact with thousands of overseas travelers each day,
but they are conducting screenings and pat-downs in extremely
close quarters.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Ms. Underwood. So what measures have you put in place to
minimize the risk to the DHS employees from the coronavirus?
Mr. Wolf. So I am not sure that I would agree with the--
characterizing that they are not following CDC procedures,
because that is specifically what we have provided them, that
is what we provided specifically to CBP, as well as TSA
officers. We are providing them, again, not only the literature
from CDC, the training, but also that protective-wear.
So when we specifically talk about protective wear, we are
talking about gloves and masks and the like, and we are doing
that optional. So we don't require them to do that. They can do
that if they choose to do so. We have several unions at the
Department that we are working with on that, as well. It is a
union issue, as well.
So we continue to work with them, provide them all the
materials and all the protective gear that they--if they choose
to use it, they certainly have it there at hand to do so.
Ms. Underwood. OK. Well, the information that we are
receiving doesn't suggest that it is in complete alignment. So
if you would be willing to provide us with a copy of the
guidance documents that you have offered to your employees,
that would be really helpful for us to do our oversight work.
Mr. Wolf. So we can do that through our CWMD office, as
well as specifically with CBP and TSA.
Ms. Underwood. Great. I yield back, Mr. Chairman, thank
you.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Guest, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, first I want to thank you for being here. I
want to thank the men and women that serve under you for their
service to our country.
Over the last year you and your Department has--have faced
a growing and continued crisis of illegal immigration along our
Southwest Border. Now your Department is providing some of the
front-line response activities as we are battling the
coronavirus.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Guest. So I know that you spoke earlier that the chief
medical examiner for the Department of Human Services has been
coordinating with CDC, that you have also been coordinating
with other partners. What do you see his role continue to be,
as we move forward, in making sure that we are properly
screening individuals that enter the country?
Mr. Wolf. So we use our chief medical officer in a variety
of different ways, but he is, as his title suggests, our chief
advisor when it comes to any medical issues, not only with our
work force, but also how we protect the American public. So he
is the primary interface with a number of CDC specialists, HHS
specialists in looking at how this virus spreads, the impact on
the work force, how to protect the work force.
So not only this individual, but his staff is intimately
involved in all of those discussions. He is advising senior
leadership about that, and is also in tune with what the task
force is advising, as well.
Mr. Guest. Could you talk just a little bit about DHS's
role in coronavirus screening at ports of entry?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. So, as I mentioned earlier, specifically
where we see the largest number are at the 11 airports that we
are funneling passengers to. So CBP, thus far, has referred
over 50,000 passengers to our medical professionals to screen.
They have cleared over 21,000 passengers. They have referred
another 30,000 for self-monitoring. We have refused entry to 14
passengers at U.S. airports, and refused entry for another 102
passengers at PreClearance airports. Those are airports
overseas that we do clearance procedures at.
So the Department has an everyday role of making sure that
we keep sick individuals from coming into the country that are
on these travel restrictions. Those that do come here,
Americans that do come here, they get the right medical
screening and they get the right treatment to making sure that
they--obviously, make sure that they, themselves, are safe, but
also their communities are safe. So that is just--that is our
operators.
Then we have a whole support mechanism that supports them
through our science and technology directorate. As you
mentioned, our chief medical officer, as well as others that
support what they do every day.
Mr. Guest. Well, and Mr. Secretary, you mentioned earlier
that you and your agency are taking all the steps possible to
mitigate any risk to any of our health care providers, any of
our front-line officers who are involved in the screening
process.
My question to you is, do you believe that the use of
technologies such as telehealth could be helpful as we are
going to see these screenings increase at ports of entry?
Mr. Wolf. I do. I think so. I would, obviously, defer on
the efficacy of that to CDC and HHS. But I think any and all
options should be on the table.
As we continue to see--as I mentioned at the outset, we
have a facility in King County, Washington State, that has shut
down. We are--we could see more of that, depending on how this
situation unfolds. So any ability that we are able to not only
telework, but do the telemedicine, as well, I think would be
helpful.
Mr. Guest. Mr. Secretary, would you agree that, just from a
public health perspective, this--it is important for the United
States to adequately screen those entering the country, and
that, if we are screening, whether it be for coronavirus or
some other contagious health care issue, that we are only able
to screen those individuals that come through ports of entry.
So, if you have individuals who are crossing into the
country illegally, assuming that those individuals are not
apprehended by Border Patrol or law enforcement after they
enter the country, that it is at that point impossible for us
to screen those individuals. Those individuals could then enter
the country, and they could either intentionally or--in most
cases--unknowingly impact hundreds, if not thousands, of
individuals with the coronavirus before they became ill and
started showing symptoms and were later hospitalized.
Mr. Wolf. Sure, that is, obviously, a very real concern,
and one I--we talked about earlier.
Obviously, at maritime ports of entry and air ports of
entry it is much easier to corral individuals and funnel
individuals into the appropriate places. So when we look at our
land ports of entry, yes, ports of entry is where we would like
to do that screening. They have the infrastructure, they have
the staff available.
As I mentioned earlier, today we are seeing anywhere from
1,200 to 1,300 individuals continue to cross the border
illegally. So that is not at a port of entry. Those are
individuals that Border Patrol is picking up, have to process.
So, yes, as this expands, the ability for those individuals to
be screened and screened appropriately is a concern.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes, Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being here. I really commend the work of DHS to
combat human trafficking, and I was pleased to attend your
human trafficking strategy roundtable in January, and the
implementation of the Blue Campaign training at FLETC, the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
I look forward to consideration and passage of my DHS Blue
Campaign Enhancement Act, H.R. 5804, and I want to thank my
friend, Representative Val Demings, Ranking Member Rogers, and
Representative Sylvia Garcia in joining me on that important
legislation.
Secretary Wolf, can you just briefly discuss some of DHS's
effort to combat human trafficking?
Mr. Wolf. Yes. So we issued a strategy in the middle of
January, which was the first time the Department has ever done
that. It is a strategy--all human trafficking and forced labor,
or goods produced with forced labor. We continue to be very
forward-leaning on that.
And the reason I thought that was important to produce that
strategy was to send a signal to the rest of the Department
that, as they continue to prioritize and build their budgets,
they need to do that with human trafficking in mind, devoting
the appropriate resources to that.
So again, the first time the Department has ever done that,
and made human trafficking a priority, and will continue to do
that. Inside that strategy there is about 40 different action
items that we are continuing to put into an implementation
plan, anything and everything from having to do a full threat
assessment on human trafficking to continuing to hire victim
assistance specialists, making sure that we have a victim-
centered approach with our work and with our law enforcement
officers.
Science and technology is looking at what they can do, so
there is a number of actions within that strategy that is
pushing throughout the Department----
Mr. Crenshaw. Great. It sounds very cross-functional. Can
you discuss ICE's role in combating human trafficking?
Mr. Wolf. Sure. I would say that ICE has probably the
largest role within the Department. Specifically, their
Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI.
Mr. Crenshaw. That is important to note, because everybody
talks about banning ICE--not everybody, of course, but a lot of
my colleagues talk about banning ICE. I think it is not always
pointed out that ICE plays the biggest role in combating the
scourge of human trafficking, and we should absolutely note
that.
I want to move on to disaster relief. That is a big issue
coming from Houston. My constituents, after a disaster, often
fail--often face a web of different options on where they can
get relief from, whether it is FEMA, or HUD, or SBA. It can be
extremely confusing when you are trying to rebuild your home.
I want to get your take on this. Rather than having post-
disaster recovery and long-term housing issues split among
these different agencies--FEMA, HUD, SBA--would it be
beneficial to consolidate a lot of this under FEMA?
Mr. Wolf. I think FEMA has started to do that. So I know,
under the former administrator, Administrator Brock Long, as
well as--that continue today, is they are actually trying to
streamline that, and trying to make it easier for individuals
that are affected by natural disasters.
So what we have heard over time is if your house is
destroyed by a natural disaster, you may have 3 or 4 different
inspectors--1 from DHS, 1 from FEMA, HHS, you know, housing--
all coming out and knocking, asking similar questions. So yes,
they are currently assessing and putting together a strategy on
how do you consolidate that, how do you make it easier for that
individual that has been affected, so perhaps they only get 1,
maybe 2 visits, instead of the 3, 4, 5.
So yes, I would agree that any time we consolidate or
streamline, that is going to be----
Mr. Crenshaw. Yes, I am sure there would be a lot of
bipartisan support for such a thing. Disasters don't just
strike my district, they strike a lot.
I want to talk about border security. Last year, when we
did this hearing with Secretary Nielsen, we were in a crisis.
We were seeing over 100,000 illegal crossings per month, in
many cases, sometimes much more than that. A lot of that was
family units, too, which made the problem all the more
difficult to deal with minors coming across the border.
Since then, illegal crossings have decreased dramatically.
It seems that a large part of that is because of migrant
protection protocols and increased cooperation with the Mexican
Government. What else can we be doing? What would be your top
items that you need from Congress to get a handle on our
Southern Border finally, once and for all?
Mr. Wolf. Yes. So I would say that we still remain in
crisis mode along the Southern Border. As you mentioned, the
numbers have dropped pretty substantially. However, it is not
only myself, but predecessors of mine would say if you are
apprehending over 1,000 folks a day, that is a bad day, and you
are in a crisis.
So, as I have mentioned earlier, we are apprehending
between 1,200 and 1,300 a day, still. So the crisis is still
there. The impacts on CBP, ICE resources are still there.
As you indicated, the strategy that we put in place over
the last 4 to 5 months is working--6 months is working.
Partnerships are vitally important with the Northern Triangle
and Mexico, but some of the programs like MPP, like ENV and
some of the other programs that we put in place, are absolutely
making a difference. They are allowing us to control that
inflow coming in, allowing us to process individuals quicker,
providing them immigration hearings quicker for their
meritorious claims. And those that don't, we are trying to root
out the fraud there.
We will continue to talk with Congress on additional
authorities that we need. We have been doing that for several
years, trying to address Flores, asylum. So we will--I am happy
to continue to talk to Congress.
I did want to thank Congress for, obviously, providing us a
supplemental last year that addressed the crisis and the surge
that we had.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
A request has been made for a second round of questioning.
Ranking Member, you have a question you want to ask?
Mr. Higgins. I do, Mr. Chairman, and thank you.
To dive in a little deep into your budget, I suspect, Mr.
Secretary, this is reflective of many isolated sections of the
total budget request. But you have stated in your statement on
page 7, about halfway through the page, regarding the need for
increased detention beds for ICE, and this is due to
historically high numbers of crossings being processed.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Higgins. You have a statement here of forecasting
models reinforce the need for an increase in ICE's detention
beds to 60,000. You go on to state that the budget includes
$3.1 billion for this capacity increase.
Now, if I have calculated this correctly--and perhaps I am
misunderstanding your statement--that would equate to $51,600
per bed, if that encompasses the entire 60,000 beds, and the
$3.1 billion being dedicated for that purpose. Would that
include the care for the people in the bed, and----
Mr. Wolf. Yes, there is----
Mr. Higgins. Please explain.
Mr. Wolf. There is a lot built into that. I would say our
single bed daily rate is about $125, $130 a day. The family
beds are a little bit more expensive than that. But yes, it
includes not only the beds, but the administration----
Mr. Higgins. All the personnel that----
Mr. Wolf. Of all of that, yes.
Mr. Higgins. To----
Mr. Wolf. We were at----
Mr. Higgins. Care for that person----
Mr. Wolf. I would say that we were at 56,000 beds in August
of last year, so we continue to look at our modeling, looking
at, obviously, past events, seasonality, and where we go. So,
obviously, the 60,000 requests is in the fiscal year 2021
budget request.
I will say it hit very real last Friday, when we had the
MPP decision. It was stayed several hours later. But as I
indicated in my opening remarks, we had thousands of migrants
lining up to come into the country. We are going to have to
detain them as we process them. So making sure that we have
enough bed space to detain through the pendency of their
immigration proceedings is absolutely critical.
The administration, I will say, has done a number of things
to speed that process up, so that we can give folks that need
the protections, that need the asylum protections, or any other
protections that they are seeking, get them that hearing
quicker, while at the same time rooting out the fraud.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you for clarifying that.
I would like to close on a positive note. In your statement
you have clarified that the United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services, USCIS, naturalized 833,000 new citizens
last year, which is an 11-year high.
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. Can you confirm that that is an accurate
number, sir?
Mr. Wolf. That is accurate.
Mr. Higgins. So 833,000 new American citizens have sworn an
oath of citizenship and become naturalized citizens in our
great country. Is that correct?
Mr. Wolf. It is. We often say--and it is absolutely
accurate--that we are one of the most generous countries out
there, and we continue to process individuals coming in for a
variety of different benefits. We just ask that you do that the
legal way and the correct way. So we will continue to----
Mr. Higgins. Roger that.
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Process those individuals.
Mr. Higgins. We support that. So welcome to the 833,000 new
American citizens, and thank you, sir, for the job that you are
doing.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from California for 5 minutes, Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to thank
you, Acting Secretary Wolf, for being here today. I want to
shift gears a little bit and talk about an important issue in
California, the Real ID.
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Mr. Correa. Two weeks ago I had the honor of spending 3
hours at the local DMV office to get my Real ID. I got there at
6:30 in the morning. I get in front of the line, people already
waiting in line.
Mr. Wolf. Yes.
Mr. Correa. Three hours later I had my--completed my Real
ID process.
October 1 is the deadline. We probably have--it is
estimated by DHS--35 percent of Americans don't have Real ID
yet. In California an estimated 20 million drivers still don't
have Real ID. So we may be looking at a real train wreck here.
October 1 people can't fly. They need to fly.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Correa. Any thoughts how we can move forward on this?
Are you going to move the deadline? Any suggestions?
This was a law that was put into place, I think, 2005.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Correa. We are trying to comply with it by October 1.
Please.
Mr. Wolf. So I would say it continues to be a priority for
the Department. So the Department's main responsibilities in
this area is to make sure that we continue to educate folks
about this.
So individual States produce the Real ID. So they are
compliant, and then they start issuing those. As you indicated,
the law passed in 2005, 2006. We think a 14- to 15-year
implementation plan is sufficient. But the stat that you
mentioned is an accurate stat: About 35 percent of the IDs in
circulation we estimate right now are Real ID-compliant. So
that is one-third. So, as October 2020 looms, we are growing
concerned.
What I directed--we issued a request for information, I
should say, to say to the industry--not only the airline
industry, but to the tech industry--how can we streamline this
process?
So we instituted a measure a couple of weeks ago that
allows individuals, once their States stand this up, to submit
their documents electronically to the State DMV. What we hear
often is that individuals show up and they have the wrong ID,
they didn't bring a utility bill, or they don't have the right
passport, they don't have the right underlying documents. So
they wait in line, you may wait for 2 hours, you are sent home,
and you have to come back.
So trying to submit that----
Mr. Correa. Mr. Wolf, that happened to me. I was asked for
my original Social Security card.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Correa. You ask most Americans to go dig up your
original Social Security card, and it presented challenges. I
did. But--go ahead, sir.
Mr. Wolf. Specifically, the law is very prescriptive on
what documentation is required. So, again, the law was written
in 2005/2006. I will say that, you know, we did not have
smartphones at that time, so we have evolved some time.
What we can do, electronically, I think, is a question
perhaps that we can talk to the committee about, see if we can
have some relief under that law, that we can submit documents
electronically in a secure environment to speed this up.
But we continue to get information from every State every
month on their compliance rate, which will make us--will help
us make a number of informed decisions as that October 2020
date gets closer.
Mr. Correa. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that we continue to
monitor the situation here in the next few weeks, come back and
ask this committee and Mr. Wolf on progress, because I think we
are going to have a train wreck October 1. We will make the
changes, as you said, maybe we submit electronically. Yet,
knowing what I know, I think we are going to have to re-ask
this question in a few weeks, after we see what happens, people
trying to get their information in electronically.
Mr. Wolf. So we get updated information every month that we
look at. It is all voluntary by the States. Some States are
much better than others in providing that information to the
Department. So we continue to work with States, and
specifically State DMVs, so that we understand how many
licenses that they are issuing on a monthly basis.
Mr. Correa. It is a daunting challenge. I wanted to make an
appointment at DMV, and I tried calling all my local offices,
and nobody had a slot open, and that is why I had to wait at
6:30 in the morning and, again, still was at the end of the
line. So----
Mr. Wolf. We continue to also make sure that we push out,
obviously, a Real ID is probably the best ID that you can have,
but there are other alternative forms of identification, if you
choose to travel after that October date on a commercial
airline. So you can have military ID, you can have a passport.
There is a whole list of alternative documents. So individuals
that can't make it in for whatever reason, if they have one of
the alternative forms of document, they can provide that and
continue to fly.
Mr. Correa. Thank you very much, Mr. Wolf.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to asking this question
again in the next few weeks. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. Well, and in light of that, do you
anticipate some kind of directive from DHS before October 1?
Mr. Wolf. We continue to assess that. As of right now, we
would--the October 2020 date is the date. We have seen that be
very successful over the last 2 to 3 years, of getting States
to comply with the Real ID requirement.
So the question is, we have almost all States that are
compliant. The real question is, how many are issuing Real IDs,
and how many will be in circulation as that October date comes
to bear?
So the information I talked about that we receive from the
States every month will give us some information to make an
informed decision. So as we get closer into the spring and
summer, we will probably be talking with you, Chairman, and
others about that date. Based on the number of ideas that we
see----
Chairman Thompson. Let me--thank you. Let me give a
problem. Some individuals' licenses don't expire or 2, 3, 4, 5
years.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Chairman Thompson. I am not--there has been no information,
other than you need to be Real ID-compliant by October 1. So--
--
Mr. Wolf. So that specific direction should come from the
State DMVs to their entire ID population. Say, even though you
may not have a renewal date for 2 years out, or a year-and-a-
half out, to be compliant with Real ID you need to come in and
get a Real ID.
Chairman Thompson. Well, I think if you check, it is not
being pushed out.
Mr. Correa. Mr. Chairman, on that point, that is what
motivated me to go get my Real ID.
Chairman Thompson. Right.
Mr. Correa. My license that expired. So I had to be there.
Chairman Thompson. Right. But for those----
Mr. Correa. But that is a motivator. If you get 2 or 3
years out----
Chairman Thompson. Yes----
Mr. Correa. Versus spending 3 hours at the DMV----
Mr. Wolf. Again, if you are 2 or 3 years out, and you don't
have a Real ID, but you have an alternative form, you are OK.
Mr. Correa. Yes----
Mr. Wolf. You need that alternative form----
Chairman Thompson. That is if I know. You know? If I don't
travel, it is a question.
So--but it is a good point. If you would, can you tell us
if all the States are compliant, coming into compliance, under
this now?
Mr. Wolf. I believe they are. I would just need to check on
1 additional State there. I know there are 2 States that have
not started issuing any of their Real IDs, specifically. So
they can be compliant, but not issuing IDs. I believe that is
the case with 2 States. Every other State is compliant and has,
in one phase or another, started issuing their Real IDs.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. I have just a couple of
questions.
The President made reference to a redemption fund paying
for the wall. Have you--are you familiar with any of this?
Mr. Wolf. I am sorry, a redemption fund?
Chairman Thompson. He referenced at a speech in New
Hampshire this month a redemption fund paying for the wall.
Mr. Wolf. Well, I know the administration looks at a
variety of different sourcing--funding sources for the wall. I
know what we are appropriated for, and, obviously, funding that
we are--that DoD is providing for wall construction, as well.
So that is what I am familiar with.
Chairman Thompson. So you are not familiar with a
redemption----
Mr. Wolf. I am just familiar with our appropriated funding
and, again, the DOD funding.
Chairman Thompson. So it is not under DHS.
Mr. Wolf. It is not under DHS.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I thank the Acting Secretary for his testimony--oh. The
gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to
continue on that last line of questioning. We ran out of time
as we were talking about what more Congress could do to secure
the border. We talked about--you spoke about more than 1,000
illegal crossings a day, and how that still constitutes a
crisis. Of course, that is true.
But there is another metric that, I believe, is just as
important, maybe more important, which is how we process those
people after they have crossed.
Mr. Wolf. Right.
Mr. Crenshaw. You can't control who decides to walk across
the border and turn themselves in. We will actually never be
able to control that. Only the Mexican Government can control
that.
But we can control our--the catch-and-release, you know, I
dare say, policy that has been occurring for the last couple of
decades. So I want to get your statement on what we have done
to better combat the catch-and-release process that has really
been happening. Are we adequately enforcing our laws?
Mr. Wolf. I think that is an important point. CBP, as we
have said, has all but ended catch-and-release. The individuals
that are coming across our border today, if you were to go back
to May and June of last year, huge numbers coming across the
border, and some months over 100,000, as we have indicated. We
were releasing those individuals, large amounts, over 80
percent, 85 percent of those individuals.
Today what we see is any individual coming across the
border illegally is--over 90 to 95 percent of them are in an
immigration pathway. So when we talk about MPP or we talk about
ENV or we talk about PACR, HARP, or a number of other
initiatives that we put in place to speed up that processing,
of course we do that at the Department with CBP, ICE, USCIS,
but also with our partners at DOJ to speed that process up, so
that individuals, again, that are seeking protection, get their
protection sooner in the process. So today it looks extremely
different, almost night and day, to what we saw in May and June
of that--of last year.
I would say, as far as what Congress can do, obviously, the
President's budget request is supportive of that process. We
need to make sure that we have the right number of Border
Patrol agents, but also the right number of ICE agents, as
well, making sure that we are not just apprehending people,
but, as we apprehend people, and we find criminals, and we find
others, that we are investigating those folks.
So CBP doesn't do that investigation, ICE does that. As we
continue to increase prosecutions and do a number of things,
ICE attorneys help that process. So it is the--I think you have
to look at the full immigration continuum to, not only what
occurs at the border, but also what is occurring as folks come
into the interior, and either fall out of status or the like.
So the President's budget request is--outlines the
resources we need to do that.
Mr. Crenshaw. That is excellent to hear. I would also point
out I introduced the H.R. 1609, the Anti-Border Corruption
Improvement Act, which would allow CBP to waive the polygraph
requirement for certain law enforcement and military veterans
who have already established that public trust.
You know, we had some good news earlier where you talked
about a net increase in hiring. But would a bill like that also
help in the hiring process to get----
Mr. Wolf. It will, it will.
Mr. Crenshaw. That would be excellent.
Mr. Wolf. We have had some authority from Congress several
years ago to speed that up, and to exempt certain----
Mr. Crenshaw. I would note that bill passed out of this
committee unanimously the last Congress, I believe, and I would
love it if we took it up again.
I want to talk about, in my limited time here, CISA. I know
you have been asked about this already, but I want to hear it
from you again, that our cybersecurity defense will still be
upheld with the President's budget.
Mr. Wolf. Absolutely. Again, the President's 2021 budget
request for CISA fully funds all of their initiatives, all of
their priorities.
As we look across the board, obviously they do
cybersecurity for the dot.gov sector, but also election
security, soft target security, supply chain security, 5G
security. Across their sector, the 2021 budget request built
with CISA, CISA leadership, is what they need to sustain their
activities.
Mr. Crenshaw. Are we able to hire the cyber experts that we
need? Have there been any changes in hiring rules and practice
that would allow better recruitment of the right personnel?
This is a very specific type of person that we----
Mr. Wolf. Yes, so CISA does have a number of unique
authorities to hire those cyber individuals. They are
beginning--I would say there is on-going hiring. It is a
challenge. These individuals, obviously, can make a lot more
money in the private sector.
Mr. Crenshaw. Right.
Mr. Wolf. But they are bringing on new individuals. There
is 500 in the 2021 budget request, not just in CISA, but across
the Department. We need cyber capabilities across the
Department. CISA is the largest repository of that, but TSA has
cyber needs and capabilities, as well as the Coast Guard.
Mr. Crenshaw. You know, there is a lot of other
organizations in U.S. Government that deal with cybersecurity:
The NSA, CYBERCOM. Do you think that the lanes are--that there
is adequate understanding of who is in what lane, with respect
to cybersecurity?
Mr. Wolf. There certainly is, I believe, you know, from the
Federal Government perspective. It may not be as clear to an
individual in the American public looking at it, but
specifically, we all have different, individual roles and
responsibilities, and we all talk about how do we, you know,
address a specific issue or a specific threat within those
roles and responsibilities.
So, again, CISA is looking at Federal networks, making
sure--and we are the primary interface in sharing a lot of that
threat information, intel information, with our private-sector
partners. So all of the, you know, individuals and companies
out there that are, you know, in the financial sector, and a
variety of other sectors that are very vulnerable to cyber
attacks.
So I believe that the lanes in the road are quite clear, at
least from a Government perspective. We could probably do a
better job in explaining it to the American people who is
specifically doing what.
Mr. Crenshaw. Great, thank you, and I yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. I would like to
enter into the record a statement from Anthony Reardon,
national president of the National Treasury Employees Union.
Without objection.
[The information follows:]
Statement of Anthony M. Reardon, National President, National Treasury
Employees Union
March 3, 2020
Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, and distinguished Members
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit this
statement for the record. As president of the National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU), I have the honor of leading a union that
represents over 27,000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers,
agriculture specialists, and trade enforcement personnel stationed at
328 land, sea, and air ports of entry across the United States (U.S.)
and 16 PreClearance stations currently at airports in Ireland, the
Caribbean, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates. CBP's Office of Field
Operations (OFO) pursues a dual mission of safeguarding American ports
by protecting the public from dangerous people and materials, while
enhancing the Nation's global and economic competitiveness by enabling
legitimate trade and travel. In addition to CBP's trade and travel
security, processing and facilitation missions, CBP OFO employees at
the ports of entry are the second-largest source of revenue collection
for the U.S. Government. In 2019, CBP processed more than $2.8 trillion
in imports and collected approximately $72 billion in duties, taxes,
and other fees.
CBP OFO is also the largest component of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) responsible for border security--including anti-
terrorism, immigration, anti-smuggling, trade compliance, and
agriculture protection--while simultaneously facilitating lawful trade
and travel at U.S. ports of entry that are critical to our Nation's
economy. Yet, the President's fiscal year 2021 budget requests no new
funding for the hiring much-needed CBP officers, agriculture
specialists, trade operations specialists, and mission support
positions. The final fiscal year 2020 funding agreement provided $104
million to fund the hiring 800 new OFO positions, including 610 CBP
officer and CBP agriculture specialist new hires.
For years, NTEU has advocated for the hiring of thousands of new
CBP officers and hundreds of new agriculture specialists based on the
agency's own Workload Staffing Model (WSM) and Agriculture Resource
Allocation Model (AgRAM). According to CBP's January 2020 on-board
staffing data, CBP has 24,606 CBP officers on-board, but the fiscal
year 2019 WSM states a need for 26,837--a gap of 2,231. For CBP
agriculture specialists, the January 2020 data shows 2,477 on-board,
and the fiscal year 2019 AgRAM shows a need for 3,148--a gap of 671.
This staffing gap results in ports operating well below 100 percent
of capacity. For example, the mayor of El Paso recently stated that
``we need at least 200 more officers.'' And according to El Paso
commercial truckers, there are at least 8 commercial lanes at the
Ysleta land port, and only 4 are open on a regular basis. There are 6
lanes at the Bridge of the Americas, and only 3 are regularly open.
(Border Wait Times Hinder Flow of Commerce, Hurting American Companies,
Texas Tribune, February 20, 2020.)
NTEU appreciates the funding level for CBP OFO employees in the
fiscal year 2020 DHS final funding agreement and urges Congress to add
to these new hire numbers in fiscal year 2021 to address on-going
staffing shortages at the ports of entry. NTEU is requesting committee
Members seek from Senate Appropriators a minimum $160 million in direct
appropriated funding for CBP ``Operations and Support'' in fiscal year
2021 to fund the hiring of at least 600 CBP officers, 240 CBP
agriculture specialists, 200 CBP agriculture technicians, 20
agriculture canine teams, and 50 non-uniformed trade enforcement
specialists and associated operational support personnel.
NTEU commends Ranking Member Peters and Senator John Cornyn for
introducing and favorably reporting S. 1004, the Safeguarding American
Ports Act, stand-alone legislation that would authorize the hiring of
600 additional CBP officers annually until the staffing gaps in CBP's
WSM is met. NTEU strongly supports this CBP officer staffing
authorization bill that is awaiting Senate floor action and urges every
Member of the Senate to support this bill.
NTEU is not alone in seeking increased funding to hire new CBP
officers at the ports. A diverse group of business, industry, and union
leaders have joined forces in support of legislation and funding to
hire more CBP personnel and alleviate staffing shortages at the
Nation's ports of entry. The coalition--which includes leading voices
from dozens of leading shipping, tourism, travel, trade, law
enforcement, and employee groups--testified and sent letters urging
Senators to cosponsor S. 1004 and asking appropriators to provide the
funding necessary to hire at least 600 new CBP officers annually.
As stated above, in addition to the shortage of CBP officers there
is a current shortage of approximately 671 funded agriculture
specialists Nation-wide according to CBP's own data-driven and vetted
Workload Staffing Model. Last month, the House followed the Senate in
unanimously passing the NTEU endorsed bill, S. 2107, the Protecting
America's Food and Agriculture Act of 2019. The new law authorizes CBP
to hire 240 CBP agriculture specialists, 200 CBP agriculture
technicians and 20 agriculture canine teams per year until the staffing
shortage that threatens the U.S. agriculture sector is met. NTEU asks
the committee to support a fiscal year 2021 funding request of $160
million that includes $74.5 million to hire the first wave of CBP
agriculture inspection personnel authorized by the newly-enacted
statute.
CBP Officer Overtime.--Due to the on-going current staffing
shortage of 2,477 CBP officers, CBP officers Nation-wide are working
excessive overtime to maintain basic port staffing. Currently, CBP
officer overtime pay is entirely funded through user fees and is
statutorily capped at $45,000 per year. All CBP officers are aware that
overtime assignments are an aspect of their jobs. However, long periods
of overtime hours can severely disrupt an officer's family life,
morale, and ultimately their job performance protecting our Nation.
Because CBP officers can be required to regularly work overtime,
many individual officers hit the overtime cap very early in the fiscal
year. This leaves no overtime funding available for peak season travel,
resulting in critical staffing shortages in the third and fourth
quarter that coincides with holiday travel at the ports.
To address this issue, at many ports, CBP has granted overtime cap
exemptions to over one-half of the workforce to allow managers to
assign overtime to officers that have already reached the statutory
overtime cap, but cap waivers only force CBP officers already working
long daily shifts to continue working these shifts for more days.
Officers are required to come in hours before their regular shifts, to
stay an indeterminate number of hours after their shifts (on the same
day) and are often compelled to come in for more overtime hours on
their regular days off. Involuntary overtime resulting in 12- to 16-
hour shifts, day after day, for months on end significantly disrupts
CBP officers' family life and erodes morale. As NTEU has repeatedly
stated, this is not a long-term solution for staffing shortages at the
ports and has gone on for far too long.
Temporary Duty Assignments at Southwest Land Ports of Entry.--Due
to CBP's on-going staffing shortage, since 2015, CBP has been diverting
hundreds of CBP officers from other air, sea, and land ports to
severely short-staffed Southwest land ports for Temporary Duty
Assignments (TDYs). CBP recently ended the most recent round of CBP
officer TDYs to Border Patrol sectors across the Southwest Border. From
May through September 2019, CBP deployed a total of 731 CBP officers to
designated Border Patrol Sectors. In this latest deployment, 245
officers were sent from the SW Border Field Offices with the remaining
486 officers coming from the other Field Offices.
According to a newly-released study, ``The Economic Costs of the
U.S.-Mexico Slowdown,'' this most recent TDY has resulted in a
significant slowdown at the U.S.-Mexico border leading to substantial
economic harms. Millions of trucks carry goods across the border every
year and delays at land ports cause cascading logistical problems. The
current slowing on the U.S.-Mexico border is reducing efficiency and
costing the U.S. economy billions in output and hundreds of thousands
of jobs. If the diversion of CBP officers from the Southwest Border
international land ports continues, the State of Texas alone could lose
more than $32 billion in gross domestic product in just over 3 months.
If there is a one-third reduction in trade between the United States
and Mexico over a 3-month period, the cost to the U.S. economy would be
over ``$69 billion in gross product and 620,236 job-years (when
multiplier effects are considered). Almost half of these losses occur
in Texas.''
NTEU urges Congress to require CBP to allocate personnel and
resources appropriately to ensure timely processing of people at ports
of entry and better manage the changing demographic flows at our
Southern Border. To end all these TDYs, CBP must fill existing CBP
officer vacancies and Congress must fund the hiring of the additional
CBP officers called for in CBP's own WSM. Without addressing the 2,477
CBP officer shortfall, allocating adequate staffing at all ports will
remain a challenge.
CBP Funding Sources.--CBP collects Customs User Fees (CUFs),
including those under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act of 1985 (COBRA), to recover certain costs incurred for processing
air and sea passengers and various private and commercial land, sea,
air, and rail carriers and shipments. The source of these user fees are
commercial vessels, commercial vehicles, rail cars, private aircraft,
private vessels, air passengers, sea passengers, cruise vessel
passengers, dutiable mail, customs brokers, and barge/bulk carriers.
COBRA fees are deposited into the Customs User Fee Account and are
designated by statute to pay for services provided to the user, such as
100 percent of inspectional overtime for passenger and commercial
vehicle inspection during overtime shift hours. Of the CBP officers
currently funded, CUFs fund 2,538 full-time equivalent (FTEs) CBP
officers. Further, Immigration Inspection User Fees (IIUF) fund 4,179
CBPO FTEs. Together CUF and IIUF fund nearly one-third of the entire
CBP officer workforce at the ports of entry.
As in the past, the administration's budget proposes increases in
user fees collected by CBP. Currently, over 36 percent of CBP OFO is
funded with a combination of user fees, reimbursable service
agreements, and trust funds. It is gratifying to see that the CBP
officer staffing numbers in the President's budget are not dependent on
Congress first enacting changes to statutes that determine the amounts
and disbursement of these user fee collections.
The fiscal year 2021 budget again proposes fee increases to the
Immigration Inspection and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act of 1985 user fees; however, these user fees cannot be increased
without Congress first enacting legislation. Legislative proposals to
increase user fees have been part of the administration's annual budget
submission since fiscal year 2024. These user fee increase proposals
are again in the fiscal year 2021 budget request, even though the
committees with jurisdiction have never held hearings on these long-
standing legislative proposals and the administration has not pressed
upon these committee chairs to do so.
NTEU strongly opposes any diversion of CUFs.--Any increases to the
CUF Account should be properly used for much-needed CBP staffing and
not diverted to unrelated projects. Unfortunately, while section 52202
of the FAST ACT indexed CUFs to inflation, it diverted this funding
from CBP to pay for unrelated infrastructure projects. Indexing COBRA
CUFs to inflation would have raised $1.4 billion over 10 years--a
potential $140 million per year funding stream to help pay for the
hiring of additional CBP officers to perform CBP's border security, law
enforcement, and trade and travel facilitation missions. Diverting
these funds has cost CBP funding to hire over 900 new CBP officers per
year since the FAST Act went into effect. These new hires would have
significantly alleviated the current CBP officer staffing shortage.
Reimbursable Service Agreements.--In order to find alternative
sources of funding to address serious staffing shortages, CBP received
authorization for and has entered into Reimbursable Service Agreements
(RSAs) with the private sector, as well as with State and local
governmental entities. These stakeholders, who are already paying CUFs
and IIUFs for CBP OFO employee positions and overtime, reimburse CBP
for additional inspection services, including overtime pay and the
hiring of new CBP officer and agriculture specialist personnel that in
the past have been paid for entirely by user fees or appropriated
funding. Since the program began in 2013, CBP has entered into
agreements with over 211 stakeholders providing more than 793,000
additional processing hours for incoming commercial and cargo traffic
(GAO-20-255R).
NTEU believes that the RSA program is a Band-Aid approach and
cannot replace the need for Congress to either appropriate new funding
or authorize an increase in customs and immigration user fees to
adequately address CBP staffing needs at the ports. RSAs simply cannot
replace the need for an increase in CBP appropriated or user fee
funding--and make CBP a ``pay to play'' agency. NTEU also remains
concerned with CBP's new PreClearance expansion program that also
relies heavily on ``pay to play.'' Further, NTEU believes that the use
of RSAs to fund CBP staffing shortages raises significant equity issues
between larger and/or wealthier ports and smaller ports.
Opioid Interdiction.--CBP OFO is the premier DHS component tasked
with stemming the Nation's opioid epidemic--a crisis that is continuing
to get worse. According to a May 2018 report released by the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Minority titled
Combatting the Opioid Epidemic: Intercepting Illicit Opioids at Ports
of Entry, ``between 2013 and 2017, approximately 25,405 pounds, or 88
percent of all opioids seized by CBP, were seized at ports of entry.
The amount of fentanyl seized at the ports of entry increased by 159
percent from 459 pounds in 2016 to 1,189 pounds in 2017.''
On January 26, 2019, CBP OFO made their biggest fentanyl seizure
ever, capturing nearly 254 pounds of the deadly synthetic opioid at the
Nogales port of entry. According to the Drug Enforcement
Administration, just 2 milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal
dose. From the January 26, 2019 seizure alone, it is estimated that CBP
officers seized enough fentanyl to kill 57 million people. That's more
than the combined population of the States of Illinois, New York, and
Pennsylvania. The street value for the fentanyl was over $102 million.
CBP officers also seized an additional 2.2 pounds of fentanyl pills and
a large cache of methamphetamine.
Most fentanyl is manufactured in other countries such as China and
is smuggled primarily through the ports of entry along the Southwest
Border and through international mail and Private Express Carrier
Facilities, e.g. FedEx and UPS. Over the past 5 years, CBP has seen
nearly 50 percent increase in express consignment shipments from 76
million to 110 million express bills and a 200 percent increase in
international mail shipments from approximately 150 million to more
than 500 million.
Prior to the enactment of fiscal year 2019 funding agreement, there
were only 181 CBP employees assigned to the 5 Postal Service
International Service Centers and 208 CBP employees assigned to the
Private Express Carrier Facilities. Additional funding from Congress
for new hires in the past 2 cycles has increased the number of CBP
officers assigned to these inspection facilities. NTEU's funding
request would allow for further increases in CBP OFO staffing at these
facilities. Noting the positive impact of hiring additional CBP
officers, it is troubling that the President's 2017 Border Security
Executive Order and his subsequent budget requests did not ask for one
additional CBP officer new hire. In 2019, CBP officer seized a total of
2,560 pounds of fentanyl, an increase of 46.6 percent from fiscal year
2018. Imagine what CBP OFO could do with adequate staffing and
resources.
CBP Trade Operations Staffing.--In addition to safeguarding our
Nation's borders and ports, CBP is tasked with regulating and
facilitating international trade. CBP employees at the ports of entry
are critical in protecting our Nation's economic growth and security
and are the second-largest source of revenue collection for the U.S.
Government--$72 billion in 2019. For every dollar invested in CBP trade
personnel, we return $87 to the U.S. economy, either through lowering
the costs of trade, ensuring a level playing field for domestic
industry or protecting innovative intellectual property. Since CBP was
established in March 2003, however, there has been no increase in non-
uniformed CBP trade enforcement and compliance personnel. Additionally,
CBP trade operations staffing has fallen below the statutory floor set
forth in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and stipulated in the fiscal
year 2019 CBP Resource Optimization Model for Trade Positions. NTEU
strongly supports proposed appropriated funding in the fiscal year 2021
budget request for 50 additional Trade Agreement, Remedies, and
Enforcement personnel and ensure compliance with laws that govern
priority trade issues, such as Intellectual Property Rights.
On-going Morale Issues at DHS.--Adequate staffing at CBP ports of
entry is critical to our Nation's economic vitality. In order to
attract talented applicants, however, Federal agencies must also
recognize the importance of employee engagement and fair treatment in
their workplace. Unfortunately, low morale has been a consistent
challenge at DHS. For 6 consecutive years the Partnership for Public
Service (PPS) Best Places to Work in the Federal Government ranked DHS
last among large agencies surveyed. In 2019, PPS ranked CBP as 380th
out of 420 component agencies surveyed with a drop of 2.1 percent from
51.6 percent in 2018 to 49.5 percent in 2019.
The Best Places to Work results raise serious questions about the
Department's ability to recruit and retain the topnotch personnel
necessary to accomplish the critical missions that keep our country
safe. If the agency's goal is to build a workforce that feels both
valued and respected, these results show that the agency needs to make
major changes in its treatment of employees. Wide-spread
dissatisfaction with DHS management and leadership creates a morale
problem that affects the safety of this Nation.
Of particular concern to NTEU is the increase in suicides as the
reported cause of death of Federal employees. New data released by the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the past month shows that
Federal employee suicides are at their highest level in at least 15
years, with suicides accounting for 28 percent of the 124 Federal
employee job-related deaths in 2018. BLS records the event as a job-
related suicide if the suicide occurred at work or if it occurred
elsewhere but can be definitively linked back to work. Since 2011, the
number of self-inflicted intentional fatalities among Federal workers
has more than doubled to 35, although the Federal workforce has
remained approximately the same size.
Most suicides continue to involve Federal employees in work related
to law enforcement, such as CBP. In 2016, 15 of the 16 reported
suicides were by Federal workers employed at a National security-
related agency. At CBP, more than 100 employees died by suicide between
2007 and 2018, according to the agency itself. NTEU applauds CBP for
seeking additional funding for their Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
We also appreciate that CBP agreed to add NTEU representatives to a CBP
workgroup that is working to address the unacceptably high rate of
suicides among CBP personnel and develop a ``Suicide Prevention
Strategy.'' It is vital that this workgroup continue to include rank-
and-file members' input as it develops a strategy to reduce the number
of job-related suicides at CBP.
NTEU also strongly supports H.R. 1433, the DHS Morale, Recognition,
Learning and Engagement Act or the DHS MORALE Act. The MORALE Act was
approved by the full House last year and is awaiting action by the
Senate. The bill directs the chief human capital officer (CHCO) to
analyze Government-wide Federal workforce satisfaction surveys to
inform efforts to improve morale, maintain a catalogue of available
employee development opportunities and authorize the designation of a
chief learning and engagement officer to assist the CHCO on employee
development.
H.R. 1433 also authorizes the establishment of an Employee
Engagement Steering Committee comprised of representatives from across
the Department, as well as individuals from employee labor
organizations that represent DHS employees. Last, the bill authorizes
the Secretary to establish an annual employee awards program to
recognize non-supervisory DHS employees who have made a significant
contribution to the Department. In our collective bargaining agreement
with CBP, NTEU negotiated an extremely popular employee joint awards
program. The agency retains the discretion to determine how much of its
budget will be allocated for awards, but 85 percent of the total awards
budgeted are recommended by a joint union/management awards committee
to be distributed proportionately among bargaining unit employees. NTEU
recommends that DHS look at the negotiated CBP joint awards program as
a model for an agency-wide program.
While a major factor contributing to low morale at CBP is
insufficient staffing and resources at the ports of entry, the
provisions in the DHS MORALE Act will help to address non-staffing
issues that affect employee morale by improving front-line employee
engagement and establishing a statutory annual employee award program.
NTEU commends the Chairman and the House for approving the DHS MORALE
Act and urges the Senate to expeditiously do the same.
nteu recommendations
To address CBP's workforce challenges, it is clearly in the
Nation's economic and security interest for Congress to authorize and
fund an increase in the number of CBP officers, CBP agriculture
specialists, and other CBP employees at the air, sea, and land ports of
entry.
In order to achieve the long-term goal of securing the proper
staffing at CBP and end disruptive TDYs and excessive involuntary
overtime shifts, NTEU recommends that Congress take the following
actions:
Support funding for 600 new CBP officers in fiscal year 2021
DHS appropriations;
Support fiscal year 2021 funding for new CBP agriculture
inspection personnel, as authorized by S. 2107.
Support funding for needed trade operations specialists and
other OFO support staff;
Introduce and enact legislation to authorize the funding of
CBP officer new hires up to the number specified in CBP's own
CBP Officer Workload Staffing Model; and
Fully fund and utilize recruitment, relocation, and
retention incentives.
Congress should also redirect the increase in customs user fees in
the FAST Act from offsetting transportation spending to its original
purpose of providing funding for CBP officer staffing and overtime and
oppose any legislation to divert additional fees collected to other
uses or projects.
The employees I represent are frustrated and their morale is low.
These employees work hard and care deeply about their jobs and their
country. These men and women are deserving of more staffing and
resources to perform their jobs better and more efficiently.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the
record.
Chairman Thompson. I want to thank Acting Secretary for his
testimony, and the Members for their questions.
The Members of the committee may have additional questions,
and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those
questions.
Without objection, the committee's record shall be kept
open for 10 days.
Hearing no further business, the committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:47 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions From Honorable Torres Small for Honorable Chad Wolf
Question 1. I'm pleased the administration is pursuing deployment
of cost-effective autonomous surveillance towers along the Southern
Border. These systems use commercial off-the-shelf sensors combined
with artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide fully
autonomous situational awareness without any additional manpower.
According to industry, the autonomous surveillance towers are also
relocatable, solar-powered, and cost less than $100,000 per mile of
coverage.
Please provide the committee with your deployment plan, including
the number of autonomous surveillance towers you plan to acquire and
anticipated costs and schedule for their deployment along the Southern
Border.
Answer. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Innovation
Team has procured a total of 60 autonomous surveillance towers
(formerly known as innovative towers) in fiscal year 2018 and fiscal
year 2019. CBP is establishing a new program of record, the autonomous
surveillance tower (AST) program, to purchase, field, and test an
additional 140 autonomous surveillance land towers for a total of 200
towers. We plan on using $55 million in procurement, construction, and
improvements (PC&I) funding in fiscal year 2020 and $28 million
requested in fiscal year 2021 to deploy towers. A total of $12.4
million was included in the fiscal year 2021 President's budget for the
operations and sustainment (O&S) of the first 60 innovative towers. O&S
cost estimates in the out years will be developed to support the
planned deployment schedule.
Question 1b. To what extent will the procurement and deployment of
autonomous surveillance towers impact CBP's legacy surveillance tower
systems?
Answer. ASTs are not expected to impact CBP's legacy surveillance
tower systems. ASTs are complementary to the legacy systems and are
ideal for areas where less range is needed, where power or
communications infrastructure are unavailable, where towers may be
relocated, or when manpower to operate surveillance systems is limited.
Question 1c. I am concerned our acquisition process remains slow
and outdated. What alternative procurement strategies to purchasing
equipment, such as a lease or subscription model, has the Department
considered for rapidly fielding commercial solutions for border
security?
Answer. For CBP's acquisition of the initial ASTs, we used a
combination of procurement strategies. A limited number of ASTs were
acquired under a partnership with another Government agency. This
strategy provided an avenue to demonstrate the capability in the field,
with incremental deployments, which not only demonstrated that the
technology was technically viable in various environments, but that it
was operationally effective and widely accepted by users. Subsequently,
CBP used traditional methods to acquire additional systems under
General Services Administration contract vehicles.
Going forward, CBP intends to use the flexibilities of the Small
Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program to acquire production-level
quantities. By leveraging other Government agencies' existing SBIR
capabilities, we can contract directly with the original equipment
manufacturer for ASTs that can be deployed in the near future. CBP
first used SBIR Phase III contracts to facilitate the deployment of new
technologies in fiscal year and we have found them to be an effective
component of our strategy.
Beyond ASTs, CBP has used alternative procurement strategies to
acquire small unmanned aerial systems and Linear Ground Detection
Systems. For these procurements, CBP used Section 880 of the fiscal
year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which provides for
streamlined purchases of commercial and innovative solutions. This
authority provides U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP
the ability to better engage with industry and select one or more
solutions that can be fielded for demonstration purposes. If the
technology proves effective, CBP will be able to exercise options for
production-level quantities that can be quickly deployed to the field.
We plan to use Section 880 authority for additional commercial and
innovative solutions.
With respect to acquisition program oversight, CBP has streamlined
decision making into fewer reviews and by tailoring requirements to
simplify documentation preparation. As a result, we expect the AST
program to meet its targeted contract award date in June 2020.
Questions From Honorable Michael Guest for Honorable Chad Wolf
Question 1a. Given that the aircraft that the USCG currently owns
will be over 20 years old (date of manufacture--2001) and will have
logged over 10,500 flying hours by the time your new LRCCA aircraft
will be delivered, which a conservative estimate would be at earliest
2023, do you believe it would be prudent to replace the older asset
first, given that maintenance and flight-hour costs increase along with
age? It seems to me that this strategy would ensure better performance
and reduce maintenance costs to the Government.
Answer. The U.S. Coast Guard is monitoring the operational
availability and sustainment cost of our owned aircraft (CG-01), and we
are working closely with the U.S. Air Force who is also operating
several C-37As that are a similar age. The Coast Guard intends to
utilize the $70 million received for Long Range Command and Control
Aircraft (LRCCA) in fiscal year 2020 to recapitalize the currently-
leased aircraft, as stated in the report language of H.R. 3931.
Transitioning from long-term leasing to an owned aircraft will provide
significant cost savings over the service life of the aircraft.
Question 1b. Can you provide a copy of Analysis of Alternatives or
other data that drove the decision to purchase vs. lease at this time?
Answer. The analysis that supported the Coast Guard's request to
purchase a new LRCCA indicates that there is a significant cost savings
associated with owning the aircraft. The current lease cost is $9
million per year, which includes 500 annual flight hours and depot
level maintenance for the aircraft. The Coast Guard estimates that
approximately half of the lease costs ($4.5 million) is for
maintenance and upkeep. This means the remaining $4.5 million of the
lease cost is for access to the aircraft (time and flight hours). The
costs for fuel, unit-level maintenance, and aircrew personnel are not
included in the lease, and therefore will be the same for the leased
and owned aircraft. Assuming a 20-year life cycle, the cost associated
with $4.5 million/year lease totals to $90 million. This is comparable
to the acquisition cost of a new C-37, which is estimated at less than
$70 million. Based on a 20-year life cycle, leasing of an aircraft is
approximately 30 percent more expensive than owning and maintaining the
aircraft. In addition to the annual lease cost, the Coast Guard pays
one-time costs at the start and end of the lease period to install/
remove Coast Guard-specific communications equipment, which takes the
aircraft out of service for up to 6 months. Finally, if an owned
aircraft is operated past 20 years, the savings associated with owning
the aircraft increases.
Question 1c. What were the annual maintenance costs for the GV vs
G550 this past year?
Answer. The 2019 costs for maintaining the GV was $4.2 million,
which included a one-time upgrade to the avionics systems. The 3-year
average maintenance cost for the GV is $3.2 million per year. The Coast
Guard does not have the actual maintenance cost for the G550 since the
maintenance costs are included as part of the lease costs.
Question 1d. Wouldn't it also be better for USCG pilots to maintain
currency on one type plane and not two?
Answer. The GV and G550 are very compatible and similar in terms of
capability and support requirements. GV and G550 aircraft have the same
type rating; therefore CG LRCCA pilots can attend the same training to
maintain currency on both aircraft.
Question 1e. From a capability and cost perspective, wouldn't
operating and maintaining two newer G550's be better than a G550 and a
GV?
Answer. The GV and G550 are very compatible and similar in terms of
capability and support requirements. Although it would be ideal to
operate two new aircraft, there is a significant cost savings
associated with replacing the leased aircraft. Scheduled maintenance,
unscheduled maintenance, and obsolescence mitigation costs affect both
the GV and G550 aircraft.
Question 2a. The FBI recently found itself in a similar situation
and chose to replace its older aircraft first while also continuing to
lease a newer asset.
Have you reviewed the FBI's strategy?
Answer. Yes, the Coast Guard reached out to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) about their recent purchase of a G550.
Question 2b. Would you be willing to analyze this approach and
share your findings? It seems to me that by replacing the GV first, the
USCG will save taxpayer dollars and ensure there is no break in
operational capability as the new G550 is being built and modified.
Answer. It is the Coast Guard's understanding that the FBI's
decision to recapitalize their GV was based on operational
considerations. The FBI's GV experienced frequent unscheduled
maintenance that was impacting their mission performance. The impact of
the unscheduled maintenance was exacerbated by the fact that a high
percentage of the FBI's travel is to foreign countries which have
limited availability of maintenance support. In addition, it is
understood that the FBI has fewer organic operational support personnel
than the Coast Guard, and relies more heavily on contracted operational
support, which can make it difficult to quickly execute unplanned
maintenance evolutions. The Coast Guard's GV is not causing operational
impacts similar to the FBI's aircraft.