[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A ``CARAVAN'' OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: A TEST OF U.S. BORDERS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 12, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-77
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://oversight.house.gov
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Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member
Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Blake Farenthold, Texas Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Mark Meadows, North Carolina Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Ron DeSantis, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Dennis A. Ross, Florida Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Mark Walker, North Carolina Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Rod Blum, Iowa Jimmy Gomez, Maryland
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Peter Welch, Vermont
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Mark DeSaulnier, California
Will Hurd, Texas Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
James Comer, Kentucky
Paul Mitchell, Michigan
Greg Gianforte, Montana
Sheria Clarke, Staff Director
Robert Borden, Deputy Staff Director
William McKenna, General Counsel
Sharon Eshelman, Subcommittee on National Security Staff Director
Kiley Bidelman, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
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Subcommittee on National Security
Ron DeSantis, Florida, Chairman
Steve Russell, Oklahoma, Vice Chair Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts,
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Ranking Minority Member
Justin Amash, Michigan Peter Welch, Vermont
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Mark DeSaulnier, California
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jimmy Gomez, California
Jody B. Hice, Georgia John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
James Comer, Kentucky Vacancy
Vacancy
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 12, 2018................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Brandon Judd, President, National Border Patrol Council
Oral Statement............................................... 5
Written Statement............................................ 7
Colonel Steven McCraw, Director, Texas Department of Public
Safety
Written Statement............................................ 14
The Honorable Andrew R. Arthur, Resident Fellow in Law and
Policy, Center for Immigration Studies
Oral Statement............................................... 27
Written Statement............................................ 29
Mr. Michael Breen, President & CEO, Truman Center
Oral Statement............................................... 49
Written Statement............................................ 52
APPENDIX
Statement for the Record of U.S. Customs and Border Protection... 70
Letter for the Record from Amnesty International, submitted by
Ranking Member Lynch........................................... 74
Letter from Civil Rights Groups in California to Governor Brown,
submitted by Mr. Gomez......................................... 78
A ``CARAVAN'' OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: A TEST OF U.S. BORDERS
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Thursday, April 12, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m., in
Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ron DeSantis
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives DeSantis, Duncan, Gosar, Hice,
Comer, Lynch, Welch, DeSaulnier, and Gomez.
Mr. DeSantis. The Subcommittee on National Security will
come to order. Without objection, the presiding member or the
chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
Over the course of the last 2-1/2 weeks, we've heard news
accounts of a wave of foreign nationals headed for the U.S.
southern border. We're here today to discuss the impending
arrival of what was initially called an immigrant caravan,
which remains a challenge of U.S. border security.
The San Diego-based group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or People
Without Borders, has taken credit for organizing the effort.
While they claim to provide humanitarian aid to migrants and
refugees, what they are doing now is undermining the rule of
law.
For 10 years now, this group has escorted foreign nationals
on an annual trek from Central America through Mexico,
encouraging many to continue to the United States, to take
advantage of asylum laws. This year they drew their biggest
crowd yet, more than 1,200 people. In some ways there are
similarities to what we experienced in 2014, when waves of
unaccompanied minors and young mothers with children streamed
across the border.
Unlike his predecessor, President Trump called out the
Mexican Government's failure to step up and do their part to
accommodate these refugees. For far too long, Mexico has been
derelict in its duty. For far too long, Mexico has been content
to let these caravans pass on through and become our problem.
Not anymore.
Coincidentally, a few days after this group decided to
begin its annual march, DHS released its monthly apprehension
statistics, which showed an alarming resurgence of illegal
border crossers. What we saw in response was the consistency of
conviction of President Trump's administration, of course, who
campaigned on building a wall and who backs the brave men and
women of ICE and Border Patrol and law enforcement everywhere,
who are working hard.
It took courage to mobilize the National Guard without
manufacturing a humanitarian crisis, like the previous
administration. As Commander in Chief, the President has every
right to take meaningful measures to protect our way of life,
maintain the integrity of our borders, and safeguard our
immigration system.
We all know the National Guard cannot serve in this
capacity indefinitely. We need to take a hard look at what our
existing laws and capabilities are, and be honest about what
can actually be done to not only enhance border security, but
to reduce the magnet of illegal immigration going forward.
The caravan had the unintended consequence of helping the
Trump administration identify its operational and legal
vulnerabilities, and provided us with an opportunity to conduct
much-needed oversight of some key immigration loopholes. It
reminds us of how porous our borders still are, with people and
drugs being smuggled in daily. We also see how, by directing
our finite resources to illicit activity in one direction, we
may be leaving a gaping hole for cartels and gangs to pass
through in another.
Now, there are promising actions that can be taken to get a
handle on this. The Trump administration should follow the
President's first immigration executive order and properly
interpret the Wilberforce Act.
In addition, to combat the abuse of asylum laws, both the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice
should send asylum officers directly to the border for a rocket
docket, to immediately hold a rapid-fire field hearing and
conclude that folks trying to abuse the asylum laws are, in
fact, ineligible and then allowing them to be placed in
expedited deportation.
What is more, both Article II of the Constitution, and the
delegated authority given to the President by the Congress to
keep anyone who has not already entered and even override
refugee and asylum policies when he determines it's against our
interest. That's in the law now. When you have criminals,
gangsters, drug crisis, and the political nature of the mass
illegal immigration, this clearly fits that description.
And finally, Congress, as part of any effort to tighten
immigration statutes, must limit at least the power of the
lower courts to block expedited deportation or denial of entry,
except when there is a prima facie claim of a plaintiff being a
U.S. citizen.
We have a lot of work yet to do, and I'm glad to introduce
our distinguished panel of experts who are here to help shed
light on this important issue.
Mr. Brandon Judd is here to speak on behalf of the
approximately 15,000 Border Patrol agents in his capacity as
the President of the National Border Patrol Council. Colonel
Steven McCraw currently serves as the Director of the Texas
Department of Public safety, which oversees 13 State criminal
justice and public safety divisions. We also have the Honorable
Arthur, resident fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies
and former immigration judge. And lastly, we welcome Mr.
Michael Breen from the Truman Center, a national security
expert and Iraq War veteran.
I'd like to add that we did invite the U.S. Border Patrol
to join us here today, and they chose not to send a witness to
testify on this important matter. Again, I'd like to thank all
the witnesses who decided to join us today and look forward to
their testimony.
Finally, I just want to make sure we will be maintaining
order in the hearing room. So I thank you and I yield to my
ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to thank
and welcome our witnesses today. Thank you all for helping this
committee with its work. As evidenced by the bipartisan omnibus
appropriation bill passed last month, there are members on both
sides of the aisle who share a commitment to providing our
border security and enforcement personnel with the resources
necessary to perform their critical missions on behalf of the
American people.
This agreement, which I supported, I voted for, provides a
total of $14 billion for Customs and Border Protection,
including $4.4 billion for CBP, Customs and Border Patrol and
security operations, and $3.7 billion for U.S. Border Patrol
training, development, assets, and other activities. It also
makes funding available for the hiring of 351 new Border Patrol
agents and law enforcement officers.
And while the omnibus agreement was a result of hard-fought
negotiation and is not a perfect bill, I believe that it does
represent a meaningful step towards enhancing our border
security. However, it is imperative that the Federal Government
utilizes these and other new funding sources provided by the
agreement in a wise fashion.
In the interest of national security, policies designed to
secure our borders against the threat of terrorism, criminal
networks, and other illicit activities cannot be based on
misinformation, or derived from arbitrary Presidential tweets.
Rather, the strength of our border security framework is
dependent on policies developed through bipartisan
consideration, and grounded entirely in fact. To this end, they
must also be undertaken in a manner that avoids demonization,
and affords maximum respect to the fundamental principles of
America as a Nation of immigrants, and also adheres to the 1951
Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees.
In view of all these considerations, it is important to
review President Trump's recent decision to order deployment of
up to 4,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S.-Mexican
border. Clearly, this decision is not unprecedented. Both
President George W. Bush and President Obama previously invoked
so-called Title 32 authority to temporarily deploy thousands of
National Guard units to the southwest border to provide
technical, logistical, and administrative support to the U.S.
Border Patrol.
It is noteworthy that while the U.S. Border Patrol
apprehensions for illegal border crossings exceeded 1 million
apprehensions in 2006 and over 460,000 apprehensions in 2010,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that in 2017, the
agency recorded, quote, ``the lowest level of illegal cross-
border migration on record, as measured by apprehensions and
inadmissible encounters at U.S. ports of entry,'' close quote.
The approximate 310,000 arrests for illegal border crossings
recorded for 2017 represents the lowest annual apprehension
figure since 1971, 46 years ago.
In articulating his plan to deploy National Guard units,
the President has stated, quote, ``We are looking from 2,000 to
4,000 and will probably keep them, or a large portion of them,
until such time as we get the wall,'' close quote.
Given that Congress has not authorized funding for the
entirety of the President's desired border wall and absent
further clarification of the President's tweet, the deployment
of our National Guard units to the southwest border appears to
be indefinite in duration at this point. It also remains
largely undefined, in terms of scope and cost. According to the
independent Government Accountability Office, the collective
cost of the two previous National Guard border operations under
President Bush and President Obama exceeded $1.35 billion.
It's important, I think, for Congress to learn which
priorities or programs the military will need to reduce in
order to reprogram the necessary funding to pay for this border
operation. In order for this committee to examine the merits of
the President's action, today, Ranking Member Cummings and I
join ranking members from the House Homeland Security, Armed
Services, and Judiciary Committees in requesting a series of
documents from the Department of Defense and the Department of
Homeland Security pertaining to the rationale behind the
announcement of deploying National Guard troops to the border,
as well as the specific activities, duration, and costs
associated with this operation. This includes any memoranda of
understanding the administration has negotiated with relevant
States in the National Guard Bureau.
Along these lines, it would have been very helpful for us
to hear from the Department of Defense and Department of
Homeland Security witnesses at today's hearing as we continue
to conduct oversight over our border security policies and seek
to identify commonsense steps that we can take to better secure
our borders in a balanced and sustainable way.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to discussing
these issues with our witnesses, and I yield back the balance
of our time.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
I'm pleased to introduce our witnesses. We have Mr. Brandon
Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council; Colonel
Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public
Safety; the Honorable Art Arthur, resident fellow in law and
policy at the Center for Immigration Studies; and Mr. Michael
Breen, President and CEO of the Truman Center.
As you can see, there is an empty chair for the uninvited
witness, Ms. Carla Provost, acting chief at the U.S. Border
Patrol, should she choose to attend the hearing.
Welcome to you all. Pursuant to committee rules, all
witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. So if you could
all please stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly
swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Please be seated. All witnesses answered in the affirmative.
In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your
testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire written statement will be
made part of the record. As a reminder, the clock in front of
you shows the remaining time during your opening statement. The
light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and red
when your time is up. Please also remember to press the button
to turn your microphone on before speaking.
And, with that, we'll recognize Mr. Judd for 5 minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF BRANDON JUDD
Mr. Judd. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I want to
discuss with you the issues of border security and the magnets
that draw people across our border illegally. This includes,
but is not limited to, the catch-and-release program, manpower,
and the use of agents. The catch-and-release policy is a term
that was coined by Border Patrol agents many years ago. It
refers to persons arrested for crossing the border illegally,
and subsequently, released into the United States on their own
recognizance and prior to having their deportation proceedings
adjudicated by an immigration judge.
Under this program, most individuals are released, with the
promise to appear before a judge at a later date that is to be
determined. Due to an extensive backlog of cases, the date is
usually at least 2 years from the time of release, but it might
as well be 10, 15, or 20 years, because the vast majority of
these individuals never appear before a judge as ordered.
Instead, they disappear into the shadows of society.
On January 25th, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the
Border Security and Immigration Improvement Executive Order.
Its intent was to implement new policies designed to stem
illegal immigration. In support, DHS Secretary John Kelly
issued implementation directions by a memoranda to all
corresponding department heads, stating the catch-and-release
policy shall end immediately.
Notwithstanding the clear guidance, catch-and-release
policies have not ended. In November of 2017, field office
directors for both San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, ICE ERO
field offices sent email messages to Border Patrol leadership
stating, in part, ``I have directed my staff to not accept
files or custody of any FAMUs,'' family member units, ``that
are not processed as NTAs, notices to appear, that are not FRC
eligible.'' FRC is field relocation center. ``My position may
change subsequent to discussions with HQ, but for now, ERO San
Antonio and El Paso position is that we will not process cases
like male HOH,'' head of household, ``unless we accept custody,
as the transfer of cases is not automatic.''
By processing illegal border crossers with WA/NTAs, we
consciously continue the catch-and-release program and send a
clear message to criminal cartels that we are not serious about
following through with the President's or Secretary's orders.
Criminal cartels continue to exploit our policies,
specifically catch and release. They force large groups of
people to cross the border illegally in dangerous locations
instead of through ports of entry, a controlled environment, in
an effort to create gaps in our coverage. By creating gaps,
criminal cartels are able to cross higher-value contraband,
such as opioids, criminal aliens, persons from special interest
countries, and other narcotics without detection, apprehension,
or seizure. By continuing policies like catch and release, we
are putting innocent people, like women and children, into the
hands of dangerous criminal enterprises.
The single biggest challenge that we face right now to
securing our border is manpower, as we are currently 2,000
agents below our congressionally mandated floor of 21,370
agents. There are currently three challenges that we face:
Retention, recruitment, and the use of agents. The National
Border Patrol Council also views the reinstatement of FLSA as a
top priority and one that will significantly improve our urgent
retention crisis. I want to be clear about this. Until we
address these issues, we will not be able to secure the border.
Along with catch and release and manpower, the deployment
of our limited resources is an important piece of the border
security puzzle. The Washington Times recently published an
article highlighting gross mismanagement of the Border Patrol
workforce in the McAllen Border Patrol Station. A little more
than 700 agents are assigned to the station, and when annual
leave, sick leave, and days off duty are calculated, there are
approximately 400 agents that show up to work on any given day.
Of those 400 agents on duty, only around 50 are deployed to the
border. That's unacceptable.
This is well below par for a station that controls
approximately 60 miles of the border and is the busiest station
in the country. The Federal Government's decision to devote
only 12 percent of the workforce to perform the duties they
were hired to perform is lost on me, but for the sake of border
security, this is entirely unjustifiable.
If you are angry about this, you should be. Protecting our
borders is paramount to ensuring homeland security, economic
prosperity, and national sovereignty. It is my hope that that
the members of this committee recognize this and exercise their
oversight responsibility to hold Border Patrol management
accountable. I want to thank you for this opportunity to
testify, and I look forward to answering any of your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Judd follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. Colonel, you're up.
Colonel McCraw. Chairman, distinguished members, Steve
McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public safety.
You have my written testimony, so I will not go into
anything that I discussed in there, but four things I would
like to mention.
First, I mean, obviously, the Texas-Mexico border is
unsecure. Because of that, the consequence of that is it is a
public safety and national security threat, not just to Texas
but to every community in the United States. And Ranking Member
Lynch, you noted some of those things in your comments along
that. Everyone is concerned about the impact of criminal
organizations on their communities. And we all recognize that
we're concerned about fentanyl. We're concerned about
methamphetamine. If you got a drug problem, you have a cartel
problem. You have got an unsecure border problem. If you have
an MS-13 problem in New York, you have a border problem. So
clearly, it's the most significant vulnerability that we face
right now from a national security and public safety
standpoint.
From a Texas standpoint, you know, we recognize that it's a
sovereign responsibility of you, the Federal Government, to
secure the border, but when it doesn't happen, it impacts our
communities.
And Governor Abbott and the State Legislature in Texas is
not going to sit around and do nothing. And what they have done
is they've allocated billions of dollars to support, provide
direct support to U.S. Border Patrol, not compete, complement
and provide direct support to deter, detect, and interdict
smuggling incidents between the ports of entry. And that
includes marine assets, a tactical marine unit we put in place.
I have got over 1,000 troopers right now engaged in border
security activities. We have 13 aircraft, including nine
helicopters and four airplanes, that are dedicated full-time to
border security operations. We have got 13 tactical boats that
are done. We have got 42 Texas Rangers that we've established
to address public corruption, but also to work on occasion--
prior, we had to work assault on Federal officers, because they
weren't being handled at the Federal level. They are now,
thanks to the new U.S. Attorney in the Southern District. But
those are the types of things that are important to Texans. And
as Texas goes, so goes the Nation.
And we recognize also that not only is it the sovereign
responsibility of the Federal Government, it can be done. This
is not rocket science. And Mr. Judd mentioned a few of those
things that are clearly--clearly would enhance or secure the
border, without question. And some of those things is people,
technology, infrastructure, and the equipment that they need
and resources that they need. And there is no question that
they could do it if they had that. But because they don't have
it, the Department of Public Safety, the State of Texas and
Governor Abbott, they're dedicating resources and time and
energy to be able to complement what they're doing in the
Border Patrol.
I will say this, though. We do appreciate the Texas
military forces and Texas National Guard in Texas. They do a
great job. In fact, we've had them involved in border security
operations from the beginning, and we'll continue to do. And
thankfully, recently they've been able to plus up. They bring
with them not just the UH-72s, but also other resources that we
can use, in terms of observation/listening posts. And I can
defer to Mr. Judd on how important those things are to be able
to deny cartels access to those key areas.
And I'm sure I've outlived my time, so I'll stop right now
and move on. Thank you, Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Colonel McCraw follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Arthur for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANDREW R. ARTHUR
Mr. Arthur. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, and members of the subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me to speak today about this crucial
topic of national interest.
Mr. DeSantis. Make sure your mic is on. There you go.
Mr. Arthur. I should know that, shouldn't I?
A caravan, organized by an immigrants rights group in the
middle of March 2018 in Tapachula had grown to more than 1,000
people, mostly Honduran nationals, by the end of the month.
This was the 8th year such a caravan had been assembled, but
the most notable because of the large number of participants.
This year's caravan, however, illustrates a little noticed
issue along the southwest border, and that is a sharp increase
in the number of alien apprehensions and inadmissibles,
reversing a downward trend that had begun in November 2016.
From 66,712 in October 2016, the number of aliens entering
illegally or seeking entry without proper documents along the
southwest border, had dropped to 15,780 by April 2017. The
numbers, however, began to slowly increase between the spring
and early winter of 2017, before declining into the mid
30,000s. In March 2018, with Congress having debated amnesty
for DACA applicants and others, however, those numbers
skyrocketed to 50,308 apprehended and inadmissible aliens. If
this continues, that would be 600,000 aliens in a year.
This increase and the phenomenon of the caravan in
particular brought into focus some crucial loopholes and flaws
in U.S. immigration law. The first is credible fear. In 1996,
Congress amended the immigration law to expedite the removal of
aliens coming without visas or entering illegally. These
amendments, however, included a provision to allow aliens
fleeing harm to avoid expedited removal by asserting a credible
fear of persecution, allowing them to apply for asylum.
In fiscal year 2009, the asylum office completed 5,523
credible fear cases. By fiscal year 2013, as news spread that
aliens applying for credible fear were being released from
custody, that number increased to 33,283. At its height in
fiscal year 2016, there were 81,864 credible fear cases. These
are people arrested at the border, claim credible fear to get
into the United States.
The majority of aliens, up to 90 percent who apply, are
found to have credible fear. There are many reasons for this,
including a lack of clear guidance in adjudicating asylum
claims, the low credible fear standard, and lax evidentiary
burdens to make such a claim. The fact is most of the aliens in
the caravan, should they come to the United States and claim
credible fear, would likely be released to await an asylum
hearing that may be years in the future, if they appear at all.
This is not the only flaw in our immigration laws, however,
that renders our borders insecure. Interpretations of the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, or
TVPRA, have resulted in the release from removal of tens of
thousands of minors from countries other than Mexico or, as we
call them, OTMs, including many, if not most, of whom were
never trafficked to begin with. This has provided incentives
for thousands of other OTM alien minors and their parents to
trust those minors' lives to smugglers and undertake the
perilous journey to the United States.
Similarly, a 20-year-old settlement agreement in Flores
versus Reno has created a presumption that alien minors who are
apprehended along the border, even those who came with their
parents, should be released into the interior of the United
States. This provides even greater incentives for illegal
entry, and more money for the smugglers and cartels who
facilitate such entry.
Finally, a 2008 expansion of eligibility for special
immigrant juvenile visas has provided a third incentive for
alien minors to enter the United States illegally, and for
their parents to entrust their children to smugglers, debased
criminals who deal in human misery.
The fact is, most of the OTM alien minors in the caravan
will likely be processed and released into the United States if
they decide to come here. The administration has taken steps to
stem the recent flow of illegal aliens to the United States,
including ending catch and release, as we discussed earlier,
sending National Guard troops to the border, and establishing a
zero tolerance policy for illegal entry prosecutions.
Each of these efforts, however, will fail to secure the
border as long as the loopholes and flaws that I have described
exist. I want to thank each of you for your time, and I look
forward to your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Arthur follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you.
Mr. Breen, 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BREEN
Mr. Breen. Thank you. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member
Lynch, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify today.
The situation at our southern border represents a foreign
policy problem, a drug policy problem, an immigration policy
problem, a series of legal problems, a humanitarian problem, a
law enforcement problem, and much else besides. It is not at
this time, definitively not a military problem.
I want to preface my testimony by saying how much I respect
the service and the sacrifice of Border Patrol agents, Texas
Department of Safety troopers, and other law enforcement agents
who safeguard our borders and our communities. My own uniformed
service was in the military, not in law enforcement, but I'm a
proud member of a three-generation law enforcement family. And
with respect to the Border Patrol, my dad was serving as a New
Hampshire State trooper who was involved in the apprehension of
Carl Drega in 1997, alongside a Border Patrol agent who was
shot and wounded during that incident.
So we show our military men and women a great deal of
appreciation in this country, but not frequently enough with
law enforcement and their families. So thank you for everything
that you both do and all that you represent.
Ensuring that our law enforcement agencies have the
resources they need must be a national priority, and there is
no question that a secure border is essential. Fortunately,
we've been on the right track toward both of those goals over
the past several decades. We've tripled the Border Patrol's
budget since 2001, even as apprehensions have dropped
dramatically, from over 1.2 million in 2001, to just over
300,000 in 2017, a large portion of whom were asylum seekers
who appeared at ports of the entry or actively sought out
Border Patrol agents rather than attempting to avoid them.
There is much more important work to be done, of course,
and it's critical that we do it, but these numbers point to a
success story for the Nation and they reflect important
political and economic changes in the hemisphere. What these
numbers do not point to, and what we do not, in fact, face, is
a true crisis or emergency on the border. We face challenges,
of course, but those challenges are best addressed by
strengthening the institutions we already have, to support safe
and orderly migration and through foreign policy and economic
statecraft in Latin America, not by using the military.
Nonetheless, President Trump frequently speaks of the need
for a great wall across nearly 5,000 miles of the southern
border. He initially claimed this wall would be paid for by the
Government of Mexico, which, of course, declined to do so. He
then sought the funding from Congress, which has also, in large
part, declined up to this point.
So now President Trump has declared his intention to deploy
up to 4,000 National Guardsmen to the border. In the
President's own words, ``Keep them there, or a large portion of
them there, until such time as we build the wall,'' close
quote.
There may be some marginal benefit to the deployment, but
there are a great many causes for serious concern, although
more so, because it does not appear to be the result of a
deliberative planning or decision-making process. The decision
is likely to negatively impact readiness for the National
Guard, potentially for the Active Duty force as well, do
nothing to improve the capabilities or strength of the Border
Patrol itself in the long run, and do precious little to
improve security.
Time does not permit me to lay out all the reasons this is
so, which are detailed much more fully in my written testimony,
but essentially, it comes down to readiness and cost, two
issues which are, of course, extremely interrelated. It's still
unclear where the funds for this will come from, but costs are
likely to be in the hundreds of millions, at a minimum. And if
that funding is repurposed from within the Department of
Defense, Congress should ask hard questions about the impact on
other defense priorities, especially readiness.
There is also a direct readiness cost to the National Guard
since, by definition, Guardsmen who are standing tower duty,
clearing brush, maintaining fences, doing other things on the
border are not training with their brigade combat teams for
their primary mission, which is combat. That impacts our
national security as a whole, because, as an operational
reserve, the Guard is an integral part of our military team.
If we faced an actual emergency on the border, those costs
and risks would perhaps be worth incurring, but consider the
so-called threat that prompted this very hearing. A caravan of
Central America migrants that presented no serious national
security threat to the United States in the first place, and
that is now largely dissipated, with only a fraction of the
original 1,200 travellers planning to continue their journey
northward through Mexico, where, by all indications, they
intend to present themselves at a port of entry and seek
asylum.
So, in short, the situation at our southern border is, in
many ways, better than it's been in decades; but meanwhile, the
National Guard is an increasingly integral part of our
military, and our military faces a more challenging environment
around the world than it has in decades: Ongoing wars in
Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq; counterterrorism work in East
Africa, West Africa, Yemen; ongoing commitments to NATO and our
mission in Kosovo, which the Guard entirely owns; critical
deterrence missions in the Persian Gulf and the Korean
Peninsula, where that border is more dangerous than it's been
at any point since the last Korean War.
Our military is facing all of these challenges just as the
services are finally digging out of a serious readiness gap, as
Secretary Mattis is testifying to down the hall, left by 15
years of war. So this is not the time to pull troops and
dollars away from their primary mission to fight and win the
Nation's wars, especially in the absence of a genuine threat.
There is much we can do and should do to improve the
situation on our southern border. I hope we do those things.
But deploying the National Guard in this manner right now is
not one of those things.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Breen follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you. The chair now recognizes himself
for 5 minutes.
Colonel McCraw, when they had the border surge in 2014, was
that something that was good or bad for the drug cartels?
Colonel McCraw. It's always good for the cartels if they
can overwhelm Border Patrol's resources, and that's what
happened in 2014. It overwhelmed the resources. And the threat
is more significant than, I think, that some have let on to.
When you're talking about Mexican cartels that are powerful and
ruthless and dominate the entire lucrative drug and human
smuggling market, engage in trafficking of people and drug
trafficking as well, when you've got transnational gangs, when
you've got criminal aliens.
When you have these smuggling communities recruit our
children, all these things, you know, result in a serious
public safety threat. Like I said before, not just Texas. What
happens on the Texas-Mexico border happens throughout the
Nation. So clearly, it was a problem, and we saw that. And less
Border Patrol agents were there and they were involved in
detention activities and trying, in an overwhelmed situation
trying to deal with unaccompanied children and family units,
and could not put enough people in line.
And Texas, at that point in time, the leadership and State
Legislature decided to spend enough resources to conduct and
send troopers around, 24 and 7, from around the State, maintain
surge operations for 3-1/2 years, until we can permanently
assign troopers down to that area.
So, from a Texas standpoint, they've been paying the bill
thus far. And anything you can do to support Border Patrol,
we're all for. If it's National Guard right now, fine. But the
long-term solution is clearly invest in Border Patrol.
When you get right down to it, the patrol function in the
Federal Government has never been valued, period. The
investigative function, yes, but not the patrol function. They
don't have the incentive bonuses. They don't have the salary.
They don't have the things that recruiting, they can readily
recruit and compete with some of the other services at the
Federal level.
Patrol in a post 9/11 environment is extremely important.
It's a deterrent capability. And unless you invest in it,
you're not going to have the type of capability that you need.
And clearly, again, I've said it a number of occasions and not
just here, is that Border Patrol can do it. They don't need
Texas to help them if they're given the proper resources to do
it.
And if it's National Guard right now, we're all for it.
Anything you can, because we look at it every day matters.
Every day a community is impacted in Texas. Every day something
goes on that's criminal that's transnational crime that we have
to deal with in Texas. So anything we can do and the Federal
Government can do, we're all for.
Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Judd, in terms of the cartels and
bringing--because I think we're seeing in our country a huge
problem with fentanyl and some of these opioids. These are
street drugs. You know, they're being brought in. A lot of it
is across the border. A lot of it originates in China.
Where is the majority of that coming in, in terms of are
these controlled access points that they're just sneaking past
the guards, or are they parts of the border that are unsecured?
Mr. Judd. No, most everything that's coming across is
coming between the ports of entry, because it's easy. If you go
through a controlled environment, you've got all kinds of
people, you've got the K-9 handlers, you've got to get past all
of that.
What it's very easy for the smugglers to do is it's easy
for them to send people across the border illegally, which they
force them to do. They force us to take our resources out of
the field to deal with that, create the gaps, and then they
cross their products right behind in the gaps that they
created.
You got to remember, of those 50,000 apprehensions that we
had in March, only 13,000 was at the ports of entry. 38,000 was
between the ports of entry.
Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Arthur, in terms of asylum, how does it
work? I mean, if somebody is living in a poor country where
there's crime, can they just kind of come here and say asylum,
or do they have to qualify for certain types of--maybe they
were persecuted on the basis of race or religion or something
like that? Can you just give us how is it supposed to work and
then how is it actually working?
Mr. Arthur. To be granted asylum in the United States, you
have to show either past persecution or well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race, religion, nationality,
membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
Four of those are easily defined. The fifth one, membership
in a particular social group, unfortunately, is rather vague,
vague in the law and vague in its interpretation. But,
fortunately, Attorney General Sessions has certified a case to
himself in which he will clarify what exactly the parameters
are for granting asylum on the basis of being a victim of a
criminal activity, such as by gangs in a foreign country.
Mr. DeSantis. So, I mean, you know, I think most of us
believe that, you know, there is a role for people who are
being persecuted. The United States does want to be a refuge
for folks in that situation.
But if you're coming in because, you know, better job
opportunities are here, using some amorphous thing, I mean,
isn't that kind of a runaround just the normal legal
immigration process, where they should just be applying to come
here, if they're not actually in any of those buckets that
you're talking about?
Mr. Arthur. Unfortunately. And unfortunately, it's actually
worse than that, because the fact is the bad claims take away
from the good claims. They take away from the time that the
judges have to grant asylum to individuals who are actually in
fear of harm in their home countries.
Once granted asylum by an immigration judge, those
individuals could then petition to bring their families out of
that dangerous situation. But when the system gets clogged up
with fraudulent claims or non-meritorious claims, the system
breaks down. And that's what we're seeing right now in our
immigration courts.
Mr. DeSantis. I'm out of time, so I'm going to recognize
the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Firstly, I'd like to have entered into the record a letter
from Amnesty International regarding this hearing.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. As I noted earlier, the omnibus
appropriation bill that we just did allocated $14 billion for
Customs and Border Protection. That included a lot for security
operations, and I believe hiring, I think, 351 additional
Border Patrol agents.
However, that bill did not anticipate moving 4,000 National
Guard to the border. That's a separate budget that's got to
come off DOD's account. And last week, Secretary of Defense
Mattis directed the Pentagon comptroller to, quote, ``identify
available funding to pay for the 4,000 National Guard troops to
be moved to the border.'' We still don't have an estimate of
how much the operation will cost, but we do know it will divert
resources from other military priorities.
And Chairman Mac Thornberry, also a Texas native, had this
to say: He said, If you take away money, you can't do some of
the things that--you take away things from the--money from the
defense budget, you can't do some of those things that you were
trying to do, like add pilots or repair ships or those other
sort of things.
So, Mr. Breen, first of all, thank you for your service to
our country. We appreciate it. What do you think about, you
know, pulling money from, I think, core defense and combat
training activities and diverting, you know, 2,000 to 4,000 of
our National Guard men and women to the border, what do you
think about the efficacy of that move?
Mr. Breen. Congressman, that's a dangerous game to start
playing. And I think history indicates that, all the way back
to Task Force Smith in the first Korean War. Readiness degrades
in a military force very quickly, and the cost of that can be
very high when you get yourself into a fight.
I agree with a great deal of what Colonel McCraw had to
say, in the sense that we do need to invest in these
capabilities, but I think there's a--patrol and other things,
but I think there's a great danger when policymakers reach for
the military as a Band-Aid to solve problems in other areas of
government.
And the military can only do so many things. It's been
overstretched. The Secretary of Defense, who knows a few things
about being in a fight, again, is down the hall saying the
number one priority is lethality. The chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff says readiness is his number one priority. He
has no number two priority. And he's identified critical
readiness needs, in terms of the force's ability to go toe to
toe with foes like Russia and other modernizing militaries. We
have become I think a little too accustomed to think of
ourselves as an overwhelming superior force, but we have been
tied down doing counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, which
are serious tasks. Meanwhile, the world's other high-end
militaries have been modernizing and have been looking at
everything we do and training and manning and equipping
specifically to fight us. So we've got to really catch up to
that.
And, again, going back into history, Task Force Smith was
about 5 years after the end of World War II. It doesn't take
long. You take the most capable land force the world had ever
seen, the one that beat the Nazis and the Japanese in World War
II, 5 years later, puts an infantry force into the field
against the second-rate North Korean Army, and is routed,
because the investments weren't continuously made in that
combat capability. So I think it's dangerous.
The other thing I would say is it impacts the entire Guard.
It sounds like, you know, it's only 4,000 guardsmen, but the
Guard needs to deploy and fight as a brigade combat team. A
brigade combat team is 5,000 soldiers. When you start removing
elements of that team for other tasks, it degrades the entire
team's ability to train. And the National Guard has a
modernization and training plan called National Guard 4.0 that
explicitly calls for those brigade combat teams to be kept
together and trained together so they can deploy to fight
together. So this directly undermines those priorities.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. And by the way, thank you all for
your service to our country. Thank you all.
We've had a chance, members of this committee, to go down,
we went down to Tegucigalpa down in Honduras, went down to
Guatemala City down in El Salvador, to look at the human
trafficking operations going on there that are actually
inducing people to come up to the border. We also have had an
active role in what's going on in the tri-border area where we
have got Hezbollah on the ground, and so there are major
concerns there.
My question is really about the efficiency and efficacy of
our funding. Is it better to try to divert money to the
National Guard or--look, I voted for this $14 billion for
Border Patrol, you know, enhanced border security. Is that a
better way to address the challenge that we have, or should we
sort of try to make it up as we go along using our National
Guard folks to do a job that they necessarily aren't really--
they didn't sign up for, I guess?
Mr. Judd. Well, the investment in the Border Patrol has to
be there, but right now you have an attrition rate that exceeds
the hiring rate. And so we're not retaining our Border Patrol
agents, so we do have to have a stopgap. But as far as our
National Guard, they're being put in situations that is like
combat situations. They're in LP and OP situations. They're
sitting in observation posts, which they would be required to
do in the military in the event that a war was to take place.
As a uniformed officer, I've worked right next to my uniformed
National Guard counterparts, and I can tell you that they feel
that the operations that they're doing is----
Mr. Lynch. I know my time is running short. All I'm saying
is that Secretary Mattis had other stuff for those folks to be
doing rather, than being sitting on the border, and I'm just
worried about those other priorities that are being ignored.
But thank you, I appreciate it.
I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee for 5
minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When I was growing up, my grandparents in Scott County,
Tennessee, one of the poorest counties in the U.S., they had 10
kids and an outhouse and not much more. My dad hitchhiked into
Knoxville with $5 in his pocket to go to the university. And
all 10 of those children end up doing real well, but they all
grew up in what would be considered bitter poverty today, and
started with nothing.
So I have spoken many times at the naturalization
ceremonies in Knoxville to express my respect and admiration
for people who come to this country with nothing except a
desire to work and who have made good livings for themselves.
But the American people are the kindest, most generous people
in the world, and we have allowed far more immigration than any
other country over the last 50 years or so, than any other
country. No other country has come close.
But when I google the question of percentage of world
population that lives on $10 a day or less, the first thing
that pops up is from globalissues.org, says at least 80 percent
of humanity live on less than $10 a day. Almost half the world,
over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. And they
have similar articles like that.
We all have tremendous sympathy for all these people who
are living in such bitter poverty around the world, but when
you talk about 3 billion people living with almost nothing, you
can understand that we have no telling how many people who
would come here tomorrow if they possibly could.
So it seems to me that we have to have some sort of legal
orderly system of immigration that has to be enforced, because
if we didn't, our whole infrastructure, our hospitals, our
jails, our sewers, our schools, our roads, our whole economy,
we couldn't handle such a rapid influx as we might have over
the next 3 or 4 years if we just simply opened our borders, or
didn't enforce our immigration laws.
And so when I--and I've heard for--I'm now in my 30th year
in the Congress. Every year since I've been here, I've heard
this figure, 11 million immigrants. I believe it has to be at
least 2 or 3 times that many that are here, living here
illegally, because I'm not near a border, but every place in
the country is overrun, it seems to me, with illegal
immigrants.
I just wonder, it's not being mean or cruel or harsh to say
that we have to have some of these immigration laws and they
have to be enforced. We have to do it, it seems to me, unless
we want to almost destroy this country economically.
Mr. Judd, what do you think would happen if we simply--if
we did away with the Border Patrol and basically just had no
borders, open borders?
Mr. Judd. Well, just from my experience of people that
cross the border illegally now, I think that we would have mass
influxes of people coming across the border, but that's just
from my experience.
I would like to say that I wish that my colleagues from
management were here to testify as well, because they could
specifically tell you, you know, why we're allocating resources
where we're allocating them. And if we were allocating them
properly, maybe we wouldn't even need the National Guard. But
we'll never know that because we didn't do it.
Mr. Duncan. Well, it seems to me that we've got to have
stronger enforcement of our immigration laws for many, many
reasons. And I think almost all of us, probably everybody at
this table, believes in legal immigration and continuing to
allow many, many people to immigrate here legally. But we just
have a problem that we are forced to do something about.
Colonel McCraw, do you want to say anything, or Mr. Arthur?
Colonel McCraw. I'll gladly pitch in just a couple
comments. First, we have a very good relationship with U.S.
Border Patrol. I think that's important that we state that. And
the leadership has worked very well with us along the border.
It is a seamless operation. We know what unified command is
about. We understand in terms of why it is important of
integrating in terms of air, marine, and land operations,
special operations groups. All of those things are happening.
And some things that we can do is use some of our special
agents to target the smuggling infrastructure in some of those
areas.
So I want to give, you know, a clear indication to you and
members that we do work very well with our Federal partners and
we're very proud to work with them, the U.S. Border Patrol, the
brave men and women, all that risk their lives daily to protect
Texas and the rest of this Nation. So I just want to get that
on the record.
In terms of our concern is this: Simply put, is that if the
border is not secured, then you're opening it up to increased
drugs, criminal aliens, transnational gangs, some of the things
you're already seeing, because the border is not secure. And
there is no question that it has an impact on public safety in
Texas. Anybody will tell you that. The Texas sheriffs will tell
you that. The border sheriffs will tell you that. This is a
nonpartisan issue. This is a national security and public
safety threat. This is nothing about politics, just simply is.
And in terms of where the funding comes from, way above my
pay grade. How it happens, how Border Patrol gets the resources
they need to secure between the ports of entry, that's
certainly above my pay grade. I'm sure you can figure it out if
you wanted to. And believe me, I can assure you, from my
discussions with members and I've got an appropriations hearing
next week in Texas, is they want to find out in terms of where
we are staffing at a Federal level so we can back off from the
State standpoint. But right now, the Governor has made it very
clear we're not going to back off an inch. We're not going to
give one inch to the cartels and the transnational gangs to
support them.
Mr. Duncan. Well, I certainly agree with you, but my time
is up. Thank you very much.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time has expired. The chair
now recognizes the gentleman from California for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
witnesses who showed up, for showing up. I really appreciate
that.
I believe it is quite evident that the recent deployment of
National Guard troops to the southern border is hardly the
result of carefully considered fact-based decisions.
On April 1st, President Trump manufactured a crisis on
Twitter and justified the deployment of national troops after
watching Fox News describe a caravan of Central American
migrants who entered the U.S. through the so-called catch and
release. And, as with a lot of his tweets, there is plenty of
misinformation to unpack.
First, he appears to be claiming it is getting more
dangerous due to a caravan of largely Honduran asylum-seekers
fleeing violence, mostly who are women and children, or even
babies.
Mr. Breen, is this also your understanding?
Mr. Breen. Yes. My understanding is that the caravan is
essentially asylum-seekers fleeing an extremely violent
northern triangle of Central America, yes.
Mr. Gomez. Do you believe this caravan of asylum-seekers
poses a national security or military threat?
Mr. Breen. I have absolutely no reason to believe that, no.
Mr. Gomez. And I know I'm asking to restate some of your
points, but it's for a purpose.
President Trump also seemed to imply that the caravans were
coming, in part, because of DACA, the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals Program.
Among other conditions, only individuals who have lived
here in the U.S. since 2007 would be eligible. Mr. Breen, with
that in mind, would it be possible for any new arrival from a
caravan to be eligible for DACA?
Mr. Breen. By definition, no, it would not.
Mr. Gomez. President Trump's decision to send National
Guard troops to the border until a 2,000-mile wall is built is
also baffling from a policy perspective.
Mr. Breen, is constructing a 2000-mile concrete border wall
the most efficient or effective way to improve border security?
Mr. Breen. I do not believe so, no. The wall would--I mean,
basically every expert who looked at this, you can construct a
physical fortification at great cost that will take a great
period of time. You're going to have to use eminent domain a
lot to do that, run through a lot of private property. Major
challenges there.
And then in the absence of the kind of patrol and
interdiction resources Colonel McCraw is talking about, all
you're going to have is an expensive wall people get over, to
say nothing of the fact that as border apprehensions have been
decreasing the Coast Guard's interdictions in counter-drug at
sea have been increasing this entire time.
So I think there are a lot of other places you can put the
$20 billion or whatever it's going to cost from, you know,
added capacity for immigration courts to better resources for
Border Patrol to resourcing the Coast Guard adequately, and on
and on we go. But no, I don't think the wall is an effective
solution.
Mr. Gomez. Also, Mattis signed a memo that stated that the
National Guard will not perform law enforcement activities or
interact with migrants.
Mr. Breen, is that right? And what would the National
Guard's role consist of and how effective would they be?
Mr. Breen. I think that is correct. That is definitely the
right thing to do. It's worth noting that this is a Title 32
situation, not a Title 10 situation. So Secretary Mattis is not
in a position, as strange as it may sound, to directly issue
guidance to the Guard. That falls to the Governors. But I
definitely think that is the wisest course of action.
What ends up happening, of course, is that, in theory, the
National Guard will do things like man towers and do other
tasks so that Border Patrol agents are free to go out. But, as
Mr. Judd has already stated, Border Patrol has already got, in
some situations, 75 percent of its man strength not patrolling
already. So it's a little hard to see in a management situation
like that how you're not just going to have a lot of guys,
frankly, just standing around.
Mr. Gomez. I don't have much time, so one of the things I
want to kind of point out and ask, because it was justified
that the deployment of National Guard troops based on catch and
release and DACA. Does sending National Guard troops to the
border change any policy that you know of, catch and release or
DACA?
Mr. Breen. No, not at all.
Mr. Gomez. So my point is is that it seems that this policy
was decided at a whim to send National Guard down to the
border. I'm not saying that it won't be necessary, but I'd like
to have something that's actually fact-based, something that is
thought out, that's done with coordination and understands that
there is a real crisis going on on the border.
And if your justification is the drug cartels, state it.
Don't make up another fact that just kind of gives red meat to
your base, right? That's what this President did is using
something that's not correlated with what he's calling a
crisis, because there's no crisis because of these asylum-
seekers, right? And it doesn't change policy at all. All you're
doing is sending more troops to the border that are going to
probably not produce the result of keeping away people who will
be catch and release or DACA recipients. So I just appreciate
the time.
In closing, I'd like to enter a letter from civil rights
groups in California asking Governor Brown to reject the
xenophobia driving the deployment of the National Guard to our
border.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. The chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia for 5 minutes
Mr. Hice. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCraw, I
understand that your department is responsible in Texas for
maintaining the statewide sex offender registry. Is that
correct?
Colonel McGraw. That is correct.
Mr. Hice. Okay. This is a little off topic, I understand,
but it is of great concern to me the threat that's been posed
by convicted sex offenders who have entered this country
illegally, and under the previous administration, many of those
individuals were released from ICE custody without even local
law enforcement being notified, and without ensuring that they
were placed on the National Sex Offender Registry.
Now, I realize a lot has been done within ICE over the last
couple of years and the law enforcement notification system.
Progress is being made. I understand that. I deeply appreciate
that, but I'm, likewise, very much concerned that we have still
got a long ways to go with this.
So it is my understanding, for example, that when ICE
enforcement and removal operations is scheduled to release an
illegal alien who is required supposedly to register on the sex
offender list, that ICE sends notification through the
Department of Justice SORNA, the exchange portal. Is that
correct?
Colonel McGraw. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. Okay. So when you receive this information, what
kind of information is provided? What do you get from ICE? For
example, are you getting criminal histories, country of origin,
fingerprints, aliases? What do you get?
Colonel McGraw. We're getting all the information that we
need to be able to follow State law and follow up on also the
Federal requirements, so we can get them registered at that
point in time. In fact, with ICE ERO we have actually done some
operations with them to capture sex offenders that were
criminal aliens here in Texas that have been registered and
have----
Mr. Hice. Okay. So, but are you getting like fingerprints,
and do you get----
Colonel McGraw. Yes, sir. And I have no reason to know
otherwise. If there's anything contrary to that I'll get back
to you, but as I understand it right now we're getting all that
we need from ICE ERO on the situation like that.
Mr. Hice. All right. I'm glad to hear that that, but if you
would get back with me on what you do receive.
Colonel McGraw. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. I would like that. All right. So at this point in
the process, is it then your department or ICE that has the
responsibility to ensure that local law enforcement knows about
these individuals?
Colonel McGraw. Well, we certainly do. We go through the
process. Once they get registered in the Texas registry because
they live in Texas at that point, we notify local agencies at
that point in time, and they have the responsibility to
register.
Mr. Hice. So ICE hands the baton to you, and at that point,
it is your responsibility?
Colonel McGraw. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. Okay. And Texas is doing a good job with
notifying law enforcement locally and so forth. It is my
understanding a lot of States are dropping the ball on that.
Are you aware of that?
Colonel McGraw. Well, I'm not aware of what they're doing
in other States, I just know the Governor and the legislature
won't stand for anything less than getting it done directly.
Mr. Hice. Okay. It is my understanding that local law
enforcement is unable and certainly citizens likewise, but
local law enforcement is unable to access the DOJ SORNA
exchange portal. Is that----
Colonel McGraw. I'm not aware of that. I know they can
access the Texas Sex Offender Registry. I have they have
access. I can't tell you about SORNA from a Federal standpoint.
Mr. Hice. Okay. So that's where it becomes your
responsibility to make sure they get it?
Colonel McGraw. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. Because they're not able to, as I understand it,
I just want to make sure. So how can we better fix this whole
process, improve the notification, the information-sharing
process, and this type of thing when it comes to sex offenders?
Colonel McGraw. Well, again, you're looking at different
States, you know, different things, and some of those things
are laws, and some things have taken a more proactive approach
to that concern. In Texas, the legislature and Governor have
been very proactive and concerned about sex trafficking,
whether it is international sex trafficking, or we are seeing
domestic sex trafficking by gangs, and they have been very
proactive in that area.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Well, listen, I want to thank you for your
work with this, and I wanted to--like I said, I know this is a
little off topic, but it still is very much related to the
overall topic because we're dealing with this stuff on a
regular basis, and I appreciate your expertise and what you do.
I just want to make it known I'm willing to work and look
forward to working with you, your department any of you who are
interested in helping find ways to close the gaps and ensure
the safety of the American public in this regard, and I
appreciate your work in that regard. I'll yield back.
Colonel McGraw. Sex trafficking is a problem, and it
clearly is. We'll get back to you if we have anything.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. I want to thank
the witnesses, again, for appearing before us today. The
hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks for any member to
submit a written opening statement or questions for the record.
If there's no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee on National Security stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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