subcommittee will come to order the subcommittee will come to order the subcommittee on border maritime and global counterterrorism is meeting today to receive testimony on combat in border violence the role of inner agency chair good morning everybody i want to thank our panel of witnesses for being here today and i know that my ranking member will not be here today because he has a markup in another committee i believe and  mccaul we thank you for being here and making this a bipartisan here and we appreciate today sharing this crucial to securing our borders and further reducing the violence in mexico that has resulted in over sixty two hundred related drug related deaths just in the past year the weapons used in the drug violence in mexico largely come from the united states as does the demand for drugs that pays for those weapons this hearing is i think a timely opportunity to discuss the growing security problem and the violence happening at the border and on a side note this is the first time that the drug enforcement administration the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives have testified alongside our immigration and customs enforcement agency in the subcommittee since i have been the chairwoman so that's already cooperation right there thank you thank you all for being here the hearing comes after two major announcements by your respective agencies recently renewed outstanding memoranda of understanding imo use with both the a t f and the day to better coordinate and  investigate the gun and drug related cases these agreements come after much negotiation and hard work by both the department of homeland security and the department of justice and i want to salute both secretary napolitano and our tourney general holder since the one nine hundred seventy s and as we know the drug and drug cartel and how they work has become so much more sophisticated in the last almost over thirty five years the updated ice   green mints recognize inherent expertise that the department of homeland security has in combating large smuggling rings and investigating these rings internationally and domestically both further the greenman to allow ice to fully participate  homeland security has the authority to investigate the any lawful importation exportation of weapons and firearms and drugs into the united states a renewed agreement between ice and a t f is crucial given that a t f has  responsibility for investigating domestic weapons violations and further the a t f has a comprehensive each trace database which has been really the most incredible resource for us when we're trying to see the purchase and try some of these firearms that have ended up in mexico information sharing between the three agencies which are responsible for all the investigations of drug and weapons violations at the border is really central to our southwest border strategy and in fact that's why we're testified before congress that mexican drug traffickers earn between eight billion and twenty four billion annually in order break down these kernel networks secure our borders and prevent violence from spilling over counterparts or must be coordination between these agencies and state and local law enforcement and with our foreign partners in front of us today we have three witnesses representing a combined investigative for survivors thirteen thousand special agents and on a personal note i had the opportunity to visit a couple months ago and see the great work that they're doing there as we look across the river to war as which arguably the violence has gone down thank god but at the time arguably was probably most violent city in latin america now where we have police officers being assassinated every every two days every forty eight hours so this is a very very important mission i know with all the debate going on the congress over energy and health care right now this is one of those issues that maybe is taking a backseat but i think it's still in my view one of the most important issues that we have in this nation it does after all involve our national security and with that years data on siesta in mexico show a growing number of increasingly lethal weapons being seen for too long this important fight has been hampered by turf battles i lack of cooperation among fellow agencies responsible for keeping drugs and guns from crossing the border illegally memorandums of understanding which was supposed to foster cooperation among agencies and such investigations were not updated for years and in some instances decades agencies were unwilling to depart from the old ways of doing things so efforts to update the agreements remain in limbo even after the department of homeland security was created as a result they were confused about roles and responsibilities and personnel that could have assisted in some of these cases unable to do administration has taken significant steps to address the problems just last month ice and customs enforcement signed new interagency agreements with the drug enforcement administration and the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives these agreements were intended to better coordinate narcotics and weapons investigation and provide additional resources to fight balance along the border in particular the ice a agreement allows for an unlimited number of ice agents to be what is referred to as cross designated to investigate drug cases what the next to the border this change is long overdue and  challenges placed by the agency years of operational practice cannot be changed overnight with the stroke of opinion instead it will take commitment from the secretary of homeland security and the attorney general down to the agents in the field to make these agreements work for the american people who continue to be concerned about possible spillover border violence expect no less and certainly congress expects no less i can assure you that this committee will monitor the implementation of the demo use closely and do everything possible to make certain that they are expected to hope to hear from our witnesses about their commitment to these agreements and to ensuring a unified federal law enforcement response to drug and weapons trafficking across america's borders again thank you witnesses for being here and again madam ch our first witness mr kumar kibble is deputy director of use immigration custom enforcement office of investigations in that capacity he serves as a chief operating officer for the largest investigative arm of the department of homeland security he is also responsible for policy planning management and operations aimed at countering transnational national security and public safety threats arising from alyssa travel trade and finance mister began his federal law enforcement career as a special agent with the united states customs service in los angeles california welcome to our second go through the bios and then we'll go to our witnesses our second witness mr anthony placidyl welcome leads the drug enforcement administration ministrations intelligence program his responsibilities include serina senior officer for the united states intelligence community and providing executive leadership for the headquarters based intelligence division organized crime drug enforcement fusion center and the el paso intelligence center he's also responsible for information sharing and exchange protocols and mr plasty though manages a budget of over one hundred million dollars and develops policy for a staff of thirteen hundred people he began his law enforcement career in one thousand nine hundred seventy nine with the u s customs service and joint the following year and our third witness mr william mcmahon is deputy assistant director for the office of field operations at the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives or the a t f long title there in this position he oversees the day to day operations of the seven western most a t f field divisions as well as the bureau's international affairs office previously he served as a special agent in charge of a t f new york field division and so he began his career with  hundred eighty seven as a special agent in new york city so without objections we're going to put your written testimony into the record and i will ask you to summarize what what you've written to us  secretary morton thank you for the opportunity to discuss ice's role in combating border violence through inner agency coordination we work closely with our foreign and domestic law enforcement partners to conduct a multi agency investigation enabled by robust domestic and cross border coordination information sharing ice as the largest force of investigators in the department of homeland security more than sixty five hundred ice agents detect disrupt and dismantle cross border criminal networks engage in the smuggling of people narcotics bulk cash and weapons across our borders i says i says efforts along with a broader u s government response to mexican drug cartel violence require effective operational collaboration and expanded information sharing with our domestic partners and the government of mexico i a tape these objectives through unique initiatives such as operations are missed through south us and firewall the border enforcement security task forces and the law enforcement information sharing service we also partner with federal state and local law enforcement partners in working closely with our mexican counterparts to build a specialized vetted investigative unit consisting of mexican prosecutors and law enforcement personnel this information sharing platform of facilitate exchange of weapons related leads for coordinated investigation of this collaborative effort with the mexican government to identify disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks that move these arms across our border since its inception has resulted in the seizure of sixteen hundred weapons more than six point four million dollars in over one hundred eighty thousand rounds of ammunition as well as the arrest of almost four hundred individuals on criminal charges resulting in one hundred twenty four indictments and seventy four convictions a recent case out of el paso texas demonstrates the significant impact of our proactive efforts at penetrating mexican weapons trafficking networks a joint investigation between ice a t f and the el paso police department led to the indictment of four individuals attempting to purchase and illegally export weapons and ammunition out of the united states the weapons they attempt to purchase included over three hundred a ar fifteen rifles three hundred two two three caliber rifles ten barrett fifty caliber sniper rifles forty millimeter grenade machine guns and twenty hand guns with silencers along with a large amount of ammunition with a total value of more than half a million dollars in addition to address and weapons smuggling ice partners with c b p to combat the illegal movement of cash across the southwest border ice's operation firewall counters bulk cash smuggling through capacity building and close operational collaboration with foreign partners such as mexico since its inception firewalls resulted in four hundred seventy five arrests in the seizure of more than two hundred ten million dollars including over sixty five million dollars overseas the border enforcement security task force is a law enforcement model which recognizes that confronting the multi faceted threat of border violence requires sharing resources information and expertise the fifteen best serve as a platform from which interagency and international partners can work together to address cross border crime ice with the help of our partners his crackdown on arms trafficking human smuggling bulk cash money narcotics smuggling organizations the best since two thousand and five of reported more than four thousand criminal arrests sees over two hundred thousand pounds of narcotics over twenty five hundred weapons and more than three hundred seventy thousand rounds of ammunition along with over twenty six million dollars weapons virtual task force but the law enforcement for making sharing service provides approximately two hundred fifty federal state and local agencies with access to more than two and a half million ice records related to our investigation and approximately sixty five  seventy of the state local agencies are located along the southwest border since january of this year we've had more than twenty thousand queries of information through that network include conclusion the coordination information sharing and issue as i discussed today betray the extensive countering drug violence and the importance of interagency coordination and cooperation the drug trade in mexico has been rife with violence for decades however intentionally drug related violence kidnapping torture and murder have remained an elevated level at elevated levels since president calderon initiated his comprehensive program to break the power impunity of mexico's drug cartels drug related killings  mexico of escalated from approximately twelve hundred in two thousand and six to more than sixty two hundred in two thousand and eight in iran seven thousand this year in the past the violence was largely confined to persons engaged in the drug trade but there's been a disturbing new where the cartels are intentionally targeting mexican military and law enforcement officials drug violence is not restricted to areas along our southwest border that's why the goal of the merit initiative is to break the power impunity of the cartels rather than to secure our nation our nation's borders the problem we're facing includes the border to be sure but it actually is much bigger than the border itself just a few days ago as reference previously fifteen mexican federal police officers were abducted tortured and executed by an forces associated with the a mutual con a cartel and what appears to be retaliation performing their official duties inforcing mexican law the attacks were not conducted in geographic proximity to our border but nonetheless represent a potential threat to our national security systematic attacks against mexican police and military officials undermine respect for the rule of law and the great confidence in mexican institutions by extension causing instability in mexico and throughout the region through the merit initiative and the generous support of congress we are supporting president calderon's valiant efforts to break the power impunity of these cartels and to reduce the extent to which these transnational crime syndicates engage in all types of lawlessness affecting the united states there's justifiable concern that the violence plaguing mexico will spill across our border and have an even more pronounced impact on americans mexican cities along our southwest border such as juarez want to have witnessed spectacular violence despite the fact that all paso and san diego among the safest cities in america the u s inner agencies attempted to distinguish between the criminal and criminal violence that's always been associated with the mexican drug trade and the new phenomenon of retaliatory violence against mexican officials and institutions accord as an interagency group we have defined spillover violence to entail deliberate attacks by the cartels and u s government personnel whether in the u s or mexico innocent civilians in the united states or u s government facilities including our embassies and consulates based on this definition we have not yet seen significant level of spillover violence however as a government we must and are building contingency plans for the worst case scenario enjoys a decades long history of working in cooperation with the mexican government works closely with a number of trusted mexican counterparts who have undergone a rigorous vetting process to include robust background investigations and polygraph examinations working with our mexican counterparts in the u s inner agency have taken the offensive against mexico based cartels on their own turf and systematically sought to identify disrupt and dismantle these cartels including their u s base cells project reckoning and operation accelerator recent examples of this us mexico collaboration in addition to our ongoing investigations interagency coordination and cooperation  critical continues to work in cooperation with our federal state local and foreign counterparts to address the threats emanating from mexico organizational attack strategy is an effort to systematically dismantle the command control of these criminal syndicates of the strategy the sharing of information and coordinating with our counterparts through the special operations division of the fusion center and the el paso intelligence center the recently signed interagency cooperation agreement between underscores the mutual understanding between both agencies concerning the tremendous importance of information sharing and investigative coordination secretary napolitano and attorney general holder have made clear that this agreement is the most efficient and effective way to promote interagency corporate coordination and operation the agreement addresses the concerns of both agencies without requiring legislative action and allows for the cross designation of an unlimited number of  interagency and international collaboration are fundamental it's imperative that we sustain the progress that we support the actions by president calderon we must recognize that violence we are witnessing represents the acts of truly desperate  f protecting our citizens and communities from violent criminals and criminal organizations by safeguarding them from the illegal use of firearms and explosives were responsible for both regulating the firearms and explosives industry and forcing the criminal laws related to those we know we cannot fight this battle we work together with our state and federal partners just over two weeks ago posted a violent crime an arms trafficking summit in albuquerque new mexico this conference was monumental in formalizing a longstanding partnership between also formalized in the amble you a t f and ice routinely conduct joint investigations both agencies are committed to working together to reduce firearms related violence along the u s border this established relationship agreement established a frame for both agencies to conduct investigations and share intelligence with the signing of the we hope to better optimize the resources of each of our agencies and minimize any duplications of effort a strategy for distracting the flow of firearms to mexico project gunrunner has referred over eight hundred eighty two cases for prosecution involving one thousand eight hundred thirty eight defendants those cases include four hundred fifteen firearms trafficking investigations which involve one thousand one hundred thirty five defendants and an estimated thirteen thousand three hundred firearms are trafficked or attempted to be a traffic to mexico the g a o report that was published in june of two thousand and nine that over ninety percent of the farms in mexico and traced over the last three years have come from the united states we've established that the greatest proportions of firearms traffic to mexico originate out of states along the southwest border state additionally shows that traffickers are also firearms from states as far east as florida and as far north and west as washington state additionally drug traffickers are known supplement their firearms cash explosive our expertise with explosives has proven to be another valuable tool to use in the fight against drug cartels in fact in the past six months we have noted a troubling increase in number or use by drug traffickers and we are concerned about the possibility of explosives related violence materializing in u s border towns we have at least we have had at least one s in texas when a hand grenade was thrown into a crowd of twenty people able to identify the grenade and believes it is linked to a mexican drug cartel we believe this device was from the same source as those used during the attack on the u s consulate in monterrey mexico along the southwest border project gunrunner includes approx one hundred forty eight special agents dedicated to investigating firearms trafficking on a full time basis and fifty nine industry operations investigators responsible for is suspected of being linked to the cartels lastly i would like to briefly mention operational presence at the el paso intelligence located in el paso texas i think is currently one of the most valuable tools for intelligence sharing coordination and multi efforts to curb think in the middle kind of people but we have some who would not like very much because they'd like no restrictions and probably would like to melt down every gun in the world so my question for you because this is come up over and over we keep hearing this number of ninety percent of the guns that are used in mexico are turned over from mexico are coming from the united states most of them from the southwest in the united states so i guess my from the u s ninety percent of those twenty thousand were sourced from the united states we talk about another percentage we successful traces as well because a successful trace is really the only investigative lead that we're going to have and that's where we focus a lot of our resources because those successful traces are going to get us to a first over the counter retail purchaser and i will give us a follow up on some firearms are successfully traced but we know that if mr patrick she has several questions that she wants to ask in this very important issue on her border in arizona thank you madam chairman you know i've been paying a lot of attention to this is  we've been here and i appreciate the cop cooperation i do have some concerns about the new m o you still does not give ice drug enforcement powers but allows for an unlimited number of agents to receive certification and levels the playing field for how the agencies cooperate but i am skeptical about whether the new m o u goes far enough as i believe the only agency with investigative powers over border related crime should have legal kimball m o you states that ice agents quote will investigate only illegal drug importation exportation schemes including the transportation and staging activities within the united states or between the source or destination country and the united states so my question is would this prevent us from pursuing a drug investigation in a situation where they've arrested an individual for a separate crime such as human trafficking and then happen to find narcotics in the person's possession but it's not clear that the location is a staging area congresswoman the for that particular scenario we would be able to leverage our arrest authority to take the person into custody but if it was if it was purely a domestic narcotics issue we would certainly get  involved or local agencies but our focus with respect to the exercise of our title twenty one authority is directly focused on the smuggling conspiracies so unless there were some other  factors that indicated that that same human trafficking network was involved in a conspiracy to smuggle narcotics across our border we would not be relying on our title twenty one authority in that context i've been talking  ma'am i believe you might be referring to our title twenty nine cross designation authority which allows state local officers to assist us with customs matters but the inner agency agreement we reach with specifically refer to ice agents cross nation of ice age and that's the limit of that now we have particular on our border forces task forces where we have multiple agencies that support our investigation and they are vested some of them are vested with title i thought the law enforcement officer i was talking to had that cross certification but i'll look into that as well on my end we'll continue to look at that conversation thank you madam chairman i yield back thank you to the gentleman smuggled into mexico mr mcmahon the number it was twenty thousand weapons were given to us from mexico's aright is that correct that's correct over the past three and a half years we've traced approximately twenty thousand firearms from mexico how do they  determine which weapons to send to you to be traced it's really up to them just like it is for every law enforcement agency we provide a service which is no different than sending us to trace is do we know how many weapons are traced but as far as a source of supply we know that just based on the manufacturing markings whether or not it's a u s source firearm either imported or manufactured so based upon either a serial number or the manufactur you're able to determine the source sensually the source country a successful trade leads us to a first over the counter purchaser because that's what we're dealing with the lead that we'll be able to push out to the field and so out of those twenty thousand and ninety percent ere they may be manufactured in places such as israel or other countries but we know through tracing that those types of hand grenades were sold to certain central american countries can you just very briefly expand on the threat that was  posed to the u s consulate office in mexico believe was in october of this past year two individuals or two or more individuals fired some rounds at the consulate and then also through a hand grenade that did not detonate at the consulate we were that the more heavy style military grade weaponry what is your assessment as to where that's coming from we know that over the past three and a half years any military grade weaponry that's been recovered is not u s sourced we believe again that is from the central of the laws rockets grenade launchers those are not being source in united states and they come from central america do you think the source where they're getting in central america to possibly be from china or russia three agencies but i want to see if we could expand upon the also the cooperation that we have with mexico in this effort mr placido you talked about the marriott initiative which is a very very important   and i commend all three of you for the work you're doing can you just expand a little bit about upon your three agencies roles epic and how you're working with our mexican partners certainly sir beginning with our cooperation with mexico the foundation the bedrock if you will for our collaboration with our mexican counterparts through a process we know is vetting which essentially entails conducting the same kind of robust background investigation that we would do on a special agent for any of our three agencies would include financials psychological assessment drug testing and then concluded with a polygraph examination  that gives us a snapshot in time in terms of the trustworthiness of the folks that we are dealing with and our ability to share information with them when they pass through that process they then come here and spend anywhere from four to nine weeks in an intensive training program that we put in quantico virginia and probably most importantly then these vetted units all have at least one special agent assigned who has unfettered droppin rights twenty four hours a day seven days a week  and because these folks are now deemed to be both trustworthy and competent investigators we can then share that sensitive investigative information that allows us to build these investigations that span the border and fight transnational crime and of course a critical component of that is that the information sharing with our mexican counterparts is only as good as the sharing that we do on this side of the border and so organizations such as i think would you visited the fusion cent er our special operations division are designed so that we can coordinate investigations that cross geographic boundaries that cross federal state local agency involvement and actually  investigation and our investigative data so that we can find opportunities for collaboration and get a more holistic picture of the threat we face so i do believe that this course we need to implement this bill but  in information sharing among and between law enforcement officials not only the federal level but with our state local counterparts as well fusion center and now the international organized crime center which is become an appendage of that fuses for the first time in a single repository all of the investigative reporting of the seven agencies involved in the program and add to that information on transnational organized crime  problems which historically have plagued interagency cooperation on the rear end as we do the the investigations themselves i agree with my colleagues obviously we have been participating the fusion center for a number of years all of our data is there at the fusion center but also the a t f gun to get the epic all of our information on firearms is located right there available to every participant so i believe we are sharing everything that we have and i believe we are getting everything we need from the other agencies well thank you so the assumption is that if the m o you properly implemented  the past issues that have prevented cooperation won't be around anymore is that i'm trying to just get a real clear yes or i mean as  a process and as a framework yes there are there of course will always be personnel individual personality go out but it will bubble up of course the key there will be holding those leaders accountable for living up to the spirit of the agreement that we that we've reached and i have changed and if we all fighting one common enemy the last thing we needed was battles in the middle of this this this issue so  that respect i think all of us support we're just cautiously optimistic that its implementation will give us what we're looking for and i think that's the spirit a couple of the issues areas and we lifted that moratorium mr chairman i think it's an excellent question and i think it demonstrates the need for this collaboration i was led to believe that that question might be asked so i did some research before coming to this meeting but i can tell you that that travel ban was related to a specific case it was a temporary measure it has been lifted and the issue in question was not about whether fundamentally could cooperate but how important it is that when we do work together that we are coordinating and talking to each other i believe that the outgrowth of that  matter was that some ice individuals traveled into the caribbean to conduct an investigation without contacting the local office as required by the old and the individuals that they were actually going to meet with confidential sources  so we could so we could work through those specific issues it's my belief that this new sense of cooperation the new agreement that we have and the sharing of information on the front end through the eyes of the fusion center  would never get to the point that that the travel would occur and that they would be targeting these individuals as confidential sources because the the right record checks and the right communication would have been done they would have realized these individuals were already indicted and were actually probably aware one of the three pilot states that started the program it has been a stellar success there have been zero complaints about abuse of the process profiling or anything like that and the only thing i've heard is the demand for more not just the state troopers but share of some police officers would like to have this training as well now having said that i understand it's been suggested that you may speed be happy to go back and get you get your mark operated answer if you would like to know if they're going to be revisiting it and if so what changes would they suggesting would be part of that and how  efforts part of the border important security task force is we have robust participation by customs and border protection the uniformed arm that secures our border and they have access to canine so that when we when we need to leverage canines in number of months ago and the president's budget is currently being considered we feel that's an appropriate resourcing it is true and we have gotten in hansoms in previous years it is true that our ratio of support in terms of an investigator mapped against c b p officer has not been consistent i mean has fallen off somewhat but we do feel that we the congress has been very generous in providing us with resources particularly with respect to the violence we face along the border in terms of serving our resources to deal with that threat well my concern though is that you've been pulled from other important areas that you're already devoting attention to in order to meet this new role and we haven't added additional last agent to backfill and i am very concerned about that continued level funding of manpower and i just for the record i know you're in a situation where you probably can't tell me candidly on record that you need more agents but i know you need more agents and i want to make sure every foreman we had a chance i want to bring that point up don't go back to the guns been talking about ninety percent of those that you could trace i understood i thought you said it one time from open source as you say that there'd been a hundred thousand seized is that one of the open source numbers you heard that there's been some statements from mexico that they've seized over one hundred thousand firearms  weapons they have there ninety percent of the twenty thousand that we could trace were from the u s but that was just a fraction of the weapons so i think it's misleading when anybody says that the overwhelming majority of the weapons in the mexico are pro domestic sources here in america and also i find it surprising we hear so much talk about our southwest border being where these weapons are going to cross when it seems to me it would be much easier to go into their culpable orders deol have any knowledge of weapons coming in that are culpable orders the cases that we're putting together the majority of our coming across our land border we have seen some recent cases that may be going down into central america and i may be coming up that way but at but as far as a tracing picture i mean answer numbers numbers have gone up steadily over the past couple of years but obviously we need to know the whole picture just as we need to know the whole picture far as we cover here in the united states thank you and you're back with officials from mexico one of the this is one of the most important things they want to talk to us about i remember i think almost three years ago meeting with the attorney general of mexico he said almost all of the gun  that they find in the drug cartels are coming from the united states and he expressed his recognition that we have a second amendment understands that we're not going to change that but really b does with consistent with that to do something about the just the river of guns going into mexico and i was able to tell the mexican congress when we met a month ago that we've got a new effort underway and they are very appreciative of the effort and it's interesting across the political spectrum from the far left to the far right they are united on this on this one because they know that if they don't win their fight against the drug cartels civil society in mexico is very much jeopardized so i'm i'm happy to hear that there is this new coordination i will express some anxiety and we're hearing that everything's fine and i hope that's true but i'm wondering if there are some metrics that we ought to be looking at because i'm sure the chairwoman will want to have another hearing in a few months to get a report on  accounting into monitoring by means of metrics and that will be a proximate measure i believe of our success because as the participants of the various investigative agencies have access to information from other agencies that should naturally sort of lower the number of conflicts we have later on during the investigation so i would suggest to you that one of the one of the key metrics to be addressed would be the extent to which all of the participating agencies are in fact honoring the agreement of providing their most sensitive investigative information to the i agree with my colleagues and and the  metrics will be helpful and useful in monitoring that i also think it's important that we as a senior leader leaders in our agencies meet regularly and speak with our principal field officers in the field to ensure that that if there are any issues arising we're resolving them as quickly as possible i can tell you that we've had a number of conference calls of all of our sacs we've placed messages to the field that we they've already engaged counterparts to really make sure we're of but we also have money laundering and that's not the focus of this hearing but i'm wondering how we incorporated our need to follow the money with the coordination that you're doing here thirty years of experience and in terms of money laundering there certainly will be we've also agreed to share data in the national system so a lot of the coordination mechanisms that are contained in these agreements will will serve the money laundering the flow of illicit proceeds south as well i would only add to my colleague testimony by saying that at the drug enforcement administration every criminal investigation must have a financial component to look at the money laundering that is certainly the case in all the interagency investigations it's required and i let my colleagues speak for themselves but i believe that's an integral part of all of our investigations that i'm grateful that we have one more day to try to get it right and because we have this additional day and so little time i want to apologize if my questions that seem to be somewhat overbearing or if i should say something that creates a little bit of friction but time is so limited and we never know for whom the bell will told next so i want to make sure that i use my time and effort as i can do we agree all of us meaning the three of you and me that we have a gun running problem and i assume the chances yes because you would have a project gunrunner if you didn't have a problem so you all agree that there's a problem all right given that we all agree there's a problem then the question becomes if we gave you everything that you need within reason to resolve the problem could you resolve it i think  resolvable problem yes maybe not totally i mean i understand you never get one hundred percent right but you could resolve it if we gave you everything that you need within reason i believe so ok then the question becomes what do you need to get don't tell me now that that you need a certain amount of money i don't want you to to put yourself in a position such that when you go back to the office you may have some additional questions to answer rather than tell me about money tell me what do you need to get the job done one of the things we've done is we remember now this is one of those cases where time remember we never know for whom the bell will toll next we're going to do everything that we can to resolve the problem with the limited time that god has  country that are no longer doing what they were doing in new york and wash so you need to replace that one hundred agents at least that at oil rather than this is a day to talk about a wish ok let's let's get the wish list  we believe we know two hundred fifty agents each year for the next four years or twenty five invest in industry operation investigators and fifty support personnel everything that goes along with those personnel and equipment correct list the good news from our perspective is that we're largely getting what i think the drug enforcement administration can contribute to this and that is we're building out a let me just make sure that i got you right now you don't need anything not focus of the drug enforcement missed ration is not guns here and tell you that my agency needs additional resources to help on investigations of firearms we will we will do everything we can within our power i receiving enhanced resources i think we need to bring them on board and assess how we're doing in terms of mitigating the threat and then let me come back and give you an after action report ok now let's talk about the gun running rather quickly because my time is about to expire have we employ the latest in technology to assist us with gun running for example do you make recommendations about firearms and how they can be manufactured if you are privy to some technology that would be of benefit to you do you make those kinds of recommendations to us new firearms comes onto the market was reviewed by us in our farms technology branch to make sure it's in compliance with the law you make recommendations congress i don't believe we do now do you make recommendations to congress or do you make recommendations to congress or no sir mr chairman if i may i i would like to explore the possibility of crafting some legislation that would allow them to make recommendations to congress so that we could we could benefit from the intelligence that they receive on the ground when i think perhaps if we had a classified briefing from the people we could probably get some additional information that could probably give us what we want i yield to the wisdom of the well we'll set it  e fifty caliber gun show there would be no record of that other than when mr green's father purchased a firearm and i could buy that weapon and not have to produce  identification of what i will happen to have been a convicted felon or anything individual sales to each other there is no record keeping there is no requirement for background checks that sort of thing  taxes pain ran the real gun dealers taking information on people except run densher comes into town and you have people who don't have to do any of that and that and this is a problem and speak specifically to problems like we see at the border one last question before we end this and the reason i brought up this whole issue of this ninety percent when we began is to bring it back to the whole idea  is there something as policymakers and as lawmakers that the congress can do some legislation first on some program or something that will help us  to actually go after the people who are trafficking guns who are running guns into mexico or bad sellers who might be licensed correctly but who are in fact selling to people who are pushing gun into mexico and again i come from the from the perspective of i'm not against guns and i don't want to limit which we pass legislation that will help you do your job to stop what looks like a legitimate gun dealers who are really  contraband from the beginning and we can proactively investigate people who traffic in these contraband substances unfortunately the second amendment oftentimes makes it lawful to have the weapons and you can only conduct the investigation after the crime has occurred barring some changed or concepts i don't know how we could investigate firearms in the same manner that we traditionally have drug trafficking but you would think that maybe we would need to really want to stop this from happening with knowledge that constitutionally issue and i think that you know from a resource standpoint we need we need to look at what we do to enhance our efforts to capture the currency and the weapons going into mexico texas for five minutes thank you to the witnesses and i thank the chair and ranking member for holding this meeting will see though we've had an encounter some weeks ago i hope we'll have a better one this time the concern has gotten extensive and we appreciate your service and we appreciate  the service that all of the officers of your various units give us every day they are on the front line i would like to start with alcohol tobacco and firearms and i focus on my city primarily because i've served on homeland security since nine eleven and on judiciary since coming to the united states congress and i would view my questioning to be reflective of how we can improve our circumstances why is houston such an attractive site for gun running and for drugs and the combination is explosive you're obviously aware of how hard our law enforcement working just two weeks ago i held a roundtable with the texas rangers department public safety the share of the police constables and it was very effective and i do thank you agencies that were participating some of the agencies ice participated we thank them very much so tell us why they are such it's such an attractive place to be openly about gun laws in texas and as you well know we have been suffering from what seems to be the acts of bad actors who happen to be undocumented aliens who we are all collectively supporting that that is not the face of immigration and so we  texas is one of our major source of mexico's obviously proximity to the border the large population there there are a large number of dealers there is a large supply of firearms in texas so that makes it attractive to those who want to take advantage of our laws our efforts as as i said earlier we have a additional hundred personnel in south texas right now we're a small agency we have to partner with places people like this so  example we would have enough interest that we would up your budget could you use that money absolutely you could use more than one hundred i think when we move those one hundred down there the results are and how it went with more accessible there than some other states but i think it's more so the proximity to the border and then obviously the population size of the use and you think the effective roundtable or coordinating and have you established is an him all you or you all just put together a task force clearly we could do more with additional resources houston historically has been a very important location in transnational drug trafficking if you go back to the one nine hundred eighty s it became in many senses a corporate headquarters for colombian drug trafficking organizations owing to a large population of women there and i don't mean to disparage ethnic groups but the there was a very large  concentration of drug trafficking organizations based with their roots in colombia is that traffic shifted in mexican organizations began to take over transportation and retail distribution houston had a history had the infrastructure is close to the border is a staging area and it remains one of the one of the critical nodes in smuggling of so if we can make it in in houston we can make a large dent in some of the prioritize our efforts with additional resources we can broaden those priorities to address more and very quickly to the other issue that you have identified in terms of the criminal alien criminal aliens we have other programs such as secure communities that we are rapidly deploying in order to at prioritizing criminal aliens in order to remove them from our communities as well let me thank you all very much i look forward to working with you on this very severe problem and i look forward to you looking at my legislation gentlewoman's as it relates to  more resources thank you madam chair very much is in the point thank the witnesses for the valuable testimony of the members for the questions and the members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses who will ask you to respond quickly in writing to those questions and here you know for their business