good morning everybody the subcommittee will come to order and the septa meeting on border maritime and global counterterrorism is meeting today to receive testimony on moving toward more effective immigration detention management today were gathering to hear testimony from key stakeholders and advocates on the current immigration detention system and the challenges to reforming the detention standards this hearing comes at a crucial time since the department of homeland security is currently considering how to reform and overhaul the current system this past august immigration and customs enforcement or ice assistan secretary john morton and secretary napolitano highlighted vast changes that they plan to make to the immigration detention system as someone who has advocated for improved medical treatment at detention facilities for example i'm pleased that these changes are likely to include the hiring of health and medical experts as part of the new office of detention policy in planning as a follow up to this hearing early next year we will conduct a second hearing to hear directly from ice about their proposals and their plans to improve the detention system but today we want to hear from you as an advocate for improved and robust alternative to detention programs for vulnerable populations and non criminal aliens i'm interested to hear what the witnesses today will suggest for our program to move forward since the next moment of the legal immigration reform an immigrant responsibility act in  eighty six immigrant detainees have reached an all time high of thirty three thousand four hundred people that's astonishing considering that one hundred ninety six the amount was under nine thousand but it's not surprising considering that almost eight hundred million dollars the largest expenditure for ice is spent annually on detention bed acquisition i would like to hear from our panel of witnesses about what i s they have to move beyond bed acquisition as a detention strategy and furthermore i scurry only uses a web of detention facilities ranging from contract detention facilities to over three hundred  fifty local and state facilities along with federal government run facilities unfortunately teams like this for id facility to have made it difficult to ensure that there are some national standards that are be adhered to at the all of the facilities so i believe it's extremely important that any detention facility acting on behalf of the united states is here to a clear and standard level of oversight and accountability with the opportunity did discuss these issues today and the wide range of perspectives that our panel represents my hope is that we will hear about specific actions and policy changes that need to be taken in order to improve the system as we all know the concerns and the issues that i have outlined today are just some of the many challenges that we face in overhauling our detention system but this is part of what our committee oversees on a final note it's important to recognize that of the thousands of detainees being held in our detention facilities fifty eight percent of them have no known criminal history and however they're held in expensive criminal detention facilities so i thank our witnesses today and i look forward to your testimonies and tone of this hearing is one thing to advocate for facilities to be safer or more humane however what we're doing is holding people who have and we've done those hearings in the past and this is for people who've been arrested it's entirely one thing to argue that we're holding too many islands in detention facilities and they should be kept in facilities nicer than those available to us citizens who have been arrested the very basic fact is that aliens in detention facilities are there because they have been rested for violating u s law under existing law the penalty for illegal presence is up to six months in prison with a maximum sentence of ten years for multiple reentry this is outside the penalty for any other criminal act they may have committed i think the most effective emigration reform is to truly enforce the laws on the books detention is important for homeland security public safety as a deterrent for illegal border crossers and false claims of asylum in march two thousand and seven the subcommittee held a two part hearing on you know in detention then i structure for detention and removal john torres testified that ninety percent of aliens released from detention with a notice to appear absconded and never showed up for their immigration hearing is not safe or efficient to release thousands of foreign nationals they're in this country illegally they should be held in detention centers until their cases are heard unresolved there is a line in detention facilities are not here on vacation there is a flexibility to discuss how to improve the quality of the soltys since that seems to be a concern but they should not be kept in facilities that are better than we give to citizens who are arrested in awaiting trial i agree that they should be safe and humane and we've held hearings because they're been problems with safe and humane standards in some of these facilities but that violent criminals should not be and i agree that violent criminals should not be mixed with aliens who have not committed violent crimes like we try not to do in  our american prison system control should be in place to ensure that gang violence is not escalate and detention centers often they self identify and they do that in the american prison system too so don't get two people from the same gang in the same cells those are legitimate concerns that we should be looking at however when we start start talking about releasing thousands of arrested people who come here illegally on their own recognizance despite the highest rates giving them free dental care outside of emergency services or running hotels i think we've crossed into the ridiculous non citizens arrested held in detention centers have broken the law they should not have better facilities or privileged u s citizens who broken the law are getting held in prisons that should be the basic standard here are we going to give somebody who has been arrested for illegally in the united states better health care better facilities more comfortable facilities than somebody who is an american citizen it would be impossible for me to explain t department of homeland security is going to purchase a number of hotels around the country in order to house illegal and criminal aliens in comfortable low security settings because they don't see that is fair when american citizens don't get the same treatment i think it's important for us to discuss the world tension plays and immigration enforcement border security especially some gratian reform legislation is likely to be a focus again next year this is not the time to scale back to create a whole bunch of other arguments because if we people who broken the law held accountable and my opinion the thrust of this could set us back in trying to have true immigration reform back i thank my ranking member and that's one of the reasons why we have everybody before us and why we'll have the ice also to see what type of facilities and i'm more just as a side note that i'm more concerned about the cost of incarcerat people and what type of people we're incarcerating and who are holding them together and whether there are emergency services available and more importantly if these people have a claim under current law to be in this country that they get through the process in a timely manner manner in order to put that forward and my understanding is sometimes because of the diverse patchwork of detention facilities that we have people may be moved around so much that they actually don't get before their hearing or their judicial process as we would anticipate they could specially if they have some claim some rightful claim to be here under the current laws so that's why i called this hearing not to suggest that we would purchase hilton hotels some are not good investments these days anyway the chair now will recognize that the chairman full committee is not here nor is the other so other members of the subcommittee are reminded that under the committee rules opening statements may be submitted for the record and i will welcome our panel of witnesses our first witness dr dora zero is that correct was appointed as the commission of the new york city department of corrections on september twenty first two thousand and nine immediately prior she had served a special visor to se homeland security janet napolitano on immigration and customs enforcement and detention and removal and director of the office of detention policy in planning for the department in that role she directed work on the department to plan to overhaul the nation's immigration detainees system dr shero has also served as the director of the arizona department of corrections and the missouri department of corrections welcome our second witness mr christopher crane has been an immigration foresman agent at the department of homeland security since two thousand and three in that capacity has worked in the criminal alien program or cap as we know it and has served as a member of an ice fugitive operations team and prior to joining nice m for eleven years in the u s marine corps welcome our third witness mr donald kerwin jr is vice president for programs at the migration policy institute or m p i overseeing all of n p r s national and international programs prior to joining m p i mr kerwin worked for more than fifteen years at the catholic legal immigration network mr kerwin is also an advisor to the american bar associations commission on immigration and a member of the coun foreign relations immigration task force our fourth witness miss brittany nystrom is the senior legal advisor at the national immigration forum in that position she focuses her advocacy on civil rights and d process issues facing immigrants and asylum seekers previously missed nystrom represented detained immigrants in removal proceedings and advocated for humane detention conditions as a legal director at the capitol area immigrant rights coalition welcome also to you and our fifth witness mr mark krikorian has served is that armenian krikorian has served as executive director of the center for immigration studies since one nine hundred ninety five he holds a master's degree from the fletcher school of law and diplomacy a bachelor's degree from georgetown university and before joining c i s mr krikorian held a variety of i now ask the witnesses to please summarize your statements for five minutes or less and we'll begin with doctor expectations our challenge and our opportunity to commissioning the release of the report speaks to this administration's commitment to reform the directive by the secretary within a week of her confirmation was plain spoken and heartfelt community based alternative and application the operation of detention facilities was delegated to county sheriff's departments in the private sector monitoring and annual evaluations were also performed primarily by private sector housing and health care but had difficulties in detention and health care system in terms of the day to day operations twenty four field offices were responsible for the acquisition assignment of were excluded from participating in their development which we believe was a real mistake the union has no detailed written information regarding the reforms we can only address statements made by agency representatives during briefings on the reforms held in november of this year while we applaud the idea of reform agency proposals made known to the union appear to put detainees and officers at greater risk than ever before ice will build what it is referring to as low custody open campus facilities that will house approximately two thousand attaining who are free to move throughout their respective facility twenty four hours a day when i should use the terms low custody and open campus we initially envisioned non criminal detainees only however according to agency representatives the local city open campus facilities will hold any convicted criminal not convicted of the following five charges murder rape kidnapping assault with a deadly weapon and armed robbery this list of charges does not exclude many other potentially dangerous groups of criminals from being placed in low custody facilities such as drug dealers gang members sexual predators and any person convicted of a violent crime that did not involve a weapon this would include aggravated assault and assault of a police officer with agencies announcement that ice will have a nationwide detainees population of eighty five to ninety percent convicted criminals within the next twelve months we can only assume that these facilities will be holding similar populations surprisingly our representatives were told that the non criminal detainees will also be held in the same facilities we do not leave that these facilities are truly low custody detention nor do we believe that they will provide the appropriate safeguards for non criminal detainees in terms of ice employees our concerns are similar in the midst of criminal population such as these our officers should be afforded every safeguard afforded to any state or federal officer working with criminal detainees the open campus environment is clearly unsafe and impractical i says also approach the excuse me propose that detainees will have full contact visitation however unlike other agencies ice officers will be barred from performing strip searches to prevent dangerous weapons and drugs from entering ice facilities the council views this proposal as unacceptable based on the safety hazards it presents to ice detainees ice officers and contract guards with regard to contract facilities and contract guards dear officers in the field report that inappropriate conduct by contract guards is not uncommon in the specific allegations made against the contract guards range from sexual misconduct with detainees and rape to the smuggling of illegal contraband and of a skillet he's such as illegal drugs officers report that ice managers are aware of the problem but don't seem interested in doing anything about it we believe that the open campus environment will only make this type of conduct more prevalent as detainees populations will be free to move about the building an escorted making them far more accessible to contract guards and this type of misconduct in an attempt to provide better oversight in the facilities the agency has proposed the hiring of twenty three detention service managers such a small group is unlikely to have any significant impact on increasing oversight prior to ice there was a position within the immigration and naturalization service called the detention enforcement officer or d e o ins had officers to perform law enforcement function as well as officers to perform detention transportation and court duties it is a model that many law enforcement organizations continue to use with great success we believe that dio's would provide isis national detention program with the increased physical presence and oversight that is currently lacking finally i do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that the majority of problems within our detention system as identified by the agency involve contract workers and not federal employees for this reason and because the administration's professed opposition to unnecessary and inappropriate outsourcing we were surprised to learn that on september first two thousand and nine the agency awarded a new contract for seventy one point five million dollars to an outside contractor these contractors will again be performing diarra work in light of the problems we are now trying to overcome with regard to contract workers we simply don't understand the agency's logic thank you for the opportunity to testify here today i hope you found the information that we provided to you useful as you consider ways to improve the operations of the i c a o program  thank you thank you mr crane thank you for your testimony and now recognize mr carr when to summarize his statements for five minutes here that madam chairwoman and distinguished members of the subcommittee i appreciate the opportunity to testify you before you today i will speak today on some of the challenges related to the design of a detention system the reflexive places civil detention authorities detention serves two primary purposes first to ensure that persons in removal proceedings attend all of their hearings and can be removed if they're ordered removed and second to protect the public if necessary consistent with these goals the central aim of detention reform should be to ensure that persons in ice custody are placed in the least restrictive set settings which will typically be the least costly that are necessary to ensure their parents says it all legal proceedings and to protect others under a civil detention system should carefully screen classify and treat detainees as follows first i should continue to detain persons who represent a danger to others eleven percent of ice detainees with criminal records have committed violent crimes ice will need secure facilities to detain this population and others that represent a threat most ice detainees do not have criminal records and many of those with criminal records committed relatively minor crimes second i should ensure that certain immigrants not be placed in removal proceedings and must not be subject to detention this would include refugees persons eligible for lawful permanent residence and those with credible claims to us citizenship third i should release detainees who are not a danger or a flight risk particularly those whose cases raise humanitarian concerns such as bona fide asylum seekers torture survivors the very elderly pregnant and nursing women fourth i should continue to expand and improve it alternative to detention programs or not appropriate for everyone these programs can offer a cost effective and you main alternative to detention my written statement details several ways in which existing programs can and should be strengthened faith ice must expand its efforts to identify alternative housing options options for civil detainees it should also aggressively explore and adopt standards that reflect civil detention authorities and the needs of those in its custody ice's national detention standards are broadly modeled on american correctional association standards for adult local tension facilities which applied to persons awaiting criminal trial for serving relatively short criminal sentences civil detention standards should ensure the separation of detainees based on a rigorous assessment of the risks that they present to others for him but the use of shackling strip searches handcuffing solitary confinement  detainees preclude transfers that would negatively effect detainees legal case or an attorney client relationship place detainees in facilities near legal counsel allowed contact visits with family members and assure that sure that those visits can go beyond the current thirty minute minimum and provide for detainees access to outdoor recreation throughout the day and not just a minimum of one hour per day of exercise outside the cell finally with respect to civil detention i should be particularly vigilant in reviewing the custody of persons who have been confined for more than six months particularly those ordered removed from the country this would be consistent with the two u s supreme court decisions in september two thousand and nine my agency released a report that concluded that isis information systems and in particular its in force database did not appear to track the kind of information that would allow the agency to comply with the law or to meet its own detention standards the reports overarching recommendation was that ice ensure that its information systems allow it to make informed decisions related to who must attain and who must consider for release who should be placed in an alternative to detention program and whether it had it here to its national standards in particular cases i should also expand its oversight direct control and monitoring of its own facilities and programs so that it can successfully in full implement its detention reforms private private prison corporations manage all but one of vices service processing centers and its largest contract facilities collectively these facilities hold more than half of all ice detainees ice also relies on private contractors to conduct most onsite monitoring of its detention facilities to annually assess compliance with detention standards at its facilities and to man two of its three alternatives to detention programs are used deserves praise for its decision to revamp its detention system for its candid assessments of the challenges the agency faces for its reforms to date and its engagement of stakeholders to date congress needs to be vigilant however in helping to ensure that this process continues thank you thank you mr kerwin and now we'll hear testimony from mr nystrom if you please summarize your testimony in five minutes or less good morning madam chairwoman and distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the invitation to speak about our nation's immigration detention system i currently serve as the national immigration forum senior legal advisor working with leadership from face labor business and immigrant communities the forms mission is to advocate for the value of immigrants in immigration to the nation prior to joining the forum i was a legal director of a nonprofit organization providing legal services to those in immigration detention in county jail across virginia although there are many concerns with an immigration detention my remarks this morning in my longer written testimony focused on two question is it necessary for ice to spend our tax dollars to detain so many individuals and for those persons who must be detained for security reasons are detaching conditions appropriate efficient and safe to the first question ice detains many individuals who pose no flight risk or danger to the community and that should be considered for release or an alternative to detention program to the second question the conditions of confinement for the hundreds of thousands of detained individuals each year are inappropriate inefficient and unsafe despite the civil bases of immigration detention icehouses its detainees in jails replete with barbed wire prison uniforms armed guards in shackles d h us leadership recently announced much needed detention reform two steps must be taken to achieve these reforms first ice must improve how it determines when detention is necessary and when a detainee merits release or enrollment in an alternative to detention program second ice much transition to a detention system that is neither unsafe nor degrading for detainees improved detention management begins with two critical reforms an examination of whom i says detaining and why in tandem with the expanded and improved alternative to detention program today i see change more than thirty three thousand individuals a night including elderly persons torture survivors parents of u s citizen children and those with chronic health conditions despite this diversity ice has a one size fits all model of detention each decision to detain should be informed by an assessment of individual circumstances that is repeated periodically otherwise detention becomes far too automatic and a wasteful use of government resources without routine detention assessment citizens continue to be swept into immigration detention there are fiscally responsible and reliable alternatives ice currently operates three alternative to detention programs that rely on heavy supervision through s radio and telephonic monitoring the most expensive of these programs cost fourteen dollars per day while a day of detention at something so ladies exceeds one hundred dollars alternatives to detention can be improved current programs operate as alternative forms of custody without standardized assessments enrollment is haphazard further there are no arch no alternative to detention programs incorporating community based services which can help ensure compliance with immigration proceedings congress has repeatedly ordered ice to develop national alternative to detention and recently appropriated over sixty nine million dollars to the program going forward ice must improve alternative to detention roman procedures and expand programs to include all access to community services more robust alternative to detention programmes will lead to more manageable detention levels and a better use of limited security resources in the second step must overhaul conditions of confinement to reflect the civil non punitive nature of immigration detention shifting its culture from a correctional mentality to one more appropriate to the often vulnerable populations in its custody conditions and detention facilities used by continue to be fundamentally inappropriate many facilities in use today are not physically capable of complying with ice and own detention standards it d h has inspector general report recently noted the use of remote facilities and the overuse of arbitrary transfers denies detainees the basic right to a fair defense and wastes federal resources as noted medical care remains a critical concern for immigration detainees and announced reforms come too late for many d h i should prioritize the medically and mentally ill for release are in rome and in an alternative to detention immediate steps can and should be taken as most follow these initial steps by revising their standards of detention to comport with the civil nature of immigration detention because standards are not codified in statute or regulation ice must be diligent in their enforcement to conclude isis failed to effectively manage its massive immigration detention system the current system is one in crisis the sweeping reforms recently announced are promising but are not fully developed i should begin screening all detainees for release or alternative to detention program next month overhaul standards of confinement  conditions are appropriate we are are appropriate and are vigorously enforced finally as long as our immigration laws are out of step with modern twenty first century realities the task of man ging immigration detention will be much more complicated and occur on a much greater scale than is necessary until we have comprehensive immigration reform congress should ensure that the h s transitions to a detention system that is right sized safe humane and efficient thank you thank you for your testimony and i now recognize mr krikorian for five minutes or less to summarize your testimony thank you madam chairwoman barbara jordan the chairman of the u s commission on immigration reform told congress in one thousand nine hundred five quote credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence those who should get in get in those who should be kept out are kept out and those who should not be here will be required to leave our progress in the third of ms jordan's requirements removing those who should not be here still leaves much to be desired it's not just that we have eleven million illegal aliens living here even among those aliens who have gone through the whole immigration court process and been issued final orders of removal more than five hundred thousand of them have shown their contempt for american immigration law by abstaining something they could not have done had they been detained d o j as inspector general found in two thousand and three that eighty seven percent of apprehended aliens who were not detained ran off including ninety four percent of those from countries that sponsor terrorism and ninety seven percent of non detained aliens who were denied asylum the two thousand and six report by the  understated way currently d r zero is unable to ensure the departure from the us of all removable aliens the disregard for immigration laws so pervasive that the notification that a non detained alien receives about his final order of removal is colloquially known as a run letter because when he gets a letter he runs he can only do this because he is not being detained in short a majority of the evil aliens who promised to appear for their court dates are simply lying to immigration authorities this is the reason immigration detention must not only continue but must be expanded significantly the only way to ensure that illegal aliens actually appear before an immigration court is to physically compel them to do so through detention immigration law is literally meaningless without widespread use of detention to ensure that immigration violators actually leave while it can be worth experimenting with various alternatives to detention in the real world their likelihood of success is limited pilot programs to assess the viability of such alternatives either include people who would not have been detained anyway cream skimming or cherry picking if you will or fudge the statistics to make the results appear more favorable as the houston chronicle recently revealed furthermore alternatives detention are not even really plausible subjects for experiment unless the criminal penalties for failing to appear are employed in other words absconders not sexual predators or terrorists just regular illegal aliens who didn't come up for their court dates are routinely prosecuted and given stiff prison sentences can alternatives to detention even be plausibly considered because then there is a sanction or a stick for not complying the pervasive unwillingness of illegal aliens to comply with immigration law in the absence of detention is not surprising after all unlike in the criminal justice setting where failing to appear often results in additional penalties the final order of removal is all that an illegal alien realistically faces whether he shows up for immigration court or not furthermore those failing to appear for immigration proceedings are likely to avoid detection for many years given authorities still frivolous approach to tracking down immigration absconders and short alternatives to detention usually is just a synonym for catch and release rather than focus on a few tile search for more alternatives to detention we would be better advised to increase ice's bed space as you noted madam chairwoman detention capacity grew to more than thirty three thousand as of f y o nine but in the current fiscal year there was no request for an increase to flat number and this reluctance to increase detention capacity is curious to say the least secure communities into eighty seven g guarantee that the number of aliens ice is going to have to detain is going to increase significantly the mismatch that's coming between supply and demand for detention beds is going to have two results first illegal aliens not involved in other crimes are even less likely to be detained than which means population is going to resume its rapid growth and secondly when all of them are no longer in detention then criminal aliens who are being handed over to ice will end up having to be released for lack of space those people are going to commit further crimes and the political blowback that both congress and the administration will face when that happens when aliens criminal aliens that knew about and then ordered their release that outrage is going to be deserved i would have to say in conclusion all americans support efforts to make detention as professional and as humane as reasonably possible but our focus must be on the vital role of detention as a necessary tool to maintain the integrity of our immigration system thank you thank you mr krikorian for your testimony and i thank all of the witnesses for their testimony all remind each member that each of us will get five minutes to question the witnesses and on the recognize myself for some questions i'm i'm trying to wrap my arms around this whole issue of detention there's a lot of differences obviously on this panel which is a good thing i think most of you are working in the particular area of this whole detention issue and a couple of questions first of all what is the average length of stay for somebody in a detention facility whether they're moved or not what's the average length before we decide yes you have a real you've gone before a judge and you're moving in a different direction to stay here or no you have r will tend to stay longer anybody have a different answer than what we just heard from the doc i don't have a different answer but i did want to say that you know the average is thirty days but there's a twenty five percent are out within a within a day or two but there is a significant number of long term detainees when when we looked at a database of everybody in detention on a particular night in january two thousand and nine we found that more than four thousand of the people in detention on that night had been in custody for more than six months as of that date and of those almost a thousand had been detained for more than six months after having received an order of removal and that's a that's a significant date because the supreme court has held that detainees must be released within six months of a removal order unless the government can show that there is a significant likelihood of removal in the future so there are a high number of people in ice custody a low percentage but a high number on any given night who are presumptively eligible for release that doesn't mean they have to be released but under the supreme court decision the burden is on the on the government to show that they can be released soon also varies widely across the delays and this is one area that is a tremendous and efficient use of government resources for facilities that are located near the border the repatriation rate is much quicker than his so ideas that are located for example here in virginia in my experience detainees with a final order of removal in detention often await two sometimes three months simply to be returned to their country to have an individual removed if we can within one to two weeks where usually every week we're shooting for one week as fast as we can to move this individual is we frankly don't have the bed space to keep them now as far as the l stay i think it's important to say that there's a lot of things making that happen the key thing being is that that individual generally speaking is trying to pursue their case they're trying to stay here and one of the big frustrations that we have on the d l road side of the house is that when they show up for court a lot of times they're not prepared for court of their attorney more specifically is not prepared for court they're asking for continuances which depending on our court calendars may be six months  i'm sorry six weeks at a time so these detentions days really are dependent on the individual the individual is creating they're trying to fight their cases not most the times not something that we're trying to do we are trying very hard to get them out of custody to mr crime would you say that this person is trying to fight their case do you think they're just dragging their feet so they can just say stay stay or do you think it's because we're not doing a good job about making sure they can see their lawyer we've transferred them so now they've got to start with a new lawyer or maybe phone calls aren't allowed out or do you think it's because the detention facility doesn't really allow them the opportunity to put together a good case in a short amount of time because they simply are going to push the jaj or the system as long as they can i don't think anyone wants to stay in jail i think every one of these individuals wants to see their case come to a close as quickly as possible that's my personal opinion but there are a lot of things going on that you know for example like i said the attorneys constantly showing up to court and the attorneys not prepared it has nothing to do with the detainees and they're asking for these continuances and this is happening all over the country so and would would anybody apply now as to why these attorneys aren't prepared because the system allows them not to be prepared when they can show up to court and they can ask for a continuance and they know they're going to get it and they're going to continue to do it until the judges start you know holding these attorneys accountable anybody else have a different opinion on that i mean i have a strongly different opinion the fact is that most people in removal proceedings don't have counsel so most of the continuance is to seek counsel to try to get some kind of representation and you know they're  continuances are in fact ice's trial attorneys and that happens on occasion when for example criminal conviction records are not in the file or as you alluded to when someone has been transferred to a new facility and that alien file does not go with the detainee to the new location that results in significant delay and that was pointed out in the inspector general's recently read released report so would it be better for all to try to figure out that particular process and we don't really do it in this subcommittee i think we're very gifted to have the last grand on our subcommittee because she had she's over on the judiciary committee and she deals a lot with some of these but do you think it's maybe the resources aren't in place for someone to be able to get there get their day in court faster with with a strong lawyer to make sure that they have some redress in the system anybody want to see what i can tell you specifically we have forty eight hours to serve this individual with documents charging documents and everything seems to come to a screeching halt after that so the problems really lie after that point we bring him into custody we serve him with their paperwork and then everything just kind of stops at that point but if things could go faster in the court system then from a standpoint of of the detention and the work that you do you're saying that person who's been held wants it to go faster you all wanted to go faster if we can get that process done in a fair resourced a way we might not need to look for more beds if we can remove those individuals or say maybe you have a real right to be in this country rather than continuing continuing continuing because there are no lawyers available or there's not a court room available or a person got transferred records polishing up with these people  will always be searching for beds because we're always going to be out there making more arrests but i think that we would serve these individuals much better if we could clean up some of those issues yes ma'am ok i've gone over my time but i subcommittee a detailing of how many of the appeals actually when in other words how many are found that they were that they were indeed entitled to enter the united states and i would guess that it's a small percentage and if you know then why were you making assertions if you didn't i mean the fundamental question here is  that the question was why are the people at the implication was is that somehow ice was awful for holding these people here and then we which i agree with the reason most of them are there are one of two things they're the only person from say brazil and we have to get a special plane to fly them back or buy a ticket divert agents to do that some get held longer because we can't send them back to the country that they came in we have to american taxpayers pay to detain them pay for their lawyers pay for all the information pay to ship them back to brazil or wherever i see result because i've seen a number of cases relating to brazil and in fact then the assertion was made that the reason that maybe these trials are taking longer is because of attorneys weren't there they didn't have access and so on the question is is that how many of them when and that would seem to me to be the first thing you'd want to know because if you could show that most of these people who were held and and didn't get  proper information or took a long time in fact were legitimately mistreated that would be very compelling because i respond yes we do know i mean i mean we don't know it's i mean i don't know exactly and we also know that the people with legal representation get relief that rates that are you know sometimes three to six times higher than those without representation i would like to see formal statistic i believe that you should  be able to access reasonable you know representation thousands in the course of millions is not particularly an impressive number and then if that's the case we should make sure that they're there but not try to imply that there's some kind of a policy to keep people in prison for a long time we're dealing with a small group that we ought to analyze their mistreated we ought to look at and and test that now it's not if i might it's thousands related to millions it's about three hundred thirty thousand come into removal proceedings each year of the number i'm not sure exactly how many of those are detained that's total removal cases and there's many thousands of those do get relief or move on it's not correct to say that there's government paid attorneys there's not and so you know what you have is you have a system where in some facilities there's some legal orientation presentations provided to people but that doesn't necessarily legal represented that i am the absolutely that the organizations many of these organizations receive federal funds and then provide the funding we provide the law libraries we provide depending on how a person represents themselves it is not correct to say that there's no federal funding involved in the defenses it's just not correct there's no federal funding for legal representation that's absolutely hundred percent correct indirect you're saying there's no indirect federal funding no legal representation there's funding for legal orientation that presentations you know to  even if they were had other rights they still would have been picked up but they have been trying to enter without proper documentation between ports of entry variations like the my frustration is is that they're acting like they're not criminals they're they are arrested just like american citizens are arrested for criminal behavior it is criminal to break the law that's what a crime is now there are different types of crimes and severity and most of these people i agree are more mild mannered they're generally speaking not resistant they're very kind and the individuals you know most are but how do you separate out which one's going to necessarily be which what what we can have a different standard for countries of interest so to speak people of interest they have committed a crime they are safe from a high risk country that they may be an individual who we have on a list but on what grounds would we hold them as opposed to somebody from another gun because they haven't committed a crime that we're going to set all kinds of  double standards here that if somebody is in virginia and captured quite frankly it means they've been in the united states for a greater period than if they're captured right at the border that they have probably utilized services that they haven't paid for which is a huge debate and  this this whole discussion as though these people have committed criminal acts the number one complaint from law enforcement my district which ice has been trying to address is why local taxpayers are having to pay for detention of people for violating federal crimes but who have other problems in our local communities we can't even get them deported that it is a frustration that states if you ask the majority american people they think the problem is we aren't deporting fast enough we need more courts as well as more dancing facilities most people would agree we should accelerate deport process i don't think most people agree with that if that's where we need more money let's let's get them out if they have to have her you know some kind of legal representation are getting then let's see that that gets done and get them deported but the whole point of this i believe states and what types of rights she might have or i'm certainly not as well versed on that but at this moment i would like to write recognize the gentleman from california miss harman for her five minutes thank you madam chair and thank you for holding this hearing on a subject the norm of concern to residents of los angeles which holds about six percent of the detainee population nationwide according to the department of homeland security review of detention policy so i appreciate the opportunity to learn more and also to think about immigration and illegal immigration again as as  we struggle with this issue i'm the daughter of immigrants my father was an immigrant my mother was the daughter of immigrants i would assume many of our committee members are to immigration makes america strong as everyone has pointed out immigration done legally makes america strong immigration that is illegal is a challenge for america and i strongly believe with mr souter and ms sanchez that we shouldn't force our immigration laws but we should threat in terms of violent behavior asked to respect basic human rights and civil liberties of our living our values i want to ask you about context our committee doesn't have jurisdiction over this but i  was and still am a huge proponent of comprehensive immigration reform several of you mentioned that as you testified i want to know whether you think this problem would be greatly helped if we could  enact a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform and i'm thinking essentially of the proposal that former president george bush supported by a large number of members on a bipartisan basis here was proposing in the term of congress how much difference would immigration comprehensive immigration reform make to this problem you're absolutely right it would make a tremendous difference the most obvious reason for that would be if comprehensive immigration reform contains a path to citizenship for many of the millions of people who are currently here with no valid immigration status that number that would need to be in removal proceedings and therefore arguably considered for detention would be dramatically reduced thank barred from legalization under the proposals then being considered because of various criminal background or other matters the fact is that virtually all illegal aliens have committed multiple federal crimes not just civil violations but criminal violations crossing the border obviously is a federal crime signing and i nine form is perjury it's a felony if it's false information buying false documents is a federal crime using false documents  from a court is a federal crime punishable by up to ten years in prison so the assertion seems to be that if we redefine the illegal immigrants here as legal then the pension issue the detention problem will disappear or at least be dramatically reduced the fact is a very large portion of the illegal population even under the proposals the president bush suggested which are essentially the same as whatever it is that congress and gutierrez or senator schumer will come up with a very large portion will not be redefined as legal and there's always going to be the further issue of ongoing continuing illegal immigration not just from border crossers but from the very large share of the illegal population that that is people who enter illegally on visas and then never leave so the answer i think is that to look at a broad legalization program as a solution to detention is i think is a mistake actually the other way around only a very robust detention and credible detention system would be one of the ways to contribute to public to create the credibility that the government will enforce on i honestly i'm against comprehensive immigration reform but the way to do it is through more robust attention among other things well let me just say that i as i said earlier i am for enforcement of our immigration laws and i do agree with you that there are crimes connected with forging documents related to once you legal status however i think most of these folks are coming here seeking a better quality of life for themselves or their families with the economic collapse that we are experiencing there's been a huge decrease in illegal immigration and i don't think that student attention i think that's due to different economic circumstances i continue to hope that we come up with a humane comprehensive immigration reform and i do think it will make a difference in terms of the populations that we have to detain in connection with illegal immigration just ask my time's expired madam chair but if anyone else wanted to comment i hope you will permit mr crane i just like to say there's a lot of numbers floating around out there about who we actually have in custody at ice and the in november the agency released a number of fifty three percent convicted criminals now i can tell you having worked the cat program for five years the majority of individuals that we are incarcerating are coming out of county and state jails they've been arrested for extremely serious crimes you know the booking sheets are coming into us every morning we're picking out the worst ones we can find and we're going to the jails and we're looking for the worst of the worst that's our priority we would estimate that potentially thirty to forty percent of the individuals that we're saying are non criminal actually were arrested on criminal charges the reason most of the time  is an epidemic problem in the u s right now is that they're being released to us without convictions is because the counties don't have the money to prosecute them and hold them so ice has become a dumping ground for people their problems that they've arrested so i don't really know if  form is is really going to be the answer to that problem secondly i would say that anytime you give someone a legal right to be here along with that comes right up a lawful permanent resident you know they can possess marijuana they can get duis that you know they can do all of these different things and it takes away from our ability to enforce the law and i'm not saying that that's not a solution that reform isn't there but i just think that we need to consider  thank you my time is just expired and i don't want to use my privileges in the committee i just observe that i'm not for anyone breaking laws but i don't think that one of the deterrents to becoming a law school should be the fact that if you're lawful you then have some to commit crimes in this country i don't think you do back the balance of my time thank you ms harman i'm really concerned about something that you said mr crane that people aren't being prosecuted for alleged crimes but the fact they're not being prosecuted could mean at least under our system actually don't have that crime on their record origin that have to issue the travel documents to send those individuals there are delays and not assume so with certain particular countries or do a better job in the lane have been to train those individuals can any of y'all want to talk about those country of origin to laze and anybody in particular any particular country that stands out i'd be happy to because we looked at that recently and it used to be that you know two or three countries were responsible for all you know the great majority of people that didn't get travel documents it would be cuba vietnam cambodia and the like places that we didn't have repatriation agreements with actually those numbers are way down and there's not a there's not one country that's you know six has significantly more cases than any other it seems to be more of a dispersed issue at this point but i mean that's a that's a big big issue in explains i think to a certain extent you know the number of long term detainees after being ordered removed as they just can't get travel documents for them after a particular time what happens if a country doesn't want to take an individual back is that person released in the u s that's what the supreme court case is about that at that after six months they become presumptively eligible for release but if the if the government is still pursuing and it looks you know foreseeable that the person can be removed and then they'd stay detained under that supreme court case have we had anybody with a criminal record be released after those six months if i mentally doesn't take them i'm sure but i'm i don't know like specific cases mr crane you are head yes sir i'd say that's happening every day actually and i can i can give you a specific case of an individual that was convicted of assaulting a police in our area he came into custody he assaulted me thirteen months for assaulting a federal officer he was from sudan we were unable to remove him and we had to we were forced to release him at which time he was arrested for rape after that which at which time our supervisors told us not to take him into custody again so the detention centers held i mean i would assume that if they're close to the border most of them will be going to south america central america when you assume that most of those locations should be on the border we're dealing with individuals that we're going to release we've got to have judges in those areas and we really need to have if we've got some kind of facility there locally that makes it it's a silicate for those individuals sheryl's report actually speaks to that there is a look there is a little bit of a disconnect most of them are in kind of the southern states in the in the border states in particular and there's a little bit of a mismatch between detention capacity and demand pulling officers out of our offices to send him down to the southern border we were short staffed already we had criminals walking out of jails because we couldn't work our cap program they got down to the southwest border and manager said we don't have anything for you to do we weren't prepared for this we didn't know what to do with you just kind of hang out and quite honestly when they went down there i think they were arresting primarily referrals and they used all of those up in about thirty times the government has a right to know who is in this country and any given time no to protect the country we heard from everybody we need to protect our borders but i think we're spinning our  detainees per day you notice there was a thirty three percent increase between two thousand and six and two thousand and seven and then a little bit more the next year one must conclude from that that our great courageous congress and our great great just mr ations that's when there was discussion about comprehensive health comprehensive immigration reform so this was our response will show everybody that we're tough now we're talking about thirty three thousand then any given day you know what the percentages of the undocumented folks that are in this country what percentage would that be a very very very small percentage i mean we know the percentages of family criminals the percentage of criminals that we detain of these thirty three thousand we're hearing that maybe up to fifty percent fifty percent of them have committed multiple criminal acts is that what i'm hearing from the panel well what percentage of criminal acts are perpetrated committed by the eleven million nine hundred sixty thousand other illegal immigrants that are in this country why they high risk as far as crime is concerned this is not the solution to the problem the direction that we're going in by any stretch of the imagination removing those who don't belong here you know one that would take mr krikorian well know that well we've actually modeled that and it's not just a question of because how long would that take our estimate is that in five years you could cut the illegal population and half so you've not by arresting everybody individually but by a common when you talked about removing that you didn't just talk about arresting them you talked about removing them that's a combination or you let me ask you the question again maybe i didn't make myself clear how long would it take to remove them we wouldn't have to remove them the question itself is it was done in a movement because what you would the way immigration enforcement works is a combination of forced sense or we are simply inept at this probably a lot of that but what i what specific or is the government unwilling to confront the issue is this politically incorrect what do you think is what politically incorrect specifically removing you made it part of your documentation your game made a presentation here removing undocumented aliens well it's something the public wants and it's clearly contentious among both business groups and other advocacy groups so yes it is maybe they probably enable it a cli incur and they be the public wants us to deal with the subject so that we get beyond the symptoms and find out what the problem is so that we can in some manner shape or form not only you mainly respond to those that are in the pub o's but respond to those that are not committing those crimes and not being detained do you think that  if how how would you do that first by requiring all new hires to be cleared through the event or if i system so that then prosecutors actually will have a paper trail which is very difficult now to make a case against him you know how many employers are in jail that have hired undocumented i don't know but it's very hard on you don't know that but you know how many undocumented aliens are in jail and how many times i've committed multiple criminal acts because the hearings about detention of illegal law you're look you're an expert on and i'm not you know that you have you know the numbers you're clicking with numbers before of how many criminals are out there on the loose inside the caboose inside look i know t problem well depends i mean if if they're in immigration proceedings yes they should be generally be quoted to you they all broke the law since they shouldn't be here in the first place well you know ok let's put twelve million in jail let's let's detain twelve million you don't want to remove them let's think telling them how many jails that we have to belarus when the press the question is based on a false choice the choice is not between arresting and driving out all twelve million illegals tomorrow like you tell me out of a choice ten commandments tell me the other right wing legalization those are the two the way it's presented that it's sort of digital on off thing everybody's arrested and driven out tomorrow or everybody gets legalized the middle way is what's actually practical which is you detain and deport some portions significantly more than now but also make it in creasing really difficult to live a normal life as an illegal alien both by getting employment et that self deportation which is already actually happened to a significant extent over the past two years picks up and reduces the illegal population significant amount my time is up and i thank you for respond to questions i want to my i have a  question to mr souter because usually got a statement before and i want to know what he means by that the question of and if i chose not to ask them you don't have to answer the question what do you mean by high risk countries would you tell me so i want to write the list example i have a sister in law who is french great french family when france was in algeria she was born there to that family her passport carries born in algeria no real connection to the population there in a sense and yet she is of a country of particular interest and get broad place to attack those types of issues on this committee although we try sometimes ok very patiently mr green for his five minutes thank you to the gentleman from texas for being here thank you madam chair but i'm sure that it was the intelligentsia that propecia weighted the circumstance it's really not the ignorant and the those  lack of understanding that can perpetuate and humanity the intelligentsia gets the job done the others follow and i marvel at how we live by the notion that we should be our brother's keeper until we have to keep our brother you know it's easy to be your brother's keeper when you don't have to keep your br when your brother doesn't really need you when your brother has all of the good things that life can offer but when your brother is suffering needs health care when your brother is without implying that that's when you really find out who is a keeper of the brother and i like some of my colleagues find it very difficult to understand how we can believe that we can deport the millions who are here many of whom by the way are not from me does everyone agree that we have somewhere between twelve and twenty million people here if you differ raise your hand please all right so what is your number we have slightly under eleven million illegal immigrants based on our research let's take eleven million eleven million people by some standards all of whom committed crimes because they're here by the way i think that criminals ought to be prosecuted all criminals ought to be prosecuted commit a crime you would be prosecuted eleven million people do you have aside from the one person who has a model is there other imperial evidence  what we're doing is acting as a terrorist what we're doing currently if you have empirical evidence kindly raise your hand i've considered your empirical evidence you you said you had a congressman i would i would like to submit that we cannot enforce our way out of the current situation that we need to have comprehensive immigration reform to really get at the problem and that there is no feasible model to detain and deport the eleven to twenty million undocumented immigrants currently in our country but congressman could i point out that there's another metric of success well let me hear about that at a later time let me continue from a place i appreciate your commentary sir and i don't mean to be rude crude unrefined but i have to get to a point and my point is that a much more lofty level than we find ourselves having to negotiate today i sincerely believe that at some point on the infinite continuum that we call time we are all going to have to account for our time and i think that at that moment we're going to have to explain how we treated people who met us no harm who who were here by an informal invitation who were the servants they fed us they took care of us us no harm and we found every well not every but a good many means by which we could demean them and dehumanised them and our complicity is somehow completely disregarded in the entire process and when i say i'm talking about every business person that hires someone those of us who have had persons come into our homes those of us who had persons to manicure our yards we all complicit and when you don't have clean hands and you reach that point on the internet continuum i think a day of reckoning is in store for all of us and i regret that the intelligentsia finds continually finds a means by which we can justify the ill treatment of people who mean us no harm and i yield back the balance of my time i'm going to have some more questions for the record that i would really like to get the opinions across the board from all of you on but i sort of you know the numbers the numbers and of course dr i'm very interested in your report because it's lays out a way forward that the department of homeland is looking at that's why we'll have another hearing in the new year to to look at what they have to say in particular but i want to go back to mr young american woman in the italian system where the system is really you have to prove yourself out of a situation you're accused of and i'm a little bit i'm a little bit worried about this whole issue of locals and county arresting people for alleged crimes and not having the resources and so allowing them out if you will and then this sort of disconnect that's going on between some of you on the panel about what we really have and detention centers because i think mr curwen said dangerous to others about eleven percent and then  you said some are refugees some are some sort of residency some may be even citizens mr nystrom you said why shackles and or one of the two of you why shackles and  this type of thing open more open types of holding places dr and mr crane coming back to this is so dangerous to our to us work in that environment because there's so many criminals there you know so i go back to this whole thing well i would be i would like to be presumed innocent until proven before a court whether it's jury or some other choice that i'm that i'm guilty so how do we mr crane how do you as somebody who's working in the system who from your testimony seem to say we're fearful of everybody really because think most of them are criminals versus this whole people or prisoners are presumed innocent versus what mr curry nystrom are saying which is there's a lot of innocent people in the system maybe the only thing they did was break the law because they wanted to feed their families why do you react to that i think for our part we're just we're in a hard spot because we actually do see a person is proven and you know is innocent till proven guilty but at the same time we see that the system is broken that the system isn't working that these individuals are not going in front of a court of law and they're not really being clear to those charges at the same time and so now they're in our facilities so i mean that's the hard part for us now if i if i said earlier that we were kind of fearful of everyone i didn't really mean to say that the biggest thing on the facilities that we were saying is the ice is proposing to go to eighty five to ninety percent convicted criminals have broken the rules because they were looking to get jobs versus this idea of barreling down on people were getting the really really bad people were rounding them up do you really see those type of people going into a well you know we aim to please here where words were we're trying very hard to get our hands around what's going on so i want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony and of course the members for their interaction very spirited at times the members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond in writing to those questions quickly if you can and here in no further business the subcommittee is a