59

Mr. Rocers. It all depends if an investigator may—if it is an
egregious violator may only do two cases because of the undercover
and the criminal aspect of the work.

A random audit, they may get two or three a month.

Mr. Horn. So you would need to really in your judgment do the
job how many investigators in the interior?

Mr. ROGERS. There would be no problem with me to become more
efficient if I doubled my enforcement staff.

Mr. Horn. Well, OK, if you double it, you’d get up to 116 inves-
tigators or something like that?

Mr. ROGERS. In the sanctions area, right.

Mr. Horn. What are we finding the typical investigator—how
many real cases does he bring in a year and who do they go to,
the U.S. attorney for prosecution?

Mr. Rocers. Yes. The egregious ones that have been found to es-
tablish a pattern and practice go to the U.S. attorney for prosecu-
tion.

We have in the last 6 months, we have three criminal prosecu-
tions pending, one conviction already. Those extensive cases it may
take an investigator 6 months to do that type of case but yet it is
random audit with—we find about 75 percent of the employers in
compliance.

Mr. Horn. So we are dealing with 25 percent.

Mr. RoGers. Right.

Mr. Horn. Which in essence is 250,000 employers.

Mr. ROGERS. Right, but——

Mr. Horn. And we get two or three a year. .

Mr. Rocers. Right, but a fraction of that is intentional viola-
tions, the ones that are exploiting and I would, from that percent-
age I would decrease to about 5 to 6 percent those who inten-
tionally exploit the worker.

Mr. Horn. Well, when you bring these cases and your investiga-
tors walk into the assistant U.S. attorney and ask him to file, how
many have they turned down and refused to file?

Mr. Rocers. This year, sir?

Mr. Horn. Any year. Give me any one you want. I just want to
know does anybody take INS seriously in the Office of the U.S. At-
torney?

Mr. Rocers. Yes, in the recent—I can only testify to ask long as
I have been there, and that’s been March of last year.

Mr. Horn. OK.

Mr. Rocers. They have increased their prosecutions in the 1326
arena which is the re-entry after deportation, and the criminal
prosecution twofold.

Mr. Horn. Well, translate that into simple English for me. How
many employers are fined or serving jail time?

Mr. Rocers. Like I said, during that year period we’ve only pre-
sented three criminal cases, but we also have the ability to admin-
istratively fine and we administratively fine employers on a regular
basis, probably about 15 a month.

Mr. Horn. Fifteen are fined a month and what kind of fines are
we talking about?

Mr. RoGers. Between $142 million to $400, $300.


123

Congressman Stephen Horn
June 8, 1995
Page 3

crimes is another impact. Although the United States and
California have treaty agreements with the Country of Mexico which
authorizes the Mexico authorities to try an individual in Mexico
for a crime committed in the United States based upon affidavits,
the reality is that in many instances offenders cannot be located
and when they are the paperwork involved in this process is almost
overwhelming and very time consuming. Nevertheless, this office
averages between one and two such prosecutions a year and they
usually involve murder, attempted murder or child molest cases. A
slightly different aspect of this problem is the fact that our
Child Abduction Unit also averages about one or two cases a year
where one cf the parents involved violates a court order and
absconds with the child to Mexico. Although we have been very

vigorous in attempting to recover the children, it is an almost
impossible task.

Hopefully, even though these remarks have been brief, the
Committee generally perceives the magnitude of the impacts on local
communities. Therefore, I will spend just a few of my remaining
moments focusing on solutions. As I stated in my introduction, the
solutions are quite simple. Basically, their likelihood of success
will be geometrically proportional to the seriousness and
commitment on the part of the federal government to making the
fight against illegal immigration something more than simply
political rhetoric.

1. IGRATIOI ION _ SERV: 2

There are two prongs to a successful I.N.S. program. The
Sheriff has already eloquently articulated the need to enhance
resources at the border in order to discourage, reduce and prevent
illegal entry. As a corollary to any such enhanced enforcement
program must be a commitment to a streamlined, timely and efficient
I.N.S. enforcement program to pick up and deport illegal immigrants
who have been arrested, detained or incarcerated in our local
facilities. The latter without the former would be ineffective and
the former without the latter would continue to allow non-deported
recidivist illegal aliens to substantially contribute to serious
crime problems in our local communities.

2. 1 FI
I 24

The U.S, Attorney's prosecution for illegal entry into the
country is almost non-existent. While there are currently laws
making illegal entry into the country a crime, there are little
resources, commitment or interest in prosecuting for illegal
immigration status, regardless of how many times the individual has
illegally entered the country or what havoc they have wrecked while
here. I would propose that this Committee and Congress seriously
consider legislation to create a new crime with substantial
punishment for individuals who illegally enter this country after
deportation and after having previously been convicted of a felony
in any state or federal court. The legislation should create an
additional crime or enhancement to the crime described above that

= HIGH!


25

violations, we are making sure that those who violate the law will
have an increased risk of being detected and subject to sanctions
and fines. The most serious offenders will be prosecuted for

criminal violations.

At the same time, we will increase our efforts to assiat
employers in the verification of employees! immigration status and
we will reduce the number of documents which can be used as evidence

of identity and/or employment authorization.

We are now focusing in Los Angeles and New York City on repeat
sanctions violators’ and major producers and suppliers of fraudulent
documents. This pilot project is expected to demonstrate the
effectiveness and benefits of interior enforcement actions. This
data will be used to develop and implement similar projects in other

areas wheré the employment of illegal aliens is a chronic problem.

The Administration plans to invest an additional $79.5 million
in FY 1996 for enhanced INS worksite enforcement along with
increased efforts toward verification of immigration status. The
President's Budget requests 365 new INS Investigations personnel and
an additional 202 new Department of Labor (DOL) personnel. New
Immigrant Agent positions are being created to concentrate on
compliance inspections and administrative sanctions in order to free
Special Agents for more complex casework and criminal prosecutions.

The additional resources will be concentrated in the seven states

2.


COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
WILLIAM F. CLINGER, JR., Pennsylvania, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York CARDISS COLLINS, Illinois

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois TOM LANTOS, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida JOHN M. SPRATT, JR., South Carolina
WILLIAM H. ZELIFF, Jr., New Hampshire © LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York York

STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida GARY A. CONDIT, California

PETER BLUTE, Massachusetts COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia KAREN L. THURMAN, Florida
DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JON D. FOX, Pennsylvania THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin
RANDY TATE, Washington GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

DICK CHRYSLER, Michigan BARBARA-ROSE COLLINS, Michigan
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana Columbia

WILLIAM J. MARTINI, New Jersey JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida GENE GREEN, Texas

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida

MICHAEL PATRICK FLANAGAN, Illinois = FRANK MASCARA, Pennsylvania
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio —

MARSHALL “MARK” SANFORD, South BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Carolina (Independent)
ROBERT L. EHRLICH, JR., Maryland
James L. CLARKE, Staff Director
Kevin Sazo, General Counsel
dJupit McCoy, Chief Clerk
Bup MYERS, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
MICHAEL PATRICK FLANAGAN, Illinois CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

PETER BLUTE, Massachusetts MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia FRANK MASCARA, Pennsylvania

JON D. FOX, Pennsylvania ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
RANDY TATE, Washington JOHN M. SPRATT, JR., South Carolina
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire
Ex OFFICIO

WILLIAM F. CLINGER, Jr., Pennsylvania CARDISS COLLINS, Illinois
MIKE STOKER, Counsel
MARK BRASHER, Professional Staff Member
DoN GOLDBERG, Minority Staff

dD


119

of financial and personnel resources to combat the negative impacts
created by illegal immigration in this country, in the State and in
our communities.

However, in view of the astronomical amount of money that
could be saved by a meaningful full court press on illegal immigra-
tion, I believe in the long run it would be a cost effective program.

Moreover, I do not believe that either this committee nor Con-
gress should ignore the negative social implications created by a
policy of encouraging benign neglect of illegal immigration to the
point where it substantially detracts from the public support and
confidence in the ability of Government to protect them from the
negative financial, criminal and quality of life impacts created by
the current illegal immigration crisis.

I have a couple of comments, Mr. Chairman, about some of the
things that have come up this morning.

Mr. Horn. Sure. I would be glad to hear them.

Mr. SNEDDON. Mr. Flanagan, in response to your hypothetical to
the Immigration and Naturalization Service individual, about the
identification and that you want to hire somebody in Chicago, I
shouldn’t think—and I’m not looking at it as an INS person; I’m
looking at it from the big picture point of view as an employer, and
my dad was a small businessman, so I know what it is like to em-
ploy. That’s a simple thing.

Everybody needs a Social Security card. You need it as an em-
ployer because you have to pay the taxes and withhold taxes, and
we all know that because of what has happened here about some
politicians who have hired maids that came in, and didn’t take it
out.

So you as an employer, you would want that protection in any
case. So I don’t see this identification issue as being a major thing,
of asking what you would be required by law and the IRS to do if
you want to hire somebody.

I don’t see where that has anything to do with making suspects
of employers. They’re already suspects by IRS if you don’t withhold
it. Besides that, you couldn’t hold elected office. That’s what has
happened in California. That is one aspect of it.

The other thing is I would like to make sure that this committee
notes and the Congress knows who reads these things that it is
nice that INS is going to get stipulations for deportation, but I can
tell you stipulations don’t work.

For years in Santa Barbara County when we had people con-
victed of crimes that we knew they were illegals, that is exactly
what would happen. We would put a term alternate delivery condi-
tion of probation on their case that they not return to the United
States. They would be back and caught before the ink was dry on
the stipulation.

So it is important that people understand that those are only as
good as the enforcement actions and the seriousness of the commit-
ment of the law enforcement agencies behind them to do some-
thing.

I just want to emphasize that what we have here is a revolving
door situation and I think it is only going to be cured by a full
court press and many faceted enhanced enforcement presence in


68

indirectly affect that, I suppose, with the state of our foreign policy,
with the state of our foreign aid.

Sometimes it appears that we’ve done more to send people out
because of the perverse aspects of foreign aid than otherwise, but
nonetheless, we recognize, must recognize that as indirect at best.

In terms of the pull factors, those which relate to the attraction
of people in this country, I would say that that is where we can
impact most directly. Both of those things come into play at the
same time. We have to consider both of them it seems to me, par-
ticularly when we deal with the question of pull factors. We have
to deal with the question of the attraction of employment in this
country.

That is why I believe when we passed the 1986 immigration law
it was well-balanced in part because we said that for many who
had been here illegally for many, many years, generations, in large
numbers, that we would have a one-time-only legalization program.
I think that was important. I’d like to believe that I garnered suffi-
cient votes to create the margin for passage for that. I thought it
was important.

But I also thought it was important that it be one time only. You
do it two or three or four times and you have a rolling legalization
program. Frankly, any prospect that we ever are going to have for
controlling our borders is out the window because you would react
as I would react in a country outside of the United States; if you
wanted to come here and you saw the United States would every
few years have a legalization program, you would do your
darnedest to get yourself and your family members over the border
and wait for the next legalization program.

At the same time, we also balanced off with enhanced enforce-
ment: employer sanctions. I was not elected to the Congress in my
first term with the idea that I was going to support employer sanc-
tions, but I came to that position recognizing that it was important
if we were going to deal with the pull factors.

Why have employer sanctions not worked? I believe they have
not been effective due to the lack of integrity of the verification doc-
uments.

As members of the committee know, producing false documents
has become a cottage industry throughout California and else-
where, and to a great degree this has undermined the effectiveness
of the sanction.

I would hope that the committee would consider a proposal I rec-
ommended a decade ago as a Member of Congress which would in-
volve the issuance of tamper-proof Social Security cards, and might
even borrow the concept of a toll-free 800 number where employers
could verify the authenticity of the card, the identity of its holder,
and whether the individual is eligible for employment in the Unit-
ed States.

As you know, the U.S. Commission on Immigration reform has
endorsed this concept.

Since this is a document that all workers are presently required
to possess, not to carry on them at all times—and we ought to
make this very, very clear: there is a major distinction between
these people and a national ID card.


719

Efforts should also be made to expand the use of bilateral
treaties that would enable aliens to serve their sentences in their
countries of origin. These are ideas that have received the
support of the U.S. Immigration Commission.

I am convinced that we are making additional progress with
respect to illegal alien felons who, following conviction and
deportation, return to the U.S. in violation of federal law. Last
June, I was joined by Joe Sandoval, Secretary of the California
Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, in requesting federal action
to apprehend and prosecute 1,226 illegal alien felons who had been
deported following release on parole from state prisons, only to
return to the U.S. illegally and begin reporting to state parole
agents. As you know, a previously-deported felon who illegally
returns to the U.S. is guilty of a federal crime punishable by up
to 20 years in prison. The fear of violating state parole,
however, appears to be taken more seriously by these alien felons
than the threat of a 20 year federal prison sentence as evidenced
by their willingness to report to parole agents upon returning to
California.

Recently I met with Alan Bersin, the U.S. Attorney in San
Diego, who has stepped up federal prosecution of previously-
deported felons who illegally re-enter the country. Mr. Bersin, I
believe, shares my concern with respect to vigorous federal
prosecution not only of those felons who are apprehended at the
border, but of previously-deported felons who have reached the
interior of California and now represent a significant threat to
the public safety and cost to our taxpayers. I have also received
a positive response to this problem from Michael Yamaguchi, the
U.S. Attorney in San Francisco, who is interested in helping
develop a more effective system of information sharing to identify
and locate previously-deported felons. The responses of these two
federal prosecutors to our concerns is encouraging and I am now
quite hopeful that we are on the road to successfully addressing
this problem through increased federal prosecution.

I am also encouraged by the increased resources being directed
by the U.S. Justice Department to the Border Patrol and INS, though
these agencies need far more to do the job adequately.

Alien smuggling

Another area that warrants prioritization concerns the
trafficking in human cargo in alien smuggling operations. While
the Congress recently enacted enhanced penalties with respect to
these cases, there is much more that needs to be done. Emphasis
should be given to preventive action ranging from increased
diplomatic efforts with foreign governments to involvement of U.S.
intelligence agencies to gather information about alien smuggiing
operations in order to stop smuggling activities before they occur.

6


15

committed ourselves to securing the border and amassing the
resources needed to do it, we also committed ourselves to having our
work checked. We promised that we would develop the ability to
continually analyze and monitor our effectiveness. We did this in
order to change tactics when needed, and to demonstrate that the INS
is a good investment. With this in mind, we created an in-house
research capacity -- separate from the Border Patrol -- to work with
academics, law enforcement experts, and military analysts as well as
affected parties in the field, to gauge our success or failure.
What we wanted were independent, solid studies of how we were

doing.

A study of Operation Gatekeeper, overseen by Dr. Robert Bach,
the new Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning,
has provided INS Commissioner Meissner with data that indicates that
Operation Gatekeeper is working as planned. It is deterring and
moving traffic out of the nation's busiest border station at
Imperial Beach eastward to areas where aliens can be more easily

apprehended.

These conclusions are not conjecture. They are hard facts,
based on the information obtained from private and university
researchers, independently studying migration trends at the San
Diego/Mexico border, as well as INS researchers working hard to make
sure that we are doing our job. Let me take a moment to discuss how

we know that Operation Gatekeeper is working.

wn


128

Mr. Tuomas. I hate to use the trivial term of “Band-Aid” ap-
proach, but in a way it is. It is only helping us get through the
problems until we find the solutions. Regulations aside, the re-
sources have to be absolutely the key in this area, and you have
to be able to attack the problem to stop it.

There is a lot of hoopla over 700 agents being hired. If you take
that over the different States, that is 100 agents for California, and
15 investigators, which isn’t a whole heck-of-a-lot when you're look-
ing at the type of interior problems we have to face in a minimum
of 100 California jails. That doesn’t include the State system.

I think the laws are there if we are able to enforce them. It is
the same thing on employer sanctions. I think if you have the abil-
ity to enforce it, then you will find that we’re going to make some
progress.

The district attorney stated that basically noninvolvement in try-
ing to enforce the laws over the years has made a joke out of the
whole system.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Chairman Horn alluded to that earlier. You and
the district attorney have given excellent testimony about the im-
portance of the localities identifying the problems at the very base
level and having INS act on that, and not their desire not to, but
their inability to because of the lack of resources.

Mr. THomaAs. I think we’ve made that point. It is because of the
lack of resources. In talking with other personnel, in dealing with
them in our jail, they have been more than cooperative, but they
just don’t have the number of people to be able to respond. We re-
lease people before they have the opportunity to be able to inter-
view them.

I know that was brought up before, Chairman Horn, on how
they're getting out. We’re overcrowded like any other jail. We're
under court order that we’re not allowed to let anybody sleep on
the floor. We regularly release inmates prior to their release date
as a matter of routine.

As people are coming in for minor offenses, we don’t do a ques-
tionnaire whether they are legal or not. We do not even take it into
consideration when we do a release on their own recognizance or
a release by citation. So there are a lot of people coming through
the system and getting out before we could even make that identi-
fication, which I alluded to the direct connection part of CAL ID
which would allow us to make those identifications if that were
possible.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I think the answer to my question is obvious
from the testimony, but I will ask it pointedly anyway. If the law
permitted you to do that, would that be something you would be
willing to undertake?

Mr. THOMAS. If the law permitted me to do what?

Mr. FLANAGAN. To go ahead and identify these people.

Mr. THomas. Absolutely.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Thank you. I will follow up on one point that Mr.
Flanagan elicited, and that is you have a classification system;
you're under a court order; you do let a number of people out.

Has electronic incapacitation been used at all in Santa Barbara
County?


74

TESTIMONY OF CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL DAN LUNGREN
BEFORE THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Bellflower, California
June 12, 1995

Thank you, Chairman Horn. It is a pleasure to be here, back
in my old congressional district with you to exchange views on an
issue that is vital to all Californians. I applaud you for
bringing this committee outside Washington’s Beltway in order to
get a better grasp of the challenges we face with respect to
illegal immigration. I recall thinking while I was in the Congress
that if we moved our nation’s Capitol to California, this complex
Problem would have received the attention it deserves far earlier.

Upon being elected to Congress in 1978, I sought to serve on
the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and
International Law. At that time there were no Californians on the
subcommittee, and I felt it was important for me to change that.

During that time we were confronted with a number of daunting
challenges which gave rise to the Refugee Act of 1980, and to the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. I can tell you from
experience that your work in this area will most likely be a
thankless task, given the complex and emotional nature of this
issue. The factors that contribute to the movement of our fellow
human beings across political boundaries reflect the hopes and
aspirations about life that we all share and are sometimes as
strong as the instinct to survive.

In this respect, democratic societies have the difficult task
of balancing our shared value of compassion with the responsibility
of a nation state to protect the integrity of its borders. There
are few questions confronting policymakers that rise to this level
of significance in terms of who we will be and how immigration
policy will be integrated into our notions about national
Sovereignty.

In this respect, 1 think that Father Hesburgh and the Select
Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy had it right in
concluding that if we are to keep the front door of legal
immigration open, we must close the back door of illegal
immigration. While this may be a statement of the obvious, it is
one that is worth restating in the current environment where the
distinction between legal and illegal immigration is all too often
lost in the heat of rhetorical excess.


32

Q. How many unauthorized alien workers have you caught in worksite operations?

A, In Fiscal Year 1995, 2,536 unauthorized alien workers were apprehended in worksite
enforcement operations in the Western Region (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska,

Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii). For the same period, the Los Angeles District Office made
269 worksite apprehensions.



103

Children (AFDC), food stamps and Medicaid. These cases are
classified as child-only cases. Between 1985 and 1992, the child-
only cases accounted for more than one-third of the county’s
caseload growth. No calculations have been made of the estimated
direct cost to the county. The state and federal governments

provide most of the funding for these services.

Other miscellaneous health and welfare costs include tuberculosis
control and programs for the homeless. The direct county cost of
the tuberculosis program is anticipated to be $280,000 in fiscal
year 1995-96. A study conducted in 1994 estimated that 50% to 608
of those infected with TB were illegal aliens. For every TB case,
another 10 people are exposed and TB is, thus, moving into the

general population and the number of cases is increasing.

The county runs two homeless shelters in the winter months. In a
survey conducted in 1993, 48% of those in the shelter were newly
arrived in the area and 40% of those in the shelter indicated that
they were from Mexico. In the Santa Barbara shelter, 23% were
newly arrived and 30% of the total said they originated in Mexico.
There is no way to quantify the precise number of these new
arrivals who are illegal aliens and no data is available as to the
immigration status of the shelter residents. The cost for the

program is $132,000.

The largest costs for the County are the costs associated with the


39

is needed. Social Security numbers may be useful as an identifier
but only if they are verified on line by the SSN.

The large variety of documents INS issues makes it difficult for
us to screen the legal presence with confidence. It would be helpful
if the identifying information on INS documents is standardized
and accompanied by a photo security feature. Fewer types of docu-
ments issued would make screening less error-prone.

We would like to see INS expand ASVI to increase the electronic
verification rate to nearly 100 percent to reduce manual verifica-
tion costs and speed up the process. We would like INS to have
legal authority to confiscate driver licenses when they are deport-
ing illegal aliens.

All the data bases and communications systems in the world will
not prevent the clever and resourceful individual from assuming
multiple identities with quality fraudulent documents. We need the
ability to tie the documents back to a unique physiological identi-
fier commonly referred to as biometric technology.

All of these suggestions and the establishment of a national iden-
tifier need to be accomplished without denigrating the privacy of
the individual. Protections must remain in place and perhaps be
strengthened as data bases are linked to provide greater govern-
mental access to individual records and information.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of indi-
viduals are law abiding and not seeking to defraud anyone. We
need to find a way to reduce the drain on public resources, increase
public protection and still retain the privacy protections. All of this
must also be accomplished without increasing unfunded Federal
mandates and by balancing the need for better systems with practi-
cality.

In closing, I wish to express California’s sincere desire to share
with you and others throughout the country our experiences as we
work together toward an identification system using today’s tech-
nologies. We want to participate with others in efforts to continue
to improve the quality of identification and our ability to deter
raud,

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ricchiazzi follows:]


64

Within the last 2 years here in California we are seeing a tre-
mendous turnaround of cooperation with the local, State primarily
in assisting us in controlling illegal immigration so we have seen
a big turnaround coming back again on that curve and assisting
the U.S. Border Patrol.

Johnny.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes. I'll add to that. Before being a chief in San
Diego I was a chief for 5 years in Imperial-El Centro sector and in
San Diego I find it unprecedented the amount of cooperation that
we are having from every law enforcement agency.

We are part of all the task forces in San Diego. We are working
with the chief of police in San Diego now with an officer assigned
around the clock to respond to suspected illegal aliens. The police
departments, the sheriff's departments and officials are furnishing
us with information on illegal aliens and we are looking at en-
hancements to that so we are very pleased with the direction
things are going.

Mr. Horn. Well, that’s good news, Mr. Williams, to see that turn-
around. | suspect Imperial isn’t doing that because they are using
them pollinating palm trees or shade trees or whatever. [Laughter.]

Mr. WILLIAMS. Over in Imperial right now there is a project
going on where there’s 15 agencies combined in a task force toward
drug interception and as part of that, an outcropping of that is in-
formation on illegal aliens and the smuggling of aliens, so 15 agen-
cies working together on a focused effort is really something.

Mr. Horn. Well, that’s good news.

Mr. Flanagan.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Congressman.

Let me preface my remarks by saying that usually which you do
not ask about you tacitly agree with and approve, so if I seem a
little vitriolic today it’s not because I want fluid borders. No one
wants rigid borders more than J do and the Gatekeeper program
and other things that you have worked on are outstanding achieve-
ments forward and anything you do to help control the flow of ille-
gal immigrants is fine. I am merely continuing to question the effi-
cacy of the employer's role and in augmenting and making that
easier.

In that regard, I have a hypothetical for Mr. Rogers. Maybe you
could handle it.

Illinois is the fourth-largest repository in the Nation for illegal
immigration—where I am from. It is in the middle of the country
and the vast majority of the immigration, illegal immigration that
we get there is from Europe and I am an employer. I am a good
guy. I don’t want illegals working for me. I want to control them
and turn them in and either get them documented or get them out
of the country because they should not be here, and I have got a
small shop and I have got 25 people working for me and a guy
comes in with a thick Irish accent and smiles at me broadly and
says Mike, I want a job.

I say well, OK, are you a citizen?

He says yes. .

What do I do? I’ve got sanctions hanging over me. I’ve got the
price of doing business staring me down the throat here. Well,
what is my recourse? Where do I go? Do I take him at face value


35

Border Patrol Agents

* Includes Miami, New Orleans, Livermore, and Puerto Rico Sectors
** Excludes Headquarters, Regional Offices, and Pilots

SOURCE: Budget Systems and Reports Branch (FY 92, 95, & 96)
Five Year Border Patrol Staffing Plan (FY 97)


67

our borders. A family in Africa, a family in Asia, a family in East-
ern and Western Europe ought to have the same belief that they
will be treated as fairly as anybody else to come to the United
States, and if they have to wait in line because there are many
that are there, it is easier for them to accept that fact if they know
they’re being treated as fairly as anybody else. So I think we ought
to understand that.

The fiscal impact of illegal immigration upon the taxpayers in
California cannot be discounted. I have in my prepared comments
mentioned the cost articulated by the Governor in his budget pro-
posal. Let me just concentrate on one area, and that is our State
prison system.

We house approximately 19,200 illegal immigrant felons rep-
resenting about 14 percent of our adult inmate population. To put
this in perspective, these illegal alien felons could virtually fill
eight prisons in California at 100 percent capacity.

To put another way, we would not have to build eight prisons,
maintain eight prisons, if, in fact, we did not have the presence of
these illegal alien felons in our State.

You have to realize in California that only 25 percent approxi-
mately of all felons go to State prison, so I’m talking about of that
25 percent that go to State prison, presumably the worst of the
worst, 19,200 we believe are illegal immigrant felons. Just 7 years
ago the illegal immigrant population in California was estimated at
5,700, so you can see the tremendous jump that we have had.

Fiscal cost to the State for incarceration and parole related costs
has jumped from $122 million to $503 million in that period; one-
half a billion dollars in California tax dollars are being spent to
house illegal alien felons.

So while it is not the vast majority of people in our prison sys-
tem, and sometimes people heighten this and suggest that’s the
case—and I do not want to suggest it is the case—nonetheless, it
is significant.

I would also like to remind the committee of another fact, and
I’ve been asked to do this by local law enforcement. Another incar-
ceration cost frequently omitted from this debate is the cost to
counties for incarceration of illegal aliens in the local jails. Local
jails serve the purpose of holding people pending trial, if, in fact,
they do not or cannot make bail, but it also is the place where peo-
ple serve their time for less than a felony.

In some cases during the pendency of trial and so forth, it lasts
long enough that they get credit for that time for serving their fel-
ony convictions.

According to the State board of corrections, local jails in Califor-
nia housed an average of 6,625 illegal immigrants per day in 1993,
at a cost of $120 million annually.

You know and you've heard of the cost impact on our schools. So
when you take all these things together, it is obvious to say that
in California we are impacted as much as—well, actually, more
than any other State.

What do we do? It seems to me we have to recognize, as sociolo-
gists do, that there are push factors and pull factors. Push factors
in the sending countries, difficulties in living in those locations for
economic reasons, political reasons, other kinds of reasons. We can


104

criminal justice system because virtually all costs are direct
county costs and are not offset by state or federal revenue.
According to the state Department of Corrections, 18% of Santa
Barbara County commitments to the State Prison System in October
1993 had INS holds. In 1993, 12% of youths in Santa Barbara
Juvenile Institutions are undocumented. These rates were applied
to the total adult and juvenile criminal justice costs in the
county which include all costs of misdemeanors and felonies. The
total estimate of costs associated with these services was $10.5
million in 1993-94 fiscal year. This includes the costs of court
special services, district attorney, public defender, sheriff and
custody, and juvenile institutions and probation services. Santa
Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon and Sheriff Jim Thomas
will provide testimony about the fiscal and practical impact the

illegal immigration issue is having on their departments.

A most significant impact on localities is the cost of providing a
public education for the children of illegal aliens. In the fall
of 1994, the General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that 336,489
illegal alien children attended California's public schools out of
a total of 5,166,261 total students which means 6.5% of those
enrolled were illegal alien students. The total number of limited
English proficient (LEP) students was 1.2 million. One can draw the
conclusion, therefore, that most LEP students are US born children

or legal immigrant children.


126

Mr. Horn. We thank you. All three of you have given excellent
testimony from your various perspectives as officials, and it has
been most helpful, and we're delighted to have it pinned down to
specific instances, and what you’ve encountered in terms of co-
operation of the Federal agencies. That is basically the purpose of
the hearing.

We want to make sure that INS has the resources that they need
to get the job done. Social Security, same thing. There is no excuse
for noncooperation unless Congress passed a law that prohibited
cooperation. They might be, in Social Security’s case, interpreting
that law, but certainly it is laughable that they can’t come in.

If it didn’t make me so angry, my usual, normal low blood pres-
sure has just risen when I hear of an example like that. If they
can't tell and swear what is an official legitimate Social Security
card versus what is a fraudulent document, that is a disservice to
Social Security, a disservice to the county and State of California.
We will pursue that one, I can assure you, coming up tomorrow
morning.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Flanagan for ques-
tions.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I have a couple of questions, but first a rejoinder
to your commentary.

To provide a tamper-proof taxing document, which is what a So-
cial Security card is, is not the same thing as having to dem-
onstrate citizenship as a condition of employment. They’re not the
same thing. And to be able to provide a document to an employer
so that you can be taxed properly, that you are the individual dem-
onstrated on that is one thing. To have to prove that you are a citi-
zen to be employed is another one entirely. The distinction is not
artificial.

They are very different things you are asking to be required
through the use of that Social Security card, which card was never
intended to be a demonstration of your citizen, but which was in-
tended to be an object by which you can be taxed.

Mr. SNEDDON. I think in the context of the law you're referring
to, however, it is the same thing because all you have to do to pro-
tect yourself as an employer is ask the person for a Social Security
card. You don’t have to ask them whether they're a citizen or not.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I will tell you, though, that if it turns out that
you have a fraudulent Social Security card——

Mr. SNEDDON. You won't be prosecuted for that.

Mr. FLANAGAN. You might not be prosecuted, but you might be
regulatory fined by the INS, and that is a problem. I can give you
legions of examples where that has happened. That is the difficulty
with the laws.

We have heard from all of you on the great difficulty laid upon
you by the Federal Government of the United States to make you
enforcement agents of INS regulations.

Apart from moneys that I believe should be forthcoming to you
to deal with the problems in the jails or the problems in the school,
as the case may be, for the Federal Government’s failure to do its
job, and that is to control legal immigration, what further would
you have the Federal Government do?


45

step towards solving the problem of linking identification documents to correct
individuals. Further research and development is needed to provide what may
be the single most effective means of preventing fraudulent personal
identification documents from being issued.

All of these suggestions and the establishment of national standards must be
accomplighed without denigrating the privacy of the individual. Protections
must remain in place and perhaps be strengthened as databases are linked to
provide greater governmental access to individual records and information. We
must not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of individuals are law
abiding, and not seeking to defraud anyone. We need to find a way to reduce
the drain on public resources, increase public protection, and still retain the
privacy protections. All of this must also be accomplished without increasing
unfunded federal mandates, and by balancing the need for better systems with
practicality,

In closing, I appreciate the opportunity to present this testimony today.
California is interested in continuing to improve the quality of identification
and our ability to deter fraud. We are willing to cooprate with others in this
effort.

6/8/95 final


87

THE HON. BILL JONES
PAGE 2

‘THESE INVESTIGATORS ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON MORE THAN 170 CASES —~
32 OF WHICH INVOLVE MORE THAN 300 ALLEGATIONS OF NON-CITIZENS EITHER VOTING
OR BEING REGISTERED To VOTE.

I Is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL THAT WE BE ABLE TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR
Not THE PERSONS INVOLVED ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. IF NON-CITIZENS
ARE FOUND To HAVE VOTED, OR To HAVE REGISTERED TO VOTE, THEN TO PROTECT
THE ELECTIONS PROCESS THEY MusT BE CAUGHT AND PROSECUTED, ON THE OTHER
HAND, IF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN WRONGLY ACCUSED, THEN WE NEED To BE ABLE TO
DETERMINE THE FACTS OF THE CASE AND CLEAR THESE PEOPLE FROM SUSPICION.

UNFORTUNATELY SOME OF THE INFORMATION WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD ON
‘THESE Cases Is NOT AVAILABLE TO US. OUR INVESTIGATORS HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO
Get THE COOPERATION FROM THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE THAT
THEY NEED TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT THESE PEOPLE BROKE THE LAW.

OUR REPEATED REQUESTS FOR ACCESS TO FILES -- OR AT LEAST
DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE RELATED TO ALLEGATIONS UNDER INVESTIGATION -- HAVE
BEEN MET WITH DELAY OR OUTRIGHT REFUSAL.

‘THis DELAY Is UNREASONABLE AND COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE TO OUR GOAL OF
PREVENTING FRAUD AND CRIMINAL MANIPULATION OF ELECTIONS IN OUR STATE -- A
SITUATION THAT I BELIEVE OUR CURRENT CONGRESS WILL NOT TOLERATE.

T CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THE NEED For INS RECORDS To BE MADE
READILY AVAILABLE FOR THESE LEGITIMATE LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES.

THIS ACCESS AND COOPERATION Is NOT WITHOUT PRECEDENT IN OUR STATE.
‘THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES CURRENTLY HAS IMPLEMENTED A
WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE 1.N.S. FOR A SIMILAR GOAL. THE RELATIONSHIP
THAT WE SEEK WITH I.N.S. WOULD BE AN EXTENSION OF THAT COOPERATIVE EFFORT.

MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE, It 1s MY HOPE THAT
N.S. AND THE CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE CAN ESTABLISH A.
PRODUCTIVE WORKING RELATIONSHIP, SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT Is ESSENTIAL TO OUR
TASK -- WHICH IS To ENSURE THE INTEGRITY OF OUR ELECTIONS, AND RESTORE PUBLIC
FAITH IN THE SYSTEM.

To DaTE, Our EFFORTS To ESTABLISH SUCH A RELATIONSHIP HAVE FAILED TO.
MOVE THE LN.S., AND For THAT REASON I AM TURNING TO THE CONGRESS AND YOUR
LEADERSHIP.


alone. Each element is part of the broadest and most integrated
plan ever developed to attack the problem of illegal immigration
within the United States, at its borders, and in source

countries.

Californians have heard a great deal about Operation
Gatekeeper, our ongoing campaign of deterrence at the California
border that began in October. It has redirected the flow of
illegal aliens, increased the seizure of contraband and provided
law and order to the border itself. We know this from our own
data and from the reports we receive from California lew
enforcement officials and residents who tell us they see the

difference.

But we at the INS know the hest enforcement strategy is one
that tries to prevent illegal immigration before it reaches our
borders. With this in mind, the INS integrated enforcement
strategy includes cooperative efforts with foreign governments and
international airlines to identify and foil smuggling rings before

they can smuggle illegal aliens across the border.

Similarly, the INS has deployed significantly increased
resources to enforce immigration laws at our borders and in the
U.S. interior, In particular, we are aggressively attacking the
people who profit most from illegal immigration -- criminal

aliens who make a career of breaking our laws; employers likely to


WHAT RESOURCES SHOULD BE USED TO
CONTROL ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AT THE
BORDER AND WITHIN THE INTERIOR?

MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1995

HoUuSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY,
CoMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT,
Bellflower, CA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8 a.m., at the Wil-
liam Bristol Civic Auditorium, Bellflower, CA, Steve Horn (chair-
man of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn and Flanagan.

Staff present: Mike Stoker, counsel; Mark Brasher, professional
staff member; and Don Goldberg, minority staff.

Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on Gov-
ernment Management, Information, and Technology will come to
order.

We are meeting today in Bellflower to consider what resources
should be used to control illegal immigration at the border and in
the interior. Nearly 4 million undocumented alien people live in the
United States. Over 1¥% million or about 1 in 20 residents live in
California. The General Accounting Office conservatively estimates
the cost to the American taxpayers of illegal immigration in Cali-
fornia alone at $2¥5 billion a year. Another study suggests the cost
nationwide approaches $4 billion, $3 billion annually for education
and one-half billion dollars for public assistance and incarceration.

The 1990 census woke up Congress and the rest of the country
to our startling illegal immigration problems. California’s seats in
the House of Representatives jumped from 45 to 52 between the
census of 1980 and 1990. Reliable estimates suggest at least of the
seven new California seats are due to our illegal population gain
in the last decade. In response, the rest of the Nation is finally and
belatedly beginning to pay attention, as evidenced by President
Clinton’s recent immigration enforcement improvements proposal
which we will hear about this morning.

To begin, three officials from the U.S. Immigration and Natu-
ralization Service’s Western Region will explain current and
planned INS strategies for controlling illegal immigration at the
border and in the interior. California Department of Motor Vehi-
cle’s assistant director, Frank Ricchiazzi, will next address the de-
partment’s project for changing to counterfeit resistant drivers li-
censes as identification cards. California’s attorney general, Dan

i)


42

verification.

When we started verifying an applicant's legal presence, we also revised the
list of documents we accept to establish identity. We eliminated foreign birth
certificates because they are not proof of legal presence. We also no longer
accept documents such as school records or baptismal certificates. We
eliminated these documents because they are not verifiable. We trained our
field personnel to recognize fraudulent documents, and the various security
features used. This training mirrored the Fraudulent identification Prevention
Program initiated by the American Association of Motor Vehicle
Administrators (AAMVA) in the early 1990's. Since that training took place,
we have seen an increase in the detection of fraudulent documents, We cannot
accurately track the volume of attempts to submit fraudulent documenta,
because we refuse to accept fraudulent appearing documents before the
application processing even begins.

National efforts by AAMVA and the states have produced standards for
digitizing and encoding the licenses, and standards for information exchange.
We already have communication systems in place on a national and
international basis for the exchange of driver data. That exchange should
continue to be limited to the purpose of authenticating identification and
driving privilege data elements in order to protect the constitutional right to
privacy.

‘These efforts to strengthen the integrity of the identification documents issued
by the DMV have far reaching impact, as will any national effort to do the
same. They tie together to provide a secure system from an internal
perspective. They have improved our ability to provide secure identification
through improved screening, improved documentation and tamper proof and
fraud resistant documents. These efforts are neceseary because the identity
document facilitates access to jobs, entitlements, and credit, all of which have
costly consequences if access is obtained fraudulently.

It’s crucial to focus on coordination efforts external to the individual
identification agencies to further enhance identification integrity. Therefore, I
would now like to focus my comments on what additional changes are needed to
truly achieve a secure, quality identification system within the US. These
comments are based on our experience with personal identification, experience
that we believe relevant to the issue of secure identification.

We believe that states cannot achieve the most significant improvements in
personal identification on their own. A state as large as California has an
ability to perhaps roar the loudest, and achieve some gains, but together the
50 states, with national support, are more likely to achieve greater uniformity
more quickly.

Cons.stency in identification requirements and verification make sense. They
will be accomplished, however, by jurisdictions with differing systems and
practices. Many states produce licenses in the office and release them


73

Another option which should be considered by this commitment
and others is encouragement of the use of the RICO statute against
alien smugglers.

It just seems to me that so much has been done over the last
number of years, but so much more needs to be done. I would hope
that we would look at all of these things and work with them.

As [ end my statement, I would suggest that we not dismiss the
suggestion that a guest worker program may make some sense. |
have been working on this since 1978, not because I want to take
jobs away from Americans but because the reality exists, continues
to exist, that large numbers of foreign laborers, the largest number
coming from Mexico, have come to this State, to the country, but
particularly this State, in this century, to work.

They have worked in large numbers in agriculture. I think they
work in even larger numbers in agriculture now.

Now, you can bemoan the fact that Americans ought to be doing
it; you can bemoan the fact that college and high school students
used to do it; you can bemoan the fact that we don’t have as many
farms as we used to. The fact of the matter is, there apparently is
a need that exists and that need is filled by labor from outside this
country.

We can either close our eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist, or we
can attempt to regulate it, which I think does several things. One,
it allows the United States to determine policy. Two, it has a sys-
tem by which we would have some incentive for people returning
to their home country. Three, it would give or grant legal status
of a temporary nature to individuals who were here working, and
that status would allow them all the protections of the law that
would pertain otherwise.

I can’t see how some who say they are concerned about the condi-
tions of workers today believe that those folks achieve a better situ-
ation by being here illegally than they would be legally. In re-
sponse to those who say, well, if they’re going to work here for a
short period of time they ought to be able to come in and live per-
manently, I say that is another debate for another time.

I always recognize that we have men and women in uniform who
are required to work for long periods of time in foreign countries,
some under the seas, without seeing their families, and we do not
think that is too much of a sacrifice for them to make.

I've always wondered why we think it is acceptable for those who
defend this country, and yet we say for others it is either all or
nothing. Either they come in for a full legalization program and
preferred status compared to everybody else in the world, or we
don’t allow them in at all.

We ought to recognize the reality of the situation and do some-
thing rather than disclaim one another in rhetorical excess.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lungren follows:]


82

was directly tied to a particular employer had little opportunity
or incentive to lodge a complaint against an abusive employer.

A modern guest worker program, or "campanero" program, would
prevent such an abusive scenario, allowing laborers to act as free
agents who can go from one employer to another and enjoy all the
protections of state and federal labor laws accorded to legal
workers.

The guest worker program simply would allow for the current
practice -- and the long-term reality -- of migrant farm labor to
continue, with the imprint of illegality on both immigrants and
employers removed, and with the added benefit of an incentive for
migrant laborers to return home. The Los Angeles Times, in a July,
1994 editorial calling for “adult solutions" in the illegal
immigration debate, stated that an effective guest worker program
“could be a solution to perhaps 50% of the problem: a treaty to
legalize the flow of Mexican workers into -- but also eventually
out of -- the United States."

The question we must address is whether the current system
should continue. Our current system encourages an underground
labor supply which is unregulated and therefore vulnerable to
exploitation. It also places employers in a Catch-22: They are
expected to hire only legal residents or face federal sanctions,
yet we have failed to provide a means of accurately determining
workers’ legal status. 1 believe that we must confront the
historically constant reality of migrant labor in this country and
act to bring it above ground, rather than continuing to silently
tolerate the current system with all its fraud, illegality and
misuse. A well-regulated guest worker program should be part of
the solution.

Mr. Chairman, you have undertaken a huge task, and I again
applaud you and the members of this Committee for your willingness
to engage in the search for solutions. I believe that what you are
doing today contributes to an intelligent, reasoned debate about
illegal immigration in this country and protects our nation’s
legacy as an inclusive society which welcomes legal immigration.
Thank you very much.

Hae


WHAT RESOURCES SHOULD BE USED TO
CONTROL ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AT THE
BORDER AND WITHIN THE INTERIOR?

HEARING

BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT
REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

JUNE 12, 1995

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

te

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
39-652 WASHINGTON : 1997

For sale by the U.S. Gove
‘Superintendent of Documents, Congressional

ISBN 0-16-054401-7

Vashington, DC 20402



108

Mr. Horn. We thank you. Let me just ask for the population of
Santa Barbara County so the reader of the hearing and the listener
today has an idea of the population there.

Mr. StTarreL. 400,000.

Mr. Horn. All right. That is two-thirds of a congressional dis-
trict. A congressional district in this State is roughly 600,000.

Mr. Horn. Is Ventura still in yours?

Mr. Stavrr. Actually, the very small part of Santa Barbara
County, Carpinteria, ties in with Ventura, but the majority of
Santa Barbara County is tied in with San Luis Obispo County.

Mr. Horn. I think it is very interesting because those living in
Los Angeles can tie it in with the 38th Congressional District
which is all of Downey, all of Bellflower, all of Paramount, 70 per-
cent of Lakewood, all of Signal Hill, 70 percent of Long Beach, and
5,000 in downtown San Pedro.

If you applied the Santa Barbara figures at even a conservative
estimate, it gives you an idea of how these demands on public serv-
ices are spread throughout the congressional districts of California.
Essentially, the Santa Barbara, that is two-thirds of this congres-
sional district. As Senator Dirkson said, if you add it up, you’re
talking about real money. I think we are talking about that.

Now the sheriff of Santa Barbara County, Mr. Jim Thomas. We
are delighted to have you with us today.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Flanagan.

We all know that illegal immigration is a tremendous burden to
all of our law and justice agencies. However, I speak to you today
as a sheriff of Santa Barbara County, and my comment may or
may not reflect valid concerns of my fellow law enforcement admin-
istrators.

My comments may also be an affirmation of the current planning
of INS administration and staff. If so, take these statements as the
point of view of a customer of theirs.

As you know California sheriffs are responsible for the operation
of county jail systems as well as criminal investigation and patrol
functions in the unincorporated areas of each county, and also in-
cludes contract cities.

My discussion will focus on three areas that have a direct impact
on both of those broad responsibilities. First, a large number of ille-
gal aliens in our jails; second, the increase in the illegal criminal
element in narcotic and gang investigations; and third, the lack of
effective, illegal employment investigations.

There is, however, one common element between the three areas
of concern. That is INS staffing. It appears the focus of additional
personnel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is on the
border with Mexico. This is not a criticism with INS, but I believe
that this is probably the result of the direction that they have been
receiving or felt they had been receiving from the Government.

And while that addresses illegal entry into the United States, it
does not address the problem of criminally deportable who are al-
ready in California county jails and communities. It also does not
address the ability to use INS investigators or agents on local and
regional gang and narcotic test forces, or their ability to effectively
investigate illegal employment practices.



131

the standpoint—I think I can speak for all California sheriffs—that
we would support that concept.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I would offer you that I think another rationale
for punishing a criminal in this country for that is because the of-
fense was committed against Americans and that had a lot to do
with having that here. Perhaps that has changed, perhaps it has
not, but certainly it has changed enough to be able to discuss this
out loud and talk about sending people back to the country where
they came from, even though their transgression was here against
citizens in this country.

Consequently, the concept of retribution and having their punish-
ment here was overriding for a very long time.

Mr. THOMAS. It would seem to me that even if we paid for it, it
is going to cost us a heck of a lot less than what it costs to incarcer-
ate them in this country anyway.

Mr. FLANAGAN. You get no argument from me.

Mr. Horn. One last question. You probably are aware of some
studies suggesting that illegal immigration generates a positive fi-
nancial impact for Government. Do you agree or disagree with this
conclusion and why or why not?

These studies came out of, as I recall, the University of Califor-
nia at San Diego. There are some national studies also that say,
gee, they're just such a great benefit for society, and we make
money and all that for taxes. What is your feeling on that?

Mr. STAFFEL. Mr. Chair, I’m not familiar with all of those stud-
ies. ’'ve done a cursory review of them. I don’t think they fully set
forth the costs, the incarceration costs, the jail costs, the education
costs.

I do have here today Linda Thom from the County Administra-
tive office who has conducted a rather thorough review of those
studies, and if Linda could come forward, maybe she might be able
to provide some additional information.

Mr. Horn. If she could supply it for the record, I would appre-
ciate it, because I would like you to be submitting it since you're
the one under oath.

Mr. Starrev. We will supply it.

Mr. Horn. Yes. If you would, we would be delighted to have it.
We need studies such as that that are fairly accurate at the local
level. We've had some problems with studies of other counties in
the congressional hearing that was held at the Los Angeles Inter-
national Airport a year or two ago. We had some real qualms with
how they had sorted it out, so we would be delighted to have your
study and put it in the record.

How long is it?

Ms. Tom. I’m certainly not going to read it. It is about four
pages long.

Mr. Horn. We will put the whole thing in the record. We appre-
ciate those types of data.

Mr. STAFFEL. Two points on that, Mr. Chairman. One is that the
critique of some of the existing studies to which you refer, and sec-
ond, the data that we've set forth today, we deliberately made con-
servative estimates because of some of the very problems you’ve
cited in prior testimony from local officials.

Mr. Horn. We appreciate that. Any further questions?




109

My issue then is to plead that there be a substantial increase in
staffing to the interior office of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service in California as well as the border.

On any given day 14 to 20 percent of the jail population of Santa
Barbara County is comprised of illegal aliens. That equates to $9.2
million in system costs to the county each year. If you add the serv-
ices of the health department and social services department, that
cost escalates dramatically.

Currently, the staff at the Santa Barbara County Jail calls the
Ventura office of INS and reports on who the jail staff believes may
be in this country illegally. These are jail inmates who have been
detained for some period of time.

The Ventura office of INS then sends one of its three agents to
interview these suspected illegal aliens and places holds on them
if appropriate.

While this does help some, I believe and know that there are
many illegal aliens who are not being interviewed at all, and an-
other number who are being released prior to being able to be
interviewed. This allows the criminally deportable aliens to reenter
our society and system without facing deportation.

At the request of the U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, the Los
Angeles County Sheriff is currently conducting a pilot program in
its jail system. This program has allocated a number of INS per-
sonnel—I believe approximately 40—to interview and evaluate all
individuals who voluntarily stated that they are foreign born and
who are being released from the jail system.

In the first 6 days alone, 341 individuals or 14 percent, of all
county inmates released were taken into Federal custody for pos-
sible deportation.

Obviously, this number does not consider the individuals who
may be hiding the fact that they are foreign born. This is only a
pilot project, and is not available to the other 57 counties at this
time, but this type of program is essential if we are to identify and
criminally deport immigrants statewide.

Additionally, any assistance from the Federal Government that
would help implement what we call the direct connect portion of
CAL ID would go a long way in helping us identify and deport
criminally deportable aliens.

What that system does, it allows us to run a direct fingerprint
from our jail system into the computer base in Sacramento and
within 2 hours receive a verifiable identification and return.

By doing that, we would be allowed to then take these people
that are being released prior to being interviewed and be able to
also find out if they would also fall into that category. It is an ex-
pensive program, and I don’t believe it is going to be up and going
until 1996.

My gang in narcotics investigators tell me that we are experienc-
ing a tremendous increase with contacts with illegal aliens while
conducting major investigations.

In Santa Barbara County, we would like to incorporate INS in-
vestigators in our task forces to assist with those investigations.
Today, the lack of available investigations personnel make that im-
possible. Again, the effort to combat the criminal element must in-


30

pressure at the borders. We are enforcing the immigration laws more
aggressively than ever before, and INS. has been provided the

necessary tools to do the job.

We appreciate the interest of thie Subcommittee in the
immigration enforcement policies and programs of the Service. we
would be glad to answer any questions which you may have about how

these policies and programs are implemented in the Western Region.

26


89

Mr. Horn. I thank you, Mr. Secretary. Have you had discussions
with the western region of the INS on this matter, and if so, where
are we?

Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, we are following the same procedure
that the Department of Motor Vehicles followed after the legisla-
tion was passed in the early 1980’s, which is to work with the pol-
icy initiatives in Washington to make sure that we—whatever we
do in relationship to receiving information, which has to be of sub
stantive nature for us to be able to use it and turned over to the
district attorney and attorney general, that we follow the correct
procedures out of Washington. So we have worked with the Wash-
ington office in order to achieve this goal

Mr. Horn. Do you see any problems?

Mr. JONES, I don’t know whether it is the bureaucracy or just the
policy differences or whether they have some policy problems inter-
nally. We have not been successful to this point. We have some re-
quests outstanding clear back to last October.

Mr. Horn. Do we have any comments that they have made in
writing as to where you were having a problem with them?

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I had a chance to talk to our senior
investigator before we came in. I'm not sure that our people even
know. It is like, you know, oftentimes you ask the question and it
just doesn’t come back. I don’t know whether there are some inter-
nal policy issues, but they have not informed us as to what the
problems are.

I will say—again, I want to re-emphasize that we have to have
a procedure established that gives us verifiable information, as you
are well aware, that we in turn can turn over to the law enforce-
ment activities.

So we are working on that. The Speaker suggested and, I believe,
referred the letter to your committee for us to review with you, and
that’s the reason why [’m here. To just bring you up to speed as
directed, and let you know what we're doing. I hope we're able to
resolve this.

But [ strenuously believe to the greatest extent I possibly can
emphasize that there will not be the assurance of the elections
being free from fraud in California unless we are able to commit
to the people who raised the question with us that the information
is valid and that we’ve checked it out, and that they know that we
really mean what we say.

Mr. Horn. Is Mr. de Ja Vina still here? Here he is. Do you know
if there has been any contact with the western region and the sec-
retary of State on this, or is it strictly a Washington matter?

Mr. DE LA Vina. At this point, I believe it is in Washington. Our
contact right now is the Department of Corrections. We would be
happy to meet with Mr. Jones and with his staff.

Mr. JONES. Thank you.

Mr. Horn. I think that would be helpful because it seems to me
we ought to clue in the regional officials here. After all, we're try-
ing to decentralize everything we can out of Washington back to
the regions, so that is the gentleman on the firing line.

And I would think they also would want a recommendation from
their regional director in the Western Region before they did any-
thing. They’re always good people to touch base with.



84

out and hopefully, with some amendments in motor-voter can make
that work too.

I come to you today to talk about an issue that relates specifi-
cally to your committee, and that is the question of our relation-
ship, the secretary of State’s office, in communication and dialog
with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

We are currently working on more than 170 cases; 32 of which
involve more than 300 allegations from election fraud in California
from primarily the last November's election.

It is absolutely essential that we have, with respect to the cases
that deal with the question of residency, the ability to work on a
private basis with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

I don’t know any way we are going to be able to bring these cases
to a conclusion without that kind of support. This support and this
type of relationship is not unprecedented in California. A number
of years ago, Senator Alfred Alquist passed a bill that allowed the
Department of Motor Vehicles to set up a memorandum of under-
standing with INS, and they have gone about working on that for
a number of years.

I had a chance to listen to a little of the testimony in the pre-
vious panel, which was an excellent panel, and I think they spoke
to some of these points.

If you would know where we are in this process, we are further
behind than they are. We really do not have a relationship at all.
Yet, we wish to develop one.

One of the elements of our election summit that we held in Feb-
ruary in California where we brought together election officials
from around the State, was that it was necessary to fully answer
the questions of election fraud and not leave the cloud out there
that people continually question the credibility of elections, wheth-
er it be in California or any place else.

So our goal is to fully encourage more participation of as much,
if we can, 100 percent of legal residents and at the same time have
a zero tolerance for fraud.

We believe that the technology will help us. We are moving with
a statewide voter file bill in Sacramento, AB 1701, and also in that
bill is a unique identifier. It gives us the opportunity to have a
driver’s license on the registration form when people register to
vote in California, a simple means by which we are able to sort out
the fully 15 to 20 percent of people who have either died, moved,
or duplicates on the role.

With the outset of motor-voter this month, we very possibly can
run into a situation where a person can go into DMV in the morn-
ing and register as W. Jones, go by the welfare office and register
as B. Jones, and stop by the WIC office and register as Bill Jones.

They may do this, even not intentionally, but many times when.
people go and ask for support from government they get a lot of
forms that they sign and each one of these offices will now be ask-
ing them to sign forms, and inadvertently they may do this and
sign the name differently even if it is not intentional.

The problem that we have is that we are asking for a unique
identifier, the driver’s license, and if we have that, which we be-
lieve will help us, then that will deal with the 73 percent of the


12

© expanded the number of Border Patrol’ Agent basic
trainee classes to produce 880 graduates by December
1995 and least 700 more agents in 1996;

© committed to putting 5,000 agents on the line by
December 1996; and

© used the National Guard and Joint Task Force Six to

help in construction projects ae needed.

Along with these increases in resources, we have
significantly increased and improved the tools that these agents

have to combat illegal immigration. Specifically, we have:

© added nine miles of new fencing; and
@ added over a thousand new vehicles, hundreds of new
sensors, hundreds of new radios, and 25 new infrared

nightscopes.

In addition, we are in the process of adding new state of the
art technology and basic automation equipment in 283 Border Patrol
stations, ports-of-entry and INS District offices in Southwest

Border states.

Thanks to our new resources and new strategic plans devoted to
the most critical areas first, we are achieving what no previous
Administration has achieved: significant control over essential

areas of the border.


54

it wasn’t going to work to start with because you didn’t have the
proper identifications. It is just going to be a game of unscrupulous
employers exploiting human beings, taking jobs from the commu-
nity that teenage youth ought to have.

That’s what got me on this in the mid-70’s. This is not new to
Los Angeles. We have now been discussing this for 20 years in Los
Angeles County. And I said in 1980, if you don’t get a decent iden-
tification system, you are going to be discussing this 10 years from
now. Well, it’s 15 years from 1980 and we are still discussing it.
We hopefully will get something done on this.

Now, Mr. Ricchiazzi, you mentioned the biometrics on your par-
ticular identifications. Essentially, photo and fingerprints. Is there
anything that you need in Federal cooperation on some of this that
would be helpful?

Mr. Riccuiazzi. I feel that right now and from what we have
been observing is that the Federal agencies are looking at the fin-
gerprint system as the one that is most effective at this point.

Mr. Horn. Do you mean fingerprint or the hand system which
INS is using?

Mr. DE LA VINA. The ident system or the identification, the bio-
metric identification system. We also have the California ID sys-
tem, CAL-ID, which is those who have been deported are now
being put into the data base of the California identification aspect
so we have a couple of these.

Mr. Ricculazzi. What we are doing is we just finished a procure-
ment on our drivers license. We have switched companies and we
were producing the drivers license card with the magnetic stripe on
the back around 75 cents per card. We are now down to about 49
cents per card. But one of the things we do is we then go to INS,
we go to Social Security, we try to go to FBI and CIA and say, here
is what we have. How can we help if you need something here. We
have been asking them, what is the best source.

Right now we are sitting with the thumb print and pretty much
it is just sitting there waiting for anybody who may need it but
there is another item here that I think is important and that is—
T could understand Congressmen making comments about the
scary national ID card. I would just like to throw something else
out here as well.

What we have found is if it is a fraudulent card, there is nothing
on the mag stripe on the back. That right away says it is a false
document. But, you know, in the future, if we are looking at this
in the future, the possibilities are there could be microchips put in-
side of a DMV card for health purposes. If I happen to be going
back to see my dad or family say in Buffalo, NY, and I got into an
accident when I was there and maybe I’m on medication or who is
my doctor or who is my health insurance company, et cetera, I
think I personally would want to have a microchip in that drivers
license so that at that emergency room of the hospital, somebody
could just swipe that through and right away know what I am al-
lergic to and who my doctor is.

Mr. Horn. Blood type, so forth.

Mr. RICCHIAZZ1. Yes.


96

Frankly, when you see the numbers that I articulated, that tens
of thousands that are in our prison systems who are here illegally,
the Federal Government ought to bear the burden of that. I mean,
that would take part of the pressure off of us if they were incarcer-
ated in a Federal institution.

And I think Federal institutions could provide the incarceration
for those convicted of local and State crimes, but who are here ille-
gally as a result of the Federal Government not enforcing the im-
migration laws or adequately enforcing them, or doing enough so
that they’re deterring large numbers who are coming here.

Mr. Horn. Well, [ think you’re absolutely right. [’'ve raised with
the previous panel a number of points. One, this language was
passed by the House to renegotiate the prisoner transfer treaties
with various foreign nations. The Mexican treaty, which is now 18
years old, requires the consent of the individual before they are
sent back before the border.

That needs to be renegotiated, and I want to see the sentence as-
signed by either State or Federal court served out in the jails of
the host country, if you will, or the country of origin, from which
that illegal comes. There are about 49 countries of origin, the last
1 remembered, that sent illegals through the southern border as
well as the northern border.

How do you feel about that?

Mr. LUNGREN. I think that is an attractive proposition. I would
have to caution us, however, on a constitutional difficulty, and that
is that treaty in many ways has withstood constitutional question
because it involves the permission or agreement of the prisoner in-
volved.

If Federal judges do, in fact, have the right to enforce their inter-
pretation of the U.S. Constitution on State and local government
with respect to standards of conditions by which people are held in
local and county jails or State prisons, it is hard for me to believe
they would allow us to send our prisoners to foreign prisons where
as soon as they leave our tervitory they’re out of our jurisdiction.

Interestingly enough, I am told one of the reasons why prisoners
did not agree to go to other countries to serve their time is condi-
tions generally are better here. We always hear people deploring
how bad our conditions are.

Second, I’m informed conjugal visits are easier to come by here
in California than they are in the other countries. As you know, we
are trying to restrict that, but we have a judge that has just issued
an injunction telling us we cannot do that, which we are presently
fighting in the courts right now.

‘So as much as I love what you are doing in Congress and the
devolution of authority and power to the States and local govern-
ments, if that does not include the Federal courts, we may have a
victory without true victory.

Mr. Horn. I know exactly what you're talking about. Now, the
average citizen is correct on this. I’ve heard it and maybe you did
town meetings in the eighties where they say why can’t we use sur-
plus military barracks in some of these places and have them as
the holding centers in wherever it is, Barstow or some hot part of
the State of California. Granted, you have a problem staffing these,
but people live there anyhow; some people like heat.


75

Legal immigration has had an enormously positive impact on the
economic and social evolution of our country. As the U.S.
Commission on Immigration Reform observes:

.-.the Commission members agree that immigration presents
many opportunities for this nation. Immigrants can
contribute to the building of the country. In most
cases, they have been actively sought by family members
or businesses in the U.S. The tradition of welcoming
newcomers has become an important element of how we
define ourselves as a nation.

At the same time, the very notion of sovereignty presents the
need for a national immigration policy that is defined by our
national interests. While our laws must reflect a sense of
fairness, they must also communicate to the world beyond our
borders that to come to the United States you must first obey our
laws.

The fiscal impact of illegal immigration upon the taxpayers of
California cannot be discounted. California is home to more than
2.8 million illegal immigrants and it is estimated that an
additional 125,000 cross the border to settle here each year.

California is mandated by the federal government to provide
education and emergency health care to illegal immigrants, as well
as custody or supervision for illegal immigrant felons.

The Governor's budget projects that in 1995-96 California will
have to bear more than $3.6 billion in state costs for services to
illegal immigrants. When an estimate of state taxes paid by
illegal immigrants is considered, the net cost borne by taxpayers
is estimated to be $2.8 billion.

Our state prisons house approximately 19,200 illegal immigrant
felons, who represent about 14% of the adult inmate population. To
put this in perspective, these illegal alien felons could virtually
fill eight prisons at 100 percent capacity. Just seven years ago
the illegal immigrant population in California prisons was only
5,700. The fiscal costs to the state for incarceration, parole and
related costs has jumped from $122 million to $503 million in that
period. I would also remind the committee of another incarceration
cost frequently omitted from this debate, the cost to counties for
incarceration of illegal aliens in local jails. According to the
state Board of Corrections, local jails in California housed an
average 6,625 illegal immigrants per day in 1993, at a cost of $112
million annually,

Our state’s primary and secondary schools will take in an
estimated 355,000 illegal immigrant children in 1995-96, at a cost
to the public of $1.7 billion.


36

Mr. Horn. I wasn’t clear, either, on the top of page 6 when you
say the standard smuggling fee for the trip from Tijuana to Los An-
geles has risen 40 to 60 percent. What does that amount to in U.S.
dollars so I understand it?

Mr. DE LA VINA. We have gone from approximately, as we be-
come more effective on the border, the price of smuggling has risen
from let’s say $300 to what we are running now, from $600 to $800.
So it is a substantial increase of the cost of coming in and being
smuggled has risen. We are getting more effective, the price goes

up.

Mr. Horn. OK. On page 7, you talk about the San Diego ports
of entry and you intercepted in fiscal year 1995 2,975 smuggled
aliens, you arrested 2,810 smuggling principals. What I need is just
sort of an idea of what was that 2 or 3 years before?

Mr. DE LA VINA. I think that is part of the record that we will
be furnishing to you. But basically what happens, Mr. Chairman,
is as we become more efficient between the ports of entry, on the
line as a matter of speaking, we notice that the ports of entry be-
come extremely busy. We shut down between the ports of entry you
are having all types of activities occurring through the ports of
entry which primarily include smuggling of aliens, fraudulent docu-
ments, and it is pretty much a strategy that whatever we are doing
on the border for the Border Patrol, we have to include the ports
of entry because of the illegal activity that occurred during the ef-
fectiveness of shutting down the border.

Mr. Horn. On page 8, you make a point of saying you are trying
to remove those that have served their sentence, those illegal
aliens, and deport them to their home country. One of the things
that concerns me, and this is going to get into substance so we
might delay the answer later, but I see what you are saying here
that you say now INS has agents at the Los Angeles County Jail
24 hours per day, 7 days a week taking custody of all deportable
aliens who have completed their sentences and are scheduled for
release. One of the substantive sentences I want to get into here
is that judges tell me they assign the illegal to the L.A. County
Jail, and they just told me this 2 weeks ago, six judges here, and
they are in on Monday and they are released by the sheriff on
Tuesday or Wednesday. They have not served their sentences and
it is a question of either lack of resources in the county jail or it
is just a question of Federal court orders or whatever. What is your
reading on that because this needs clarification as to what is hap-
pening?

Mr. DE LA Vina. One of the problems that we have had and it
is very—an existing problem, is that people were being released not
only from the L.A. County Jail but we have selected the L.A. Coun-
ty Jail because it is a largest population of illegal aliens, the larg-
est county jail in the country.

They were being released by the county into the streets after ei-
ther partly finishing or serving their sentences, some of them had
not completed their sentence and were being turned into the
streets. The idea is now that we are on that work site, we are in
the county jail to capture every person that is being released. We
have the resources, we have the agents. Mr. Rogers will be testify-
ing to that more in depth as to how the details work on that but


48

Mr. FLANAGAN. Thank you.

Mr. de la Vina, I have just one question for you and this is a real
broad question and it really comes to the very foundation of the
basic scope of how INS does its business and this is a question I
don’t know that has been asked at all the hearings I have been to
and I am going to ask you now.

Why are we making the employer the enforcement agent for INS
or one of the enforcement agents? The question is not an accusa-
tion. It is an honest question. I would like to know because it
would seem to me that most of what is being proposed is to make
the employer a more efficacious enforcement agent, to make it easi-
er and more possible and better. I wonder if we are not at the level
where we pass out badges.

My question is not as light-hearted as it sounds. Your testimony
about the Border Patrol and the great work that you have done
with that, the augmentation that the Congress has provided, more
that should be done, the strides that you have made, tell us what
you need to accomplish your goal and make our borders safe and
I will be the first one to stand up and scream for it. But tell me
that some employer in the District is now going to have heavier
penalties possibly assessed against him for illegal immigration, giv-
ing him a bunker mentality about who he hires, and it is that em-
ployer who is going to drive for—he is going to scream for the na-
tional ID card, simply to keep himself out of jail, so that some citi-
zen, a citizen walking up to me and asking for a job who speaks
with an accent or is naturalized into this country and now has to
be able to prove that he is a citizen so that I the employer can be
sure that this person is not an illegal immigrant or that he is a
legal immigrant without proper papers and so I don’t suffer crimi-
nal penalties, criminal penalties, because this person cannot dem-
onstrate or refuses to demonstrate that he is a citizen. I’ll tell you,
I would refuse to.

I would just like your thoughts on this.

Mr. DE LA VINA. Maybe I could best answer it this way. Illegal
immigration is not going to get to the philosophical aspect of it but
to kind of put things together the way I see things. Illegal immi-
gration is a huge, huge matter that is occurring, has been occurring
for many years, over the past 5, the past 10 years it has just in-
creased to tremendous numbers, especially here in California.

I will give you a real quick example, Congressman. Last year in
San Diego alone, the Border Patrol arrested over half a million peo-
ple trying to enter illegally into the United States that were actu-
ally apprehended. Out of those half million, technically all of them
were returned. [ have a feeling that we probably lost a great many
more that successfully made their way into the United States.

The premise is that, why do we have such a huge migration into
the United States? The lure primarily is jobs. Unfortunately, we
must monitor the job situation because that is where people are
coming in, that is why they are coming especially to the Los Ange-
les area. There is an abundance of jobs, apparently. People are just
flocking to it. We need a mechanism that will watch the job situa-
tion and to address and make sure that the jobs are available to
citizens of the United States, resident aliens, those who are legally
in this country, those who were born in this country.


117

I recall very vividly 5 years ago calling up a U.S. attorney’s office
and asking for a prosecution on somebody we were prosecuting who
had seven prior deportations, and they said that they just couldn’t
handle it because they had too many other cases to do, and it
wasn’t a big enough priority in their office.

I know of no case in my county since I’ve been the elected district
attorney in the last 12 years that they’ve prosecuted anybody who
has been a multiple deportee from our jurisdiction or other jurisdic-
tions in California.

There are laws that are currently on the books. I share the Attor-
ney General’s observation that there is legislation currently that
makes it a Federal crime for 20 years to prosecute somebody who
has committed a felony while they’re in the State or Nation or also
has been deported.

When I say in my remarks it has to be substantial punishment,
what I mean is that there is no credibility to it. What good is it
to have a law—it is like to old truth in sentencing in California
where we were sending people away for 50 years, or in Texas
where they give them 300 years for a crime and everybody knows
that it doesn’t really mean that.

I think that the Congress needs to look—I don’t know what the
ramifications or parameters are for Congress in setting dictates on
sentences, but I know what had to happen legislatively in the State
of California when the judiciary didn’t pay attention to the priority
of the citizens. They took it away from them and they made man-
datory sentences, and they made it a mandatory amount of time
they had to serve.

I suggest that Congress explore the possibility in working with
their experts in passing a 20-year law that says you serve 85 per-
cent, like the three strikes law.

When somebody has been sentenced to prison in California and
they've been deported, and they come back, and they commit an-
other crime, and their committed to prison again, that that ought
to be a situation where the U.S. Attorney’s Office takes as serious,
and not simply as an illegal immigration problem or a deportee
problem, but as a substantial crime problem.

That is the way those of us in the local community look at these
things. It is a substantial crime problem. It is a quality of life prob-
lem.

To me it is a credibility issue in the type of legislation that I sug-
gest. Of course, I’ve never met you before this morning, Mr. Chair-
man, and I didn’t know what your attitudes were toward the treaty
and the facility in Mexico, but I’ve got to tell you, I think you're
on the right track.

My belief as a local prosecutor, while there may be some legal
issues that the Attorney General has adequately touched upon I
don’t think that should stand in the way of Congress exploring the
fact that we've renegotiated a treaty or that we explore ways to get.
around the problems dealing with the quality of the facilities that
are needed.

I think those are, in my view, mechanical; those aren’t policy. We
need to set policy about what we’re going to do in this country
about this problem, and leave it to the other people to worry about


53

regular DMV process of trying to get somebody an ID card and now
we have motor voter coming on line so whatever we can do to cut
down documents and give some semblance of an order in the
amount of documents that they have to check would really help.

What we were emphasizing is that with the INS, right now there
is even a pilot project that we just started dealing with people that
are deported where we are now being notified by them so that we
can stop the drivers license. So after the person has been deported,
the next day when they come back into the country to go get their
ID card or drivers license, we can now say, wait a minute, you’ve
just been deported and, sorry, but no license or ID card.

Mr. Horn. Now, who has the authority to pull that license?

Mr. Riccutazzt. At this point, if we are notified that they have
been deported, at that point I think we have the jurisdiction to put
a stop on that license?

Mr. Horn. Are you notified?

Mr. DE LA VINA. In some instances we notify the State. Because
it is a State document, we do not pull the drivers license, in a man-
ner of speaking, until we have State clarification and authority to
do so.

Mr. Horn. When they check into the county jail or the State
prison system, presumably whatever they had on them as identi-
fication are kept in custody until they are released so it seems to
me there needs to be a State law that deals—since most of them
are in county jails or State prisons all under the authority of the
State of California, to have those cards pulled by the sheriff, by the
warden before they are released.

Is that going to be recommended by motor vehicles and the Gov-
ernor?

Mr. Riccutazzi. I am sure it would be, yes.

Mr. Horn. Well, I think it is a good idea because it is crazy—
the cases I heard the other day from the six judges I sat down with
were, as I said earlier, they sentenced them on Monday to a year
in the county jail. The sheriff released them on Tuesday or
Wednesday and Thursday, one of the people appeared back in the
judge’s court who had been deported to Mexico. He had gone to
Mexico, come easily over the border without much interference and
the judge was surprised to see him since he had just ordered him
to spend a year in the county jail. These are rather serious crimes,
as we all know. It is no longer the town drunk that is in the county
jail; it is felons that have committed very violent acts because the
State prison system can’t accommodate them.

To his surprise, the person showed up because he needed a few
things I guess the judge still had in the court record. He has al-
ready been deported and it is just a game and it seems to me if
the State is going to take this seriously, they need to make some
recommendations, get their legislature to instruct wardens, in-
struct county sheriffs, you pull those documents. So INS isn’t doing
it but if INS is picking them up, putting them in a Federal INS
holding facility, then we need to deal with INS picking up those
documents.

So I assume staff is taking suitable notes and we can see what
we do to straighten out the confusion. This has gone on for almost
10 years under the Simpson Mazzoli Act, where some of us knew


49

What we have come up with is that the employer must play a
role, in essence, being a deterrent to reduce the magnet of bringing
people into the United States. We don’t go immediately into the
process of making that employer a Border Patrol agent or have him
carry a badge. We have a lengthy educational period, we work with
the employers. I can get into specifics. Some of the programs that
Mr. Rogers has, where the employers are actively seeking our as-
sistance to make sure that they not only because they are required
to comply with us, but they want to comply with us and it is kind
of the aspect that we are finding that the majority of the employers
in the United States or especially here in the California area are
willing to comply, willingly, to help in reducing this lure in a man-
ner of speaking.

So when I tie in the huge influx of illegal aliens that are entering
illegally, our border enforcement at the border, our interior enforce-
ment which involves investigations, the districts, what have you,
and the assistance of the employers, we are hopeful that this will,
in essence be a deterrent and reduce the huge migration that we
are seeing on our southwest border right now.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I will tell you that to use the employer as an in-
formation gatherer or even some level of enforcement is smart, I
think a great idea. I think most good, honest employers want to
help. But when you talk about augmenting and enhancing the
criminal penalties to really make it painful to make a mistake if
you are honest in an effort to catch those who are dishonest who
run illegal shops and things like that, I mean you need a high in-
tent level and you probably need clear and convincing standards at
least to make even the prima facie case and then a reasonable
doubt standard.

1 think where we are going here is we are making it a lot easier
to hold the employer culpable for having illegal immigrants work
in his shop and what we are doing is here is the stick and the car-
rot is we are giving out these tamper-proof cards and we are hav-
ing an original source document and we are doing everything we
can to make it real easy for you to do it right but if you don’t, we
are going to come down on you like a hammer on an anvil. I have
a real problem with using the employer in that way.

Mr. DE LA Vina. I understand and I hope that you understand
we are not dealing with this problem in a haphazard manner,
where we are taking a look at every employer and if you have one
illegal alien we are going to file and you are subject to, let’s say,
criminal prosecution.

We are targeting the bad boys, in a manner of speaking, your
mass sweat shops where the undocumented worker is subjected to
all kinds of misery, pay that’s way below minimum standard, ex-
posing them to all types of dangers and hazards and these unscru-
pulous employers, those are the guys we are looking at. It is just
like the smuggler of illegal aliens. They are dealing in human mis-
ery in a manner of speaking and those are the people that, yes, we
would like to see and we would like to get higher penalties for be-
cause they continue with their practices.

But when you take a look at your normal operations that we are
looking, in the majority of the cases in let’s say in Los Angeles or
in north counties, in San Diego, what have you, we are looking at


18

I am aware that the Law Enforcement Act of 1994 authorized
funding of $675 million through 1998 to implement a deterrence
strategy along the Southwest border. At the same time, if we are
to have a coherent strategy there must be a close connection
between what is authorized and what is realistically possible in
the appropriations process. Otherwise, effective planning is
hampered.

I would also commend to the Committee a study that was
conducted by the University of Texas concerning the impact of
“Operation Hold the Line” in the El Paso-Juarez sector. This
involves an approach which stresses prevention of unlawful entry
rather than apprehension following illegal entry. Although such a
strategy would need to be applied across the entire border in order
to avoid merely shifting illegal entries to other sectors, this
approach warrants your close scrutiny.

This Committee should also take note of the progress that has
been made and continues to be made in California with regard to
illegal immigration. I am proud to report that a pilot program
conducted jointly by the California Department of Justice, the
California Department of Corrections and the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service to accurately identify returning illegal
immigrants using California's sophisticated computerized
fingerprint system is working. The bottom line is that illegal
immigrants who use a different name every time they get caught for
illegal entry can no longer count on escaping accurate
identification thanks to this joint information sharing effort.

While serving on the Immigration Subcommittee, I joined in the
adoption of language in the 1986 Act to expedite the deportation of
aliens convicted of criminal deportable offenses. Two years later,
in the 1988 Drug Bill, we created a special category of aliens
convicted of aggravated felonies. Just last year the Congress
addressed the question of detention and removal of criminal aliens
and specifically required the Attorney General to operate a
criminal alien tracking center.

The enforcement of these existing laws must be given the
highest possible priority. The criminal alien population -- a
relatively small percentage of the overall illegal alien community
but a significant presence nonetheless -- is not only a financial
burden on our state but poses a very real threat to the safety of
our communities as well. In this regard, our commitment must
reflect both innovation as well as common sense. For example,
rather than simply release criminal aliens at the U.S.-Mexico
border, we should be expanding contacts with Mexico in order to
facilitate the release of criminal aliens in the interior of the
country.



88

THE HON. BILL JONES
PAGE 3

WITH YOUR HELP, | AM OPTIMISTIC THAT WE CAN ESTABLISH A COOPERATIVE
GOVERNMENTAL ENDEAVOR TOGETHER WITH THE IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALIZATION
SERVICE, WHICH WILL SERVE AS A MODEL FOR THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.

AND WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM .N.S., WE CAN GET ON WITH OUR JOB OF
MAKING CALIFORNIA'S ELECTIONS SYSTEM THE OPEN, ACCESSIBLE, SECURE SYSTEM
Our CIvizENs DESERVE.

I THANK YOU FoR YOUR TIME AND CONSIDERATION.

HHA


43

immediately to the applicant. These systems are virtually instantaneous, and
have benefits to the customers. Other states such as California release
licenses by mail from a centralized point after processing. This type of system
improves a state's ability to verify data elements, perform checks against
other databases which may not be on-line, and provide verification of the
mailing address. This system provides additional benefits to California such as
greater security and control.

Uniform practices for establishing identity are being developed for all states.
California has been working with other states and the AAMVA to develop
these uniform guidelines. A list of acceptable documents for application or
name change will ensure consistency between states, and improve the
integrity otth ‘the documents nationwide. These guidelines, however, must be
established with caution. The source documents must have integrity, yet the
requirements need to recognize the practical pressures of large volume states
auch as California, and the need to minimize customer inconvenience. We
think states can issue secure personal identification if customers present one
document from a list of acceptable--and verifiable--documents.

National standards for source or "breeder" documents are also needed. The
hundreds of jurisdictions which iseue breeder documents do so without
consistency. We see birth certificates with untold variations making it very
difficult to identify those that are fraudulent. We can identify the bad
attempts at fraud, but I'm certain we miss the skilled attempts.

On-line verification of data elements is critical. It's essential for states with
over-the counter issuance, as well as for states such as California which
produce and mail licenses and ID cards from a central point. On-line issuance
supports the states’ need to provide timely issuance of licenses. All states,
regardless of size, have a need to provide individuals with timely service, and
delays in verification are costly to individuals and states.

An electronic network to verify the US, birth documents issued by the 50
states is also needed, Because we verify INS documents in California, we deter
some attempts to seek fraudulent licenses and [D-eards, but others have
discovered the remaining weak spot, the birth document. They are not
verifiable today because of the lack of a birth document verification network to
the other states. We also need to tighten access to duplicate certificates, by
having tight controls on the reissuance of certified birth documents.

Social security numbers, now collected by many states, may be useful if they
are verified by the Social Security Administration, However, they were
initially issued primarily for entitlement purposes, not to authenticate
identification. The current verification system of a batch process, with a 48
hour turnaround, is better than not verifying the number at all, but it will not
prevent the original license from being issued, only its reissuance. On-line
verification of this identifier may prevent the license from being issued under
false pretenses.


129

Mr. THOMAS. Yes.

Mr. Horn. Could it not be used on illegal aliens and you could
keep them homebound and they couldn’t go to a job?

Mr. THomas. Why?

Mr. Horn. Well, if we can’t get-——

Mr. THomas. I don’t mean to be-——.

Mr. Horn. No, but if we can’t get them out and that’s a dif-
ficulty, and they have time to serve, I guess I don’t understand why
they can’t serve it at home if the jail is a revolving door because
of the judge or policy or whatever.

Mr. Trtomas. Many do. We do have probably about 14 to 20 per-
cent. Many do their entire sentence, not only in a county jail on
a misdemeanor offense, but also on the State prisons.

So it is not an issue that they’re not serving. It is an issue of not
being able to identify for purposes of further deportation people
who are coming through the system early on and getting out before
there is an opportunity to identify or question them in the booking
process.

We don’t have the ability to do it, and INS does not have the per-
sonnel to be able to assist us like they’re currently doing in the Los
Angeles project.

Mr. Horn. That’s an expensive proposition.

Mr. Tuomas. It is, but what we've got now is that group that the
judge mentioned to me the other day, actual court cases within the
Jast month where they are put in the jail in Los Angeles County
for 1 year, they are out in 2 days because the sheriff's classification
gystem is applied; they go back to Mexico, come back to the United

tates.

It just seems to me to make no sense, and all they say is, hey,
just go in there, serve a couple of days and you're out and you go
about earning money again.

Mr. SNEDDON. That could be a short-term solution if the Govern-
ment-—-maybe the Federal Government would like to finance some
of that.

But the long-term solution is more of the kind of things we’ve
been talking about this morning, and that is simply stronger en-
forcement, picking them up faster in a 2-day period, like the pilot
project that should be expanded throughout the court.

You asked about a regulatory change. There is one thing on this
serious felons that could be done right now if the Federal Govern-
ment would make a commitment and the U.S. Attorney General is
that if they would enforce these laws and get some serious punish-
ment—if somebody is incarcerated in State prison in California and
the U.S. attorney prosecutes them federally, they could be released
to the Federal courts, prosecuted, sentenced in the Federal court,
and serve their time concurrently in a Federal facility.

That would significantly decrease the number of clients that we
have in our State institutions, but there is no credibility on the
U.S. Government side.

Mr. Horn. Yes, and we need to follow up on that. The question
I should have asked the Director, and staff will please ask and let’s
get it on the record since everybody remains under oath for further
questions, is the INS used to have a policy of taking people deep


113

Congressman Horn
June 7, 1995
Page

no substantial effort, at least In my erea, to investigate violations of the current
procedures. | can only hope that the new procedures will also Include the
personnel and resources to enforce violations. Without illegal employment,
litegal Immigrants have little to gain by entering the United St if we are
vigliant in our efforts to identify and deport criminals who are also illegal
immigrants, then they will have little to gain by staying In the United States.

in summary, | sincerely hope that the efforts of this Committee and the
Administration result in substantially Increased staffing levels in the interior as
well as the border regions - It’s critical. Additional agents, investigators,
support staff, transportation equipment, holding facilities and Immigration judges
are all necessary if we are to hi any effect on the current problem of illegal
immigration and the criminal ment that has attached Itself to it.

Sincerel

fim Thomas:
SHERIFF-CORONER


122

Congressman Stephen Horn
June 8, 1995
Page 2

Enhanced resources, improved communications, new laws and
regulations and a real commitment and determination by federal
officials to assist state and local communities must be the key
ingredients to any successful attack on the burdens that illegal
immigration places on the law and justice agencies in this
community, as well as in the state as a whole.

Let me briefly outline the problems so that my proposed
solutions may be placed in their context. As you have been
previously informed, 14-20% of the inmate population in Santa
Barbara County is composed of illegal aliens. 1993 Department of
Corrections statistics say that 18% of Santa Barbara County
commitments to state prison had I.N.S. holds. Another 12% of
undocumented youths were incarcerated in Juvenile Institutions.
Inasmuch as the number of individuals sent to state prison from
Santa Barbara County has increased by almost 10% since that time,
there is every reason to believe that the estimated $10.5 million
dollars associated with incarcerating the above inmates should be
adjusted by at least that percentage increase. Profiling these
inmates is also informative in evaluating the impact of their
crimes on any particular community. Unfortunately, profiles in
these cases reveal individuals who have been repeatedly convicted
of serious offenses, usually involving murder or attempted murder,
aggravated assault, burglaries, and drug trafficking. The profiles
show criminal rap sheets replete with instances of either failure
to deport after conviction or deportation, re-entry and subsequent
criminal activity within a very short period of time. It is
obvious from reviewing their criminal histories that they return to
the United States without much difficulty and within days of their
deportation. Characteristically, there is a total absence of any
attempt by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute deportees for
illegally returning to the United States.

Another aspect of this serious crime problem is exemplified by
California’s recently enacted three strikes legislation. Santa
Barbara County’s three strike defendant profiles indicate that
between 25% and 30% of the defendants charged as three strike
candidates are in this country illegally. Under California’s three
strike legislation, that means that they have suffered at least two
prior serious or violent felony convictions in addition to the new
offense which has brought them before the court.

In addition to the figures represented by incarcerated
inmates, it is estimated by my staff that about 25% of the nearly
15,000 serious misdemeanors filed annually involves illegal
immigrants. Not unexpectedly, a high percentage of those cases
involved individuals charged’ with driving without a license,
driving with no insurance, hit and runs, and driving under the
influence. It is estimated that over 50% of individuals who are
cited for driving under the influence and who fail to appear for
arraignment are illegal aliens.

Flight to Mexico by illegal immigrants who commit serious


127

Perhaps I can ask the question a little more specifically. [am an
original cosponsor of the first amendment to make English the offi-
cial language of the Nation required to be taught in schools, re-
quired that you get through and you speak English coming and
going.

Will that somehow help you along your way, and apart from the
magnitude of constitutional amendment, are there regulatory mat-
ters in between that we can address very specifically and very
quickly to help you get to where you need to be to reduce the finan-
cial burden?

Mr. StaF¥EL. If I can try to respond to the question, the difficulty
in trying to produce numbers, we can’t identify the costs because
we can’t identify the individuals.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Assuming it is huge.

Mr. STaFFEL. We know it is increasing the burden upon the
county. If there was a way to identify these individuals and to real-
ly provide incentive and have the costs, the increase of these pro-
grams borne by the Federal Government and identified, I think
Congress would then associate these costs in this budget for these
programs, and we will debate in Congress whether to extend these
programs to illegal aliens or not. You would have a discussion.

Right now, what is happening, why I concentrate on the school
so much, the State of California, because of the growth in school
costs, is taking away local property taxes from counties. It is im-
pacted. It means that residents of our county, taxpayers, are not
having street lights. We are having difficulty funding park areas,
libraries. Services that are being reduced because of the growth in
mandated programs.

And we are convinced that the growth in those programs is due
to illegal immigration. If the cost of that—just the cost of the
growth of the programs; we’re not even asking the full cost at this
point in time—could be borne by the Federal Government and in-
clude an incentive of the Federal Government to identify these in-
dividuals and find out what that is.

I think it would facilitate the debate that you all are going to
have in Congress.

Mr. FLANAGAN. I would agree with you. I would say that the sin-
gle most colossal unfunded mandate is our inability to control our
borders and to restrict illegal immigration. I just question the
method, but you have identified one which Congress must address
and must be prepared to pay for their inaction.

But my question was more specifically is there, apart from the
incidental problems that you have given to Chairman Horn most
specifically in your areas with the Social Security Administration
and any particular instance, is there a regulation that you butt
your head against regularly that makes it very hard for you to do
what you do, pay the bills that you pay, or some public rule that
needs to be augmented or changed in some way that will help you
save the money to accomplish a better running local government?

Mr. StaFreL. I think the biggest impediment are the various
laws that and regulations that do not all to inquire or find out the
status of individuals. I think you've heard the district attorney de-
scribe several instances specifically. To me, it is those regulations
and those laws that are the biggest impediment.


CONTENTS

Hearing held on June 12, 1995 ..
Statement of:

De la Vina, Gustavo, on behalf of the Western Region, U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service; Richard K. Rogers, on behalf of the West-
ern Region, Los Angeles District, Immigration and Naturalization Serv-
ice; Johnny N. Williams, on behalf of the INS Border Patrol; and
Frank Ricchiazzi, on behalf of the Department of Motor Vehicles o of
the State of California ....

Lungren, Daniel E., attorney general,
Jones, secretary of State, State of California .

Staffel, Timothy J., chairman, board of supervisors, county of Santa Bar-
bara; Jim Thomas, sheriff, county of Santa Barbara; and Thomas W.
Sneddon, Jr., district attorney, county of Santa Barbara

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

De'la Vina, Gustavo, on behalf of the Western | Region, U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service:

Information concerning Border Patrol agents ..
Information concerning unauthorized alien workers
Prepared statement of ...

Jones, William, secretary of State, State of California, prepared state-
ment of ..

Lungren, Daniel E., attorney general, State of California, prepared state-
ment 0}

Ricchiazzi, Frank, on behalf of the Department of Motor Vehicles of
the State of California, prepared statement of ..

Sneddon, Thomas W. listrict attorney, county of Santa Barbara,
prepared statement of .

Staffel, Timothy J., chairman,
bara, prepared statement of ..

Thomas, Jim, sheriff, county of

(ees)

Page
1

102
111


106

against receiving immigration status information with respect to
students and/or parents, there is no way to provide precise data
with respect to the number of either illegal immigrants or United
States citizen children of illegal immigrants enrolled in these

programs.

Conclusion
Santa Barbara is a microcosm of the state. The costs of providing

health, welfare, and education at the state level are sky
rocketing. For example, in the 1989-90 fiscal year to the 1995-96
fiscal year, funding for public K-12 education has risen from $23.9
billion to $30.1 billion, an increase of $6.2 billion. Because
state tax revenues are flat or declining depending on the tax, the
state has shifted an increasing share of its costs to counties. In
addition, in the last several fiscal years the state shifted $3.5
billion of property tax revenues from local entities to fund
schools. Counties were and continued to be the most affected by
this shift. The counties are, therefore, suffering the burden of
illegal immigration more than the estimated direct costs to the

counties would suggest.

To balance our budget, the County of Santa Barbara has seen six
successive years of budget reductions. We have inadequate
discretionary revenue for libraries, parks, street lights, roads,
and a myriad of other local services to our taxpaying citizens who

pay local property taxes primarily to provide for these local


66

STATEMENT OF DANIEL E. LUNGREN, ATTORNEY GENERAL,
STATE OF CALIFORNIA; AND WILLIAM JONES, SECRETARY
OF STATE, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be
here back in my old congressional district. I would like to salute
this committee for meeting outside Washington’s beltway to dis-
cover the real world, particularly on an issue as important as this.

One of the things that is so challenging about this issue is that
it talks about the movement of fellow human beings across political
ife.

As a result, it engenders all of the emotions, all of the belief sys-
tems, all of those kinds of things that make us what we are. It is
probably as difficult a challenge as you will face because it involves
something, I believe, as strong as the instinct of survival.

In this regard, democratic societies are particularly challenged
because we have to balance our shared value of compassion with
the responsibility of a nation state to protect the integrity of its
borders.

I've always thought that a mutual friend of ours, Father
Hesburgh, the former president of Notre Dame when he was chair-
man on the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy
during the Carter and Reagan years, I always thought that he said
it’ best when he said that if we are to keep the front door of legal
immigration open we must close the back door of illegal immigra-
tion.

I do not find myself in the same position as those who believe
we ought to have no immigration to this country.

T always note when people say that their last name is usually not
Running Bear or something like that. I think they are as happy as
I am that a relative, an ancestor, got over here. I don’t cotton much
to the notion that since I’ve gotten here we ought to bring up the
draw bridge and make sure nobody else shows up.

What I do believe is we have a more difficult challenge which is
to articulate a reasonable, responsible, rational and compassionate
policy that nonetheless recognizes that we as a Nation have a right
to determine our own borders, and we've not done a very good job
of it.

While our laws, therefore, must reflect a sense of fairness, they
must also communicate, I think, very specifically to the rest of the
world and beyond our borders that to come to the United States
you must first obey our laws.

When I look at the issues, I try and expand my view and under-
stand that there are literally tens of millions of people who would
like to be here in the United States, perhaps hundreds of millions.

And by virtue of the fact that we do not control our border and
allow large numbers in, we are saying to those who are following
the law that what you are doing is nonsensical. Why not join the
group and just come in here illegally.

As you know, back in the 1970’s we went to a worldwide quota
system where we basically said that everyone in the world had an
equal chance to come to the United States. Before that time we had
been heavily slanted toward Western Europe.

The slant toward Western Europe is no more pronounced than
the slant toward our own hemisphere if, in fact, we do not control


52

Mr. Horn. And then how many illegals do we think among the
15 million people?

Mr. ROGERS. We estimate that the State of California has about
1.4 and about 60 percent of the 1.4 are within the Los Angeles dis-
trict area of jurisdiction so we would say probably about 750,000.

Mr. Horn. So you are saying—I would think the county super-
visors feel that they've got at least 1% million, I suspect, in Los
Angeles. I mean, that’s just the feeling based on welfare payments
and everything else as things pop up. But I am just curious what
your solution besides the telephone verification is. Do you feel that
will solve most of the problem for the Los Angeles employers and
what else would you feel ought to be done?

Mr. Rocers. Our request is to increase our resources in the
fraudulent document area. We have testified in front of the State
legislative on breeder documents, for integrity in the birth certifi-
cate area. Coupled with that type of effort from the State in our
effort for increased enforcement on the counterfeit document area,
I think we can have a significant effect on that.

Mr. Horn. Now, does California—maybe Mr. Ricchiazzi also
wants to get in on this, does California have a set form for birth
certificates in the State that applies to all counties?

Mr. RICCHIAzz1. That’s our biggest problem. You know, walking
in to the DMV offices and we have our clerks, it is the one thing
we are stressing. We need some kind of national birth certificate
because there is just so much out there, every little town, every lit-
tle county has their own birth certificate and it is probably the one
most difficult thing to verify.

Mr. Horn. Has there been any attempt by the California legisla-
ture to get standardization among the 58 counties?

Mr. Riccu1azzi. To my knowledge, no.

Mr. Horn. Has the motor vehicle department recommended that
that be done?

Mr. Riccuiazzi. It is one of the areas that we are strongly em-
phasizing right now.

Mr. Horn. Yes, I would think that the Governor would want to
make that as a recommendation to the legislature, because I think
you are right, you can either have a State standard of consistency
or you can have a national standard and we ought to look at both.

Mr. Rocers. During testimony in a hearing in front of the State,
we just asked them to put-right now, a person can write in, any
person can write in and get yours or my birth certificate. It doesn’t
have to be that individual. That is a major concern to us because
that is the basis of the future——

Mr. Horn. And you find a lot of people in the age of Xerox ma-
chines substitute a name and you’ve suddenly got a birth certificate
or a copy thereof.

Mr. Rocers. That is correct.

Mr. Horn. Is there anything, Mr. Ricchiazzi, that the State feels
it needs from INS that it is not getting?

Mr. RICCHIAZzI. Well, we had discussed and I was really glad to
hear Mr. de la Vina mention that they are trying to cut down on
the number of documents that they now have. Again, it is a very
difficult thing to ask a $20,000 a year clerk at DMV who is check-
ing birth certificates, checking INS documents, going through the


101

better facilitate policy decisionmaking as to whether certain feder-
ally mandated programs and services should be extended to illegal
immigrants given the cost to taxpayers associated with providing
such services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Staffel follows:]


26

most affected by illegal migration, and we will focus enforcement
efforts within industries traditionally utilizing unauthorized alien

employment.

22


22

crossing the border and is a clear asset in our effort to identify

criminals returning to the United States.

We are also investing in the basic tools that allow us to
physically move criminal aliens out of the country. This year we
will spend almost half a million dollars to restore our bus fleet to
working order. We have also added bed space in our detention
facilities in California and elsewhere to ensure that we are not
forced to let aggravated felons walk free because we have no place
to hold them. The President's FY 1996 Budget seeks resources to
provide the equivalent of 1,836 beds in state, local and contract
detention facilities as well as 976 beds in INS Service Processing

Centers--a 48 percent increase in bedspace over FY 1995.

Initiatives such as the Los Angeles County Jail Project focus
on criminals leaving our criminal justice system. Other efforts
focus on those entering the system. Last winter Special Assistant
U.S. Attorneys were assigned to work specifically on criminal alien
cases, obtaining speedy plea bargains and deportations. Last year's
Crime Bill gave INS and these Special Assistants new tools to use,
including tougher penalties for reentry into the US following
deportation, and the ability to streamline the ways in which
deportations are ordered. Under these new provisions, criminal
aliens who defy their deportation orders now face sentences of up to
15-20 years just for being found on US soil. In San Diego alone,

the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California expects to

18


105

In 1994 there were 13,417 limited English proficient students among
the 56,977 children enrolled in county public schools. If 6.5% of
the state students are illegal aliens, then perhaps 3,700 of those
enrolled in the county are illegal aliens. The General Accounting
Office report indicated that the cost of educating one child in
1994 was $4,830; therefore, the cost of educating illegal alien
children is $17.9 million per year. We know, however, that Santa
Barbara has a larger percentage of illegal aliens than does the

state as a whole so this is a conservative estimate.

The GAO study and the Urban Institute studies do not include the
costs of United States citizen children of illegal immigrants as an
overall cost of illegal immigration. These costs are borne by
local and state taxpayers. As in 1993 one in five births in our
county were births to illegal aliens whose births were funded by
Medicaid, we might, therefore, make a conservative estimate that
one in five added students enrolled in our schools are United
States citizen children of illegal immigrants. Between 1989-90 and
1992-93 school years, 4,131 added students enrolled in county
schools. We might estimate, then, that at least 1,000 of the
additional children were born in the United States to illegal

immigrants. That is an additional $483,000 in education costs.

As an aside, of the 4,131 added students, 4,131 added students
enrolled in the federal lunch program and 4,087 of the added

students did not speak English. Because of the legal prohibition


34

Q. How many Border Patrol Agents are there on the southern border? How many on the
Canadian border? How many did you have three years ago? What do you plan to have
three years from now?

The following chart lists Border Patrol strength on the southern and northern borders.
Projections for FY 1998 are not available.


115

County commitments to State prison had INS holds on them. An-
other 12 percent undocumented use were incarcerated in juvenile
institutions.

In as much as the individuals sent to State prison from Santa
Barbara County have increased by almost 10 percent since that
time, there is every reason to believe that the estimated $10.5 mil-
lion associate with incarcerating the above-mentioned should be ad-
justed by at least that percentage increase.

Profiling inmates is also informative in evaluating the impact of
their crimes on any particular community. Unfortunately, profiles
on these cases reveal individuals who have been repeatedly con-
victed of serious offenses usually involving murder, attempted mur-
der, aggravated assaults, burglaries, and drug trafficking.

The profile shows criminal rap sheets replete with instances of
either failure to deport after conviction or deportation, reentry and
subsequent criminal activity within a very short period of time. It
is obvious from reviewing their criminal histories that they return
to the United States without much difficulty, and within days of
their deportation.

Characteristically, there is a total absence of any attempt by the
USS. Attorney’s Office to prosecute deportees for illegally returning
to the United States.

Another aspect of this serious crime problem is exemplified by
California’s recently enacted “three-strikes” legislation.

Santa Barbara County three strikes defendant profile indicate
that between 25 and 30 percent of the defendants charged as three
strikes candidates are in this country illegally. Under California
three strike legislation that means that they have suffered at least
two prior serious or violent felony convictions as defined in the leg-
islation in addition to—in addition—to the new offense which has
brought them to court for the third time, at least a third time.

In addition to the figures represented by incarcerated inmates, it
is estimated by my staff that about 25 percent of our nearly 15,000
serious misdemeanors filed annuals involves illegal immigrants.
Not unexpectedly, a high percentage of those cases involved indi-
viduals charges with driving without a license, driving with no in-
surance, hit and runs, and driving under the influence.

It is estimated that over 50 percent of the individuals cited for
driving under the influence and who fail to appear at arraignment
are illegal aliens.

Flight to Mexico by illegal aliens who commit serious crimes is
another impact. Although the United States and California have
treaty agreements with the country of Mexico which authorizes the
Mexican authorities to try individuals in Mexico for a crime com-
mitted in the United States based upon affidavits, the reality is in
many instances offenders cannot be located, and when their paper
work—when they are, the paperwork involved in the process is al-
most overwhelming and very time consuming.

Nevertheless, my office averages about one to two such prosecu-
tions a year and they usually involve murder, attempted murder or
child molestation.

A slightly different aspect of this problem is the fact that our
child abduction unit has averaged about another one or two cases
a year where the parents involved, one of the parents involved, vio-


58

creasing the reliability of our electronic data and that has in-
creased our ability to furnish this same increased reliable data to
the employer.

We have one employer here on the system already and has been
for 3 years and we have seen a decrease in the application of fraud-
ulent documents to that employer by over 75 percent. It is a small
employer. It employs about 360 employees. The reason he was se-
lected initially was that his work force was infiltrated by employees
presenting counterfeit documents. It’s in the Huntington Park area
and he has testified also about the significance of the ability to
check.

As we increase the reliability of our own data base, that system
will—it verifies on two ways.

They have the electronic capability initially and if there is we
cannot verify either the number or the biometric information. They
have the ability to take the documentation and physically send to
our offices and we do a hand search.

Mr. Horn. It’s common knowledge as I think we have agreed
that you can get a job with fraudulent documents and we talked
about employer sanctions and in their current form without what
you are doing they certainly have failed.

So if employers verify fraudulent documents that are valid ac-
cording to the verification system, are we not committing the dou-
ble sin of failing and wasting taxpayers’ funds?

Mr. Rocers. I would say that the probability of our data base
positively identifying a counterfeit document as one that allows
that individual is highly unlikely. The accuracy of the data is sig-
nificantly reliable that if they have the telephone verification that
is highly unlikely to happen.

Mr. Horn. What additional tools does INS feel it needs to really
make the sanctions work? Any feeling on that from you or the fir-
ing line?

Mr. DE LA Vina. Dick, you’re there.

Mr. Rocers. At the present time there’s over a million employers
in the Los Angeles area. I have about 56 investigators that work
sanctions. I have about a similar number that work counterfeit doc-
uments and I have the same that work employer based fraud.

We can’t handle the numbers that we have.

Mr. Horn. So basically you use what? A random sample or just
simply tips or suspicion as to who these employers are?

Mr. RoGErs. We have various methods to identify usually the
egregious violator. We use multiple informants, infiltration under
undercover operations to bring them criminal prosecution but we
also have random sampling where headquarters send us out on a
regular basis, just people out of the business community, and we
audit them on a regular basis and we also audit individual compa-
nies on a lead-driven, so there’s three different types of employers
that we are working right now—the random sampling, the lead-
driven, and the undercover information.

Mr. Horn. And it is clear—well, let me ask you. Given that small
number of investigators, what does—how many firms can the typi-
cal investigator get to in the course of a year?


112

Congressman Horn
June 7, 1995
Page 2

49.2 million in coat to the County each year. If you add the services of the
Probation Department, Health Dapartment, and Social Services Department, that

Jail calla the Ventura Office of the 1.N.S., and
believes may be in this Country Illegally. Thas jail inmates who have been:
detained for some pariod of time. The Ventura Office then sends one of Its
THREE agents to interview these suspected illegal Immigrants and place holds
‘on them, if appropriate. While this does help same, | believe there ara many
Megal immigrants who are not being Interviewed at all and another number who
‘are being released prior to being able to be interviewed. This allows criminally
deportable immigrants to re-enter our society and system without facing
deportation.

At the request of United States Attorney General Janet Reno, Los Angeles
County is currently conducting @ pilot program in its jail system. The program
has allocated @ number of I.N.S. Personnel (approximately 40) to interview and
‘evaluate ALL individuals who voluntarily stated they are foreign born and who
are being released from the jail syatem. In the first six days alone, 341
Individuals, or 14 percent of all County inmates releaaed, were takan Into
Federal custody for possible deportation. Obviously, this number does not
consider the Individuals wha may be hiding the fact that they are fareign born.
This is only a pilot projact and !s not available to the ather 57 counties at this
time. This type of program Is essential if we are to identity and deport
criminally deportable immigrants State-wide.

My gang and narcotics Investigators tell ma that we are experiencing &
‘tremendous Increase In contacts with Illegal immigeants while conducting major
investigations. in Santa Barbara County, we would like to incorporate I.N.S.
Investigators In our task forces to assist in those Investigations, Today, th
lack of available 1.N.S. investigative personnel make that Impossible. Again, the
effort to combat the criminal element must include [.N.S. Involvement and
cooperation in Interior investigations as well as increased staffing at the border.

‘The Santa Barbara community is divided on the efforts of randomly intercapting
legal immigrants on the City streets. | believe that the majority agrees that
many employers are 8 magnet to the Illegal population. Current procedures on
‘employer verification are totally ineffective. | reailze that Issues involving
tamper-proof Identification and emplayar verification procedures are a part of
the Administrations effort to curb illegal Immigration. However, thera has been



76

California spend an estimated $1.8 billion annually on health
services for illegal immigrants, mandated by the federal
government .

As you know, my office has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the
Governor against the federal government seeking reimbursement for
these costs. The people of California have attempted to address
the issue through passage of Proposition 187, which my office is
currently defending in federal court.

However, until we address what I believe is the greatest

factor contributing to illegal immigration -- the desire to work at
better-paying jobs -- the problem will persist as it has
historically.

Every aspect of the immigration issue is related to the
complex and multi-faceted reasons which prompt people to leave
their home countries for ours. These underlying motives can
essentially be narrowed down to two categories:

1) Push factors, concerning the domestic environment in the
country of origin; and

2) ‘Pull factors, which relate to the attraction of the
country of destination.

While these dual factors are distinguishable from each other,
I have presented them conjunctively since they also interact to
produce incentives to immigrate. They are important to your
consideration in that they provide some guidance concerning the
underlying factors that must be considered in formulating a
coherent immigration policy.

der re

It should be recognized that much of the research -- certainly
the findings of our subcommittee when I served in the Congress --
and the U.S. Commission on Immigration concur that the economic
magnet provides the major incentive for unlawful immigration. In
this regard, if we are to have any prospect for controlling the
flow of unlawful immigration, enforcement of employer sanctions
enacted in the 1986 act is the critical element of an effective
policy.

Unfortunately, employment verification has not been effective
due to a lack of integrity of verification documents. As the
members of this Committee know, producing false documents has
become a cottage industry throughout California and elsewhere.
This has to a great degree undermined the effectiveness of the
sanctions.


28

personal information collected under the project will be made

available to any unauthorized sources or any government agenci

except to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act and criminal
fraud statutes. These pilot projects do not imply support for the

creation of a national identification card.

DOCUMENT REDUCTION

Finally, let me discuss document fraud. We are attacking this
problem in two ways. First, we are increasing our enforcement

efforts against producers of fraudulent documents:

@ Last month, INS officers cracked a nationwide false
document ring, headquartered in Los Angeles, that earned
$1 million a month by counterfeiting green cards and
selling them in California and five other states. Capping
a two-year investigation, "Operation Bait Box" led to the
arrest of 9 people, including the man believed to be a
"godfather" of illegal immigration. Because approximately
one-third of false immigration documents originate in Los
Angeles, this case will have a major impact on the problem

nationwide.

Second, we are advocating the reduction of the number of
documents that can be used as evidence of identity and/or employment

authorization is of vital importance in our efforts to combat the

24


94

If all the dollars collected in the form of sanctions were required
to be distributed back to State and local governments into em-
ployer-sanctioned enforcement programs, would employer sanctions
be increased in California? Should we broaden it beyond the Fed-
eral Government in terms of employer sanctions?

Mr. LUNGREN. Are you talking about the moneys returned?

Mr. Horn. Yes.

Mr. LUNGREN. I frankly don’t know what the total amount is at
the present time and how significant it is. I just don’t have any
gauge of that whatsoever.

Mr. Horn. We had a figure given. Do we know on the amount
of employer sanctions fined in the Western Region or the Los Ange-
les area, either one? Is there a ballpark figure? Is it in the hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars annually?

Mr. Rocers. In Los Angeles it is.

Mr. Horn. In Los Angeles or in the seven counties?

Mr. RoGers. The seven counties.

Mr. Horn. So it would mean some money conceivably?

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Chairman, I would never turn down funds to
allow us to do the job that needs to be done, even though I do be-
lieve there are limits to the Federal Government largesse.

Mr. Horn. There are, but on the other hand, either it needs to
buy more INS personnel, or it needs to go to a joint State-Federal
operation.

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Chairman, for the years I was in the Congress
we were consistently attempting to redress the imbalance of re-
sources in the area of illegal immigration pursuit where it would
do the best job, that is, the Southwest border.

And while there have been some significant increases over the
last several years, I still think the magnitude of the problem that
is reflected in the Southwest is not reflected in the total disburse-
ment of resources.

Mr. Chairman, if I might, I might correct the record a little bit
on the question you asked me concerning 187. While the plaintiffs
case against us involves all of 187, the injunction specifically does
not apply to sections 2 and 3 of 187.

So the fraudulent document sections that have increased the
penalties are in fact in effect.

Mr. Horn. That was my impression, so the State could pursue
that, or could they if they were strictly fraudulent Federal docu-
ments? Do they have to be fraudulent State documents?

Mr. LUNGREN. It is the fraudulent documents either manufac-
tured for the purpose of obtaining benefits and so forth, or the ac-
tual use of obtaining illegal benefits.

Mr. Horn. And those would have to be State? Federal?

Mr. LUNGREN. Those are fraudulent documents in any instance.
Whatever kind that would be used as verifies for the State in pro-
viding a service.

Mr. Horn. Very good. Do you know whether that is being seri-
ously pursued then by law enforcement agencies?

Mr. LUNGREN. I am aware, I believe, of two cases brought in the
Los Angeles County jurisdiction earlier on. Other than that, I am
not aware at the present time.


hire and exploit cheap and unauthorized alien workers; and the
document mill operators who manufacture and sell fraudulent

documents to illegals.

Today, I will focus on two aspects of our enforcement
strategy -- border enforcement deterrence and removal of criminal
aliens. I will be able to highlight only a few of the initiatives
in this region that are part of the Administration's comprehensive
national strategy. I want to talk about where we have come from,
where we are going, and where we intend to go in our integrated

plan to enforce our immigration laws.

BORDER CONTROL

In the summer of 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno made a
fact-finding trip to the San Diego and Nogales bordere. What she
found at the Southwest Border was appalling. Years of neglect

meant that the INS:

® lacked enough agents to patrol the border;

© lacked fencing to keep aliens out;

@ lacked lighting to illuminate attempted crossers;
© lacked cars;

© lacked radios;

@ lacked computers and essential technology; and

© lacked sufficient support staff.


77

I would suggest that the Committee consider a proposal I
recommended as a member of Congress which would involve the
issuance of tamper-proof Social Security cards. We might even
borrow the concept of a toll-free 800 number where employers could
verify the authenticity of the card, the identity of its holder and
whether that individual is eligible for employment in the United
States. As you know, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform,
chaired by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, has endorsed this
approach.

Since this is a document that all workers are presently
required to possess and since it is currently used for purposes of
employment verification under IRCA, the only change in the law
would con: i i lf. Thus, concerns
expressed by some that such a policy would amount to creation of a
"national identification card" are unfounded. ‘The only issue
presented would concern the reliability of an already-established
document .

Our current system does not work. §mployers are threatened
with federal sanctions for hiring illegal aliens, yet we have not
enabled employers to reasonably know whether the people they wish
to hire are here legally in the first place.

Another advantage of such a system would be a reduced
paperwork burden for employers. According to the U.S. Commission
on Immigration Reform, employers have cited what they consider to
be excessive administrative requirements under the current
Paperwork regime. The enhanced verification system that I have
suggested would greatly reduce the complexity of the current system
while at the same time enhancing its integrity.

Once a tamper-proof identification card is established and
employers have reasonable means to check the whether a prospective
employee is here legally, we must follow through by enforcing
sanctions against those employers who continue to flaunt the law.

Border Patro)

Obviously, however, our first line of defense in protecting
our borders rests with the U.S. Border Patrol. It is quite clear
that if undocumented aliens are successful in making it into the
interior, the risks of apprehension are greatly diminished.
Additional border patrol in conjunction with innovative strategies
incorporating the use of new technologies is essential. For
example, rapid response teams to address the fluctuations in the
movement of undocumented aliens and strategically placed sensors
can be of significant value in preventing new illegal entries.


83

Mr. Horn. We thank you, Mr. Attorney General for that excel-
lent commentary reviewing the very touch feels that are involved
in this subject.

Before we go to general questions, I would like to ask secretary
of the State of California, Mr. Bill Jones, to make his statement
and then Mr. Flanagan and I will have the opportunity to question
both of you and maybe relate some of the testimony each of you
are making to each other.

Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Flanagan. We ap-
preciate the chance to be here today and understand that the gist
of this hearing dealing with the immigration issue is possibly, at
first blush, outside of the domain of the secretary of State.

I would like to begin by saying I concur with much of what my
colleague, the attorney general stated. ] think he did it very well,
and obviously very knowledgeable on this issue.

I believe his suggestions, especially since he has had the experi-
ence of working with Congress, should be taken to heart, especially
the fact that he has been here in California the past few years
looking at it on a first-hand basis from the law enforcement per-
spective.

In our situation as the chief elected official in California, we
come from a little different tact. Our opportunities moving into the
21st century for the franchisement of more people and the partici-
pation of more people in the election process through technology,
all the new and exciting possibilities, is second to none.

In talking with people who have participated in elections around
the world, believe it or not, there are even nations far more back-
ward than ours who are yet much further advanced in many re-
spects when it comes to the election technology.

We have the advent of Motor-Voter Act, which we will be imple-
menting in California. While we have some disagreement with the
way in which the act was drafted, and we are pursuing—I say we,
the Governor and myself and others—some changes in that act,
and I’m working through the National Secretary of State Associa-
tion for amendments that we hope to bring before the Congress
sometime this summer.

Nevertheless, with changes that would allow us to properly iden-
tify duplicates, people who have died, illegal residents, and clean
up the rolls which currently in California are fully 15 or 20 percent
duplicates or people that fit in the category I just mentioned.

We have an opportunity with motor-voter to increase the number
of people that participate with these changes, but along with in-
creasing the franchise, the requirement for security is paramount.
When we have files of 14 million registered voters, the sheer vol-
ume of this activity of the elections is substantial, especially in
comparison to other States.

We are compounded here in California with the problem of the
potential for illegal residents participating, which I don’t believe
Californians feel is appropriate. It is illegal, and the attorney gen-
eral has been very cooperative in working with our office since Jan-
uary when I took office to try and resolve some of the jurisdictional
issues to try and work for cleaning up this problem in California.

I come to you today not to express my problems in the generic
area of elections in California, because we will work some of those


5

criminal aliens more quickly and more efficiently than ever before,
in part because of several innovative projects and programs that I
would like to talk about now.

First is the Los Angeles County jail project. On June 1, we
launched a 1-month pilot project with Los Angeles County that we
anticipate will result in the removal of approximately 1,000 more
criminal aliens than the previous months for a total of 1,500. Work-
ing 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, INS takes these aliens into
custody as they are being released from the county jail and works
to deport them the very same day. If this 1-month trial is as suc-
cessful as we expect, we plan to provide the necessary resources to
keep the project going.

Our Institutional Hearing Program. Since 1988, the cornerstone
of our system for removing criminal aliens has been the Institu-
tional Hearing Program, or known as the JHP. In December 1994,
INS approved an enhanced IHP for California and four other
States, initiating hearings for every deportable alien in State cus-
tody before the end of that alien’s term of incarceration. Congress
has fully funded our enhanced IHP in California. We are hiring 52
new positions authorized as part of the program and have doubled
the number of detention spaces available to us here in California
from 400 to 800. We are also working with the State of California
on the details to implement this enhanced program. We are also in-
vesting in the basic tools that allow us to physically move criminal
aliens out of the country. This year, we have spent almost half a
million dollars to restore our bus fleet. We are adding bed space in
our detention facilities in California and elsewhere to ensure that
we are not forced to let aggravated felons walk free because we
have no place to hold them.

Along with moving convicted criminal aliens out of our prisons,
we are increasing our efforts to process criminal aliens through the
justice system faster. Special assistant U.S. attorneys have been
assigned to work specifically on criminal alien cases. Last year’s
crime bill gives INS and prosecutors new tools to use, including our
tougher penalties for re-entry into the United States following de-
portation and the ability to streamline ways in which deportations
are ordered.

In San Diego alone, the U.S. attorney for the southern district
of California expects to prosecute 1,000 criminal aliens for reentry
this year. Under new guidelines going into effect on June 16, pros-
ecutors nationwide will begin to add stipulated deportation as part
of any plea bargain and starting this summer, INS district direc-
tors will be able to order deportations of aggravated felons who are
unlawful permanent aliens without a hearing before an immigra-
tion judge.

The initiatives I have outlined will help INS reach its goal of
doubling the number of criminal aliens removed from 23,250 in fis-
cal year 1995 to 58,200 in 1996. We also seek to double removals
of other deportable aliens from 25,000 in 1995 to 53,000 in 1996.

These are tremendous steps forward in the Department of Jus-
tice and INS to rid our Nation of criminal and other deportable
aliens. Each of these efforts is designed to reduce the cost associ-
ated with the process and incarceration of criminal aliens.


lil

HEADQUARTERS TIM THOMAS
0 nox? abe Rat Shen Coroner
Sec tar, abe 160 DAVE DORSEY
oreo a00 ‘Ser Chet De
Wednesday, June 07, 1995
STATIONS
wunir0H Congresaman Stephen Horn
vow tear: 4010 Watson Plaza Drive, Sulte 160
maieeconaT Lakewood, CA
Freed aatst
Dear Congressman Horn:
CCARPNTERUA
Ce ‘Thank you for the opportunity to address the Subcommittees. Illegal
recuse auasi ‘immigration is @ tremendous burden on the law and justice agencies in
California. 1 speak to you today as the Sherift-Coroner of Santa Barbera
County. My views are my own and may not reflect other valid concerns
Louroc of miy fellow law enforcement administratora.
$81 Rane ent
belapreaniel As you know, California sheriffs are responsible for the operation of
county jail aystema es well as criminal investigation and patrol functions
In the unincarporatad areas of each county. My discussion will focus on
ew cuvana three areas that have a direct impact on both of those broad
70 bs tio ition; 1)the large number of illegal immigrants in our jalls, 2)the

nw cirmme.caan Increase in the illegal criminal elemant in narcotic and gang investigations,
mneoesine and, 3)the lack of effective illegal employment investigations, There is,
however, one common element between the three areas of concern -
LLN.S. staffing. It appears thet the focus of additional personnel for the
qacauania | _|ramigration and Naturalization Service Is on the harder with Mexico.
eave tez, _ While that addresses iilegal entry into the United States, it does not
mameweo address the problem of the criminally deportable who are already in
California county jails and communities. It also does not address the
ability to use I.N.S. Investigatora and or Agents on local and regional
souvana gang and narcotic task forces or thelr ability to effactivaly investigate
15 Hoan De egal employment practices. My Issue then, is to plead that there
Sete tA ‘substantia! increase in staffing to the interior offices of the immigration
eaiiadiaieel and Naturalization Service in California as wall as to the border,

On eny given day, 14 to 20 percent of the jail population of Senta

pene Barbara County is comprised of illegal aliens, That equates to roughly

(48 ae Arena
‘Save arr. CASIO
Phone 8


81

Earlier I mentioned the existence of "push" and "pull" factors
which together encourage illegal immigration into the U.S. The
undeniable fact is that the American agricultural industry, and to
a lesser extent other service-oriented industries, represent an
overwhelming and understandable "pull" factor to those from other
countries who seek a better existence. At the same time, we must
be honest about the fact that there are many jobs in agriculture
that Americans simply refuse to take. That may be a sad comment on
the work ethic of many Americans, but it is an undeniable fact.

The question, then, in recognition of these realities, is what
should our national policy be with regard to migrant labor.

Our national policy should allow for temporary laborers who
will fill those unwanted jobs to enter the U.S. safely and legally,
provided they have jobs with safe, regulated conditions and that
there are strong, effective incentives to return home when their
work is done

It is my belief that we should abandon our current "Seasonal
Agricultural Worker" and “Replenishment Agricultural Worker"
programs and substitute a form of the "Guest Worker Program" I
advocated as part of the 1986 Act.

The SAW and RAW programs have been failures. They allowed
workers to enter the U.S. legally, ostensibly to work in
agriculture, but provided no incentive to compel workers to return
to their own countries. Many workers in these programs have taken
advantage of loose rules and lax enforcement to gain legal
residence here, contrary to the our stated policy

In contrast, the guest worker concept I first proposed in 1980
would have allowed a predetermined number of migrant workers to
enter the U.S. legally, based on regional assessments cf need by
the U.S. Labor Department, for the purpose of taking agricultural
jobs. The jobs available to guest workers could be expanded to
other industries later, subject to approval by both the U.S. and
Mexican governments,

A designated percentage of each guest worker's wages earned in
the U.S. would be deposited at a U.S. consulate in Mexico. To
provide the essential incentive for workers to return home once
their employment ended, they could only retrieve those funds in
person, in their home country.

Some involved in this debate assume, wrongly, that what we are
proposing is a new "bracero" program, referring to the system which
allowed companies in need of labor to bring Mexican workers into
the U.S. Perhaps the biggest flaw leading to abuses in the bracero
program was the common practice of restricting a migrant laborer to
one employer. Migrant workers whose legal status in this country

8


107

property related services. Additionally, we have had to increase
fees and raise benefit assessments to fund services which were

formerly funded by property taxes.

The full cost of carrying out federal mandates should be borne
by the federal government particularly in areas where the growth in
local costs for administering mandated programs can be attributed
to immigration policies set by the federal government. This would
provide a direct incentive to provide legal methods to identify
specific costs associated with serving illegal immigrants. It would
also serve to better facilitate policy decision-making as to
whether certain federally mandated services should be extended to
illegal immigrants given the cost to taxpayers associated with

providing such services.


92

Mr. Horn. Why hasn’t that happened since 1978? Was there a
State court ruling on that?

Mr. JONES. No. There was a law that was passed, and Governor
Jerry Brown at the time did not allow us to go forward with the
positive purge past 1978, so what we have had since then is a neg-
ative purchase which is if you don’t vote in two elections we send
you a card. Unless you send it back telling us you have moved or
died, we don’t take you off.

So as you can see, that doesn’t work real well.

Mr. Horn. The reason I voted against that bill, as one of the first
votes I cast, was the unbelievable potential for fraud and the fact
that you could not purge anyone—it was offered in committee that
you purge after 5 years, purge after 25 years, and finally, after that
had been turned down by the 10 majority, not the current majority,
it was asked to be purged after 100 years, and that was also turned
down. So it means that the dead could continue to vote.

At that point, I'm going to yield to my friend from Chicago, since
in 1936 during the Roosevelt campaign that election in November
was known as resurrection day since several hundred thousand of
the dead voted, and I’m sure you will have numerous questions on
elections.

Mr. Flanagan.

Mr, FLANAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The history of mankind is composed of those who are now, those
who have gone before, and those who are yet to come. In Chicago,
they all vote. [Laughter.]

Mr. FLANAGAN. I believe that many of the difficulties that you
are about to encounter with motor-voter in California and the cor-
rect identification problem, illegal aliens participating in the voting
process, is very—is a concern, and I’m glad it is one of yours now.

An unholy alliance in Chicago for over a century has been be-
tween the illegal immigrant and the dead resulting in a vote cast.
The illegal immigrant is compliant because the work boss provides
him with a job or something, and they take a voter off the rolls who
has been in a box in the ground for many years, and that person
continues to vote in hand with the immigrant who is sent to the
polls.

We have combated it in Chicago over the years and, although
apocryphally to no success, I will tell you with great success. And
I would tell you the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, the
Cooke County Board of Election Commissioner could actually pro-
vide you with excellent voter protection plans that will help you ac-
complish what it is you’re trying to do in no small way, from true
experts in a problem that you are looking at. I would be happy to
facilitate that for you.

Further, | would observe that the voting difficulty that you have
identified in the future will continue to be a problem in whatever
regard you take it with you and then to motor-voter it because as
you make it easier to enter the rolls, you make it easier to enter
the rolls.

Consequently, while it is a great benefit to those who can enter
the rolls legally, for those who would enter the rolls under fraud
and deceit and other ways, it is also easier for that to happen too.



60

Mr. Horn. And of these people that have been fined, are they re-
peaters?

Mr. ROGERS. Once we establish a fine we audit again and if we
find them in violation we pursue criminal prosecution.

Mr. Horn. Because I would say it’s—some would I suspect have
it as the cost of doing business—got to pay INS fines, get cheap
labor and exploit them.

Mr. Rocers. And that is the intention for us to concentrate our
efforts on those type of employers.

Mr. Horn. Has anybody gone to jail since the 1986 act was
passed?

Mr. Rocers. As far as I know the first——

Mr. Horn. Or Federal prison.

Mr. Rocers. The first case we had a conviction was a female and
she spent a month in jail.

Mr. Horn. A month in jail, so the cost of doing business was
pretty cheap for her.

So the fact is would you say we are taken seriously or not seri-
ously under employer sanctions as enacted into law in 1986?

Mr. Rocers. I think under this administration it’s a higher pro-
file than it has ever been before.

Mr. Horn. Well, I agree with that, but that’s sort of zero added
maybe as plus-zero or plus-one.

Mr. Rocers. As we refine our efforts in this area we get to the
egregious and I don’t think we were there before. I think our in-
creased concentration and efforts on the egregious employer got us
to the stage that we are. We are increasing our production in the
criminal area.

Mr. Horn. Well, basically though you are saying that of the
cases you bring to the U.S. attorney how many do they reject and
say sorry, we are not going to do anything about it?

Mr. Rocers. During the year that I have been there, I believe
they’ve accepted three and rejected about five.

Mr. Horn. OK. Did you think their rejection was a fair rejection?

Mr. RoGers. Under their evaluation I’m sure it was fair. [Laugh-
ter.]

Mr. Horn. Well, what is the U.S. attorney’s evaluation?

Mr. RoGeERs. They try to get the evidence. They require us to go
undercover and have an undercover agent employed by the em-
ployer. Oftentimes they will ask us multiple individuals to be em-
ployed by the employer with knowingly presenting counterfeit doc-
uments and also the conditions the employer puts to the employee
such as under minimum wage, et cetera. Those are criteria that
they put on us to present the case.

Each case is identified and evaluated on its own reference.

Mr. Horn. Now on the under minimum wage, what is the U.S.
Department of Labor doing about their regular wage surveys? They
also have authority in this field.

Mr. ROGERS. We have a joint task force now with Social Security,
Department of Labor, and State Department. We just are now con-
cluding doing the Northridge contractors, the fly by-night contrac-
tors that came in after the Northridge earthquake.


56

the resources you are allocating beyond the borders, let’s say 50
miles from the borders in interior California to do—to, one, find il-
legal aliens and to get them deported if you find them. What is
that off the top of your head? Do you have it and then file it for
the record in specifics. And how has that changed over the few
years?

We yelled so much at you to get them to the border to stop the
inflow and now we are worried that we have got several million in
the State. We have got the highest unemployment rate in the Na-
tion in Los Angeles County and people are still pouring in and
youth cannot get entry level jobs. And that was the situation in
1975’ that got me first aroused then. We just sat there, due to real-
ly negligence of both Republican and Democratic administrations
nationally until now. I agree with you, the President is the first
President I have known since 1975, that seemed to care about the
matter, and I say that as one in the opposite party.

But go ahead and tell me what you know on the allocation.

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes, Mr. Chairman. You are absolutely correct.
We have been concentrating on the border. Most of the resources
over the last several years have gone to the border primarily in
California and Texas.

That’s been part of the strategy.

Recognizing the problems that have been building up in the Inte-
rior and have been there for many, many years, the administration
and the INS, the commissioners recognize that we now in essence
have got a control in a manner of speaking or a better control of
the border. Now we must look into the interior.

There is a comprehensive package that includes for the interior
stations primarily in the districts of over 600 agents, INS inspec-
tors at the ports of entry. Then we are looking at investigators. In-
vestigations is looking at approximately 365, recognizing as I testi-
fied before that there are seven States that we are looking at heav-
ily for the interior aspect in addition to the border, not including
the border. California is one is including Los Angeles, San Fran-
cisco.

We are looking at Florida. We are looking at New York, Illinois,
and we are adding the State of Arizona and the State of New Jer-
sey, but we have a very comprehensive number for interior enforce-
ment and that is going to translate into more investigators, more
naturalization of people, more adjudicators, more contact reps in
the area of services.

Mr. Rogers might have some specifics as to the numbers that we
will probably be looking at next year.

Mr. Horn. And are those currently authorized by law and you
are out recruiting them? I need to know that.

Mr. Rocers. At the present time we have about 179 investiga-
tors on board in the Los Angeles district. The agency’s total author-
ized force is 1,814—that’s nationwide.

It is anticipated that pending fiscal year 1996 initiative will get
probably one-seventh of the 372. At the present time I have bring-
ing on board an additional 23 investigators and staff to do a sanc-
tions pilot project in the Los Angeles area.

Mr. Horn. What has the Department of Justice asked for in
terms of resources for fiscal 1996? Do you have those figures?


18

southern borders; it is also prevalent at airports of entry. In
September 1994, the anti-smuggling agents of the Seattle District
and Blaine Border Patrol Sector completed a task force investigation
with the U.S. Customs Service and Royal Canadian Mounted Police that
targeted South Asian smuggling rings into the United States and
Canada. The smugglers operated on both the northern and southern
borders, delivering smuggled aliens to cities across Canada and the
United States. Eleven defendants and 212 smuggled aliens were

arrested.

In a related action, undercover agents, posing as corrupt INS
officers, received $1.5 million bribes from smugglers for the
sale of green cards. Tracking the sale of these green cards
eventually led to the arrests of 13 major smugglers and more than
900 smuggled aliens, The 65-count complaint filed against these
emugglers included charges of conspiracy, alien smuggling, fraud,

and money laundering.

These examples illustrate the efforts we are making to break up
the organized smuggling groups, which aggravate the problem of

curbing illegal entries and which also prey upon their human cargo.

DEPORTING CRIMINAL ALIENS

This Administration is committed to making the identification,

location and removal of criminal aliens from the United States one

14


AT

do the other if you have, as a source document by legislative fiat,
your driver’s license as one where you demonstrate you are who
you are.

Mr. Riccutazzt. [ would like to just make this one comment and
that was, at that Senate committee hearing the last thing I said
was our job at the DMV is to make sure that the drivers of the
State are safe and that we feel secure when we are on the road.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Which is the purpose of the——

Mr. RiccHtAzzi. Is the purpose of the DMV and the driver’s li-
cense. I think as we look at identification or we are looking at
DMV, what we have here is 73 percent of the population has some
form of a driver’s license or an ID card. We have hundreds of thou-
sands of people who do not drive but want some form of an ID card
when they cash a check or if they are going to the grocery line, and
they have come to the DMV for that.

I think what has happened is that, over the years, if we are look-
ing for maybe an efficient, economical way for people to get that
ID card or the driver's license, we have that data base. The ques-
tion that I think may need to be asked which is not answered yet
is how does the data base of the DMV along with the data bases
of INS or Social Security, et cetera, how are each of them going to
share in whatever is going to be decided by Congress?

Mr. FLANAGAN. I would tell you that what INS has to do with
safe running highways I am not quite sure and your question pre-
supposes that the driver’s license or national ID card should be
used as a source document to demonstrate your citizenship, wheth-
er in an employment environment or something else. I will tell you,
this is not something that I would tell you that the American popu-
lation likes the idea of, of having to demonstrate through the use
of your driver’s license or some—the State of Illinois has a State
ID card which they will give you upon request as opposed to a driv-
er’s license, some other State official imprimatur of you are who
you are if you wish to cash a check. It is a voluntary event. You
carry one in your pocket if you want to so at the grocery store, try-
ing to cash your check, you have some sort of an identification if
you don’t carry a driver's license.

Your statement is intelligent. Unfortunately it is from a premise
and aimed at a conclusion that I am not sure is nationwide. I am
positive this Nation is not ready for yet and I am not sure we will
ever be, and that is to have a source document in your pocket in
some standardized verifiable source that you will carry and present
upon demand, ostensibly only in an employment environment.

I will tell you that it is only ostensibly from the beginning and
will grow from there unless vigilantly watched and I don’t think we
are capable of doing it that vigilantly. I have deep reservations
with this and I think I share the interest of the Nation in doing
that.

Mr, Riccutazzi. 1 would just like to bring out one statistic which
I think is rather interesting and that is that when we enforce legal
presence, we did watch a drop of over 100,000 applications for ID
cards in California last year. That is quite a significant drop. We
have no way to measure was that all legal presence, but that was
something that I thought was important to just share with the
committee.


51

That is while they are completing what is called the I-9, which
is the employment verification document that the employer fills out
while they verify that document. That is the process they go
through.

Mr. Horn. In your opinion and your experience, can the em-
ployer really understand and have assured knowledge whether or
not he is dealing with an illegal alien or one that is eligible to work
in this country? As I understand it, some of the inspections when
they go through, INS agents simply look to see if he has Xeroxed
something in the file. There is no way they can really check that
card, the card isn’t there; they've got a Xerox of a card. Now, even
that might look fraudulent to the trained eye but to the employer,
does all he have to make is a good faith effort?

Mr. RoceERs. That is correct.

Mr. Horn. Yes.

Mr. Rocers. A good faith effort of the documents that he is pre-
sented. We don’t expect, nor do we want, the employers to become
fraudulent document experts. We have a new initiative coming
here in Los Angeles which is the telephone verification system that
we will provide electronic capabilities to 200 new—200 employers
who volunteer for the program to give them the capability of verify-
ing the alien documentation that they have presented and that is
our effort to give them the tools to be able to do it without the li-
ability.

Mr. Horn. When will that go on line, Mr. Rogers?

Mr. RoGeERS. We anticipate bringing the first 200 employers on
October 1.

Mr. Horn. What is your professional judgment as you review the
Los Angeles area? Are you responsible for the whole county or sev-
eral counties——

Mr. Rocrrs. Seven counties.

Mr. Horn. Seven counties. From here to the Mexican border?

Mr. Rocers. No, it is excluding Imperial and San Diego. I have
Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Riverside, San Luis Obispo,
Santa Barbara and Oxnard.

Mr. HorN. What is your estimate of the number of fraudulent
documents that are probably in the employer files based on your
agents going out and reviewing these files? Is it half of the docu-
ments are probably fraudulent?

Mr. Rocers. No.

Mr. Horn. Ten percent?

Mr. Rocers. I would venture to say, and I am talking just esti-
mates, maybe 15 to 20 percent.

Mr. Horn. Fifteen to 20 percent. What would that mean in terms
of workers here illegally and employed in those areas that you are
reviewing? Are we talking about several hundred thousand?

Mr. RocERs. There is an estimated 15 million population in the
area so 10 to 15 percent of that, you’re talking 100,000 to 300,000.

Mr. Horn. Well, at 15 million, aren’t you talking 1¥ million?

Mr. Rocers. OK.

Mr. Horn. Yes, I’m curious. There’s 15 million people or 15 mil-
lion what? We're talking 15 million people?

Mr. RoGErs. People.


80

In this regard, I would also suggest that when additional INS
positions are considered that a priority be given to the
enhancement of the INS investigations branch.

Another option which should be considered by this Committee
concerns the use of the RICO statute against alien smuggling
operations along with expanded use of existing forfeiture statutes.
Perhaps the most effective way to attack this industry in human
cargo is to uproot these operations by the destruction of their
economic base. I am pleased to say that this approach received the
support of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform as well.

It should be kept in mind that the resources used against
alien smuggling operations are a good investment because they
attack a source of illegal immigration. In addition, there is a
significant overlap with many of these operations and other
organized criminal activity such as narcotics and prostitution.
Thus, an enforcement prioritization with respect to these criminal
enterprises can pay significant dividends.

Prospects for Future Success

While there are clearly many more steps we need to take to get
control of the illegal immigration problem, from my perspective it
is clear that we are making some progress. I can tell you, having
recently toured the California-Mexico border area from the air and
on the ground, our border patrol efforts are far improved from the
time I first toured that area as a member of the Congress in the
early 1980s. Much of the progress is owed to technological
advancements, but we have also finally started to acknowledge that
our Border Patrol needs to be greatly increased if we are to
realize any sense of control. The coordinated support role of the
National Guard in these efforts cannot be underestimated. The
road-building capacity of the Guard provides an infrastructure
boost to the Border Patrol mission that has to be seen to be
believed.

I have attempted to provide several areas in which federal
action can contribute to ultimately regaining control over our
borders through a sound immigration policy. However, I would like
to close by asking this committee to consider another possible
reform of our immigration policy that would, in my opinion, greatly
reduce the problem.

Even with more effective border control, and even if the
provisions of Proposition 187 are fully implemented, the facts
underlying illegal immigration will not change. Migrant laborers
are likely to be a reality in California and the southwestern
United States no matter how effective our border control efforts.


13

OPERATION GATEKEEPER

Part of our integrated strategy called for initially
concentrating our resources at the two border areas that represented
the greatest threat. We chose the area where 85 percent of all
illegal aliens coming into the U.S. were being apprehended--a five~
mile stretch in San Diego called Imperial Beach, and a 20-mile

stretch of border in El Paso.

Let me provide some background on the illegal aliens attempting
entry in the San Diego sector before Operation Gatekeeper.
Approximately 99 percent of those who entered illegally in the San
Diego area were bound for the nation's interior. Eighty-five
percent of the San Diego apprehensions occur at night. Many of the
with aliens who are determined to enter the country illegally. Their
determination has contributed to the emergence of an ever increasing
number of intricate and highly organized smuggling networks which
charge northbound aliens anywhere from $500-800 for the 150-mile

trip from Tijuana, Mexico, to Los Angeles.

The heart of the Gatekeeper strategy is a high intensity
deployment plan. Eighty-eight percent of the sector's agents are
stationed within 1/2 mile of the border. We have made significant
physical improvements to the border in this area, including new
lighting, new fencing, and new roads. This operational blueprint

gives us substantial deterrent presence along the immediate border,


55

Mr. FLANAGAN. And if you want such a thing, by God, you ought
to have it. But to require me to carry it in my wallet is another
matter entirely. That is the essence of the question we have today.

Mr. Horn. Mr. Ricchiazzi, what number do you issue in strictly
identification cards as opposed to drivers licenses? Do you have a
figure on that? How many people are asking for these identification
cards.

Mr. RiccuiAzzi. I am going to give you a number and——

Mr. Horn. Why don’t you furnish it for the record. If you have
a ballpark now, that would be fine.

Mr. RiccntAzzi. I think it runs around 1, 1.3 million.

Mr. Horn. That is really quite amazing. 1.3 million, they don’t
need it for a drivers license, it’s simply identification.

Now, in terms of the State administration of welfare, and we are
sending them a lot more block grant things to do, one of our prob-
lems is major fraud in terms of Medicaid known in this State as
MediCal. Will the State require identification cards on recipients of
Medicaid which is both State and Federal money?

Mr. Riccntazzi. We are working with the welfare right now as
far as the drivers license. I am not sure what they are doing over
there at welfare but, again, it is a time saver if you can give them
an ID card or a drivers license, they swipe the card through,
they’ve got enough of the information which is saving clerk time as
far as filling in the application.

Mr. Horn. I believe the Los Angeles County supervisors are mov-
ing in that direction, aren’t they?

Mr. RICCHTAZZI. Yes, they are.

Mr. Horn. They have already saved millions in the process.

Mr. RICCHIAZZI. Yes, they have.

Mr. Horn. Well, you know, if the geese want to be fleeced, don’t
do anything about some of this identification and you will be
fleeced by the people who sign up 15 times. But it seems to me it
is a solvable problem.

Now, you were active or the director of motor vehicles is active
in the national association of other motor vehicle directors. As I un-
derstand it, it is possible to link up these State data bases. It
wouldn’t cover everybody. If you applied for an identification card,
you would be covered, if you applied for a drivers license, you
would be covered. But is there any estimate anyone has as to how
many adults 18 and over would be covered by such linkage and is
there any estimate for California as to what proportion of the adult
population is or is not covered by motor vehicles, either State iden-
tification cards or motor vehicle drivers license?

Mr. Riccutazzi. Well, we know that 73 percent of all Californians
have either an ID card or a drivers license.

Mr. Horn. Is that 18 and up or does that include we 14 year olds
on a farm that learned how to drive and had licenses.

Mr. RiccitazzI. That would include those that are 14 and can
drive because they are out on the farm.

Mr. Horn. Right.

Mr. RiccH1azzi. But that is our percentage of the State is 73 per-
cent,

Mr. Horn. Well, let me ask a few more substantive questions
then. I need a chart somewhere in the record from the INS as to


2

Lungren, will then discuss illegal immigration’s impact on the
State’s law and justice system.

We will conclude with an insightful case study by three Santa
Barbara County officials on the impacts of illegal immigration on
local government.

Gentlemen, we thank you all for joining us, and look forward to
your testimony. I am now going to yield to the vice chairman of the
committee, Mr. Flanagan of Illinois.

Mr. Flanagan.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for having these
hearings today and they are indeed on an extremely important sub-
ject, one which has great importance in Chicago as well as Califor-
nia.

While I would like to observe that the census may have provided
seven new seats to California, it wasn’t the fact that California had
new seats that got us interested in immigration, although that is
a scary proposition itself to the rest of the Nation. We are very
pleased at the fact that the Congress is now going to very much
attack this problem, look at this problem and handle it in a reason-
able, intelligent way to protect the rights of citizens and still pro-
vide us with the culturization which we have afforded as our great-
est natural asset, if you will, over the course of our great republic.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Horn. I might add to Mr. Flanagan’s point that the reason
we were able to be successful in getting 6,000 more allocation for
the Border Patrol was that we made the argument both privately
and then publicly on the floor for the first time to my colleagues,
who hadn’t been too supportive before last year that if you want
to lose 7, 8, 10 more seats to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Califor-
nia, don’t support us. And, of course, they woke up and realized one
of those might be their seats and we got the highest vote that has
ever occurred on anything to do with illegal immigration.

Let me just stress the guidelines here. The subcommittee of the
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee swear in all
witnesses that come before it, including Members of Congress, Cab-
inet officers and I would ask each of you to stand.

[Witnesses sworn. ]

Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that all affirmed. We will now
begin with panel one and our first very distinguished speaker is
Mr. Gustavo de la Vina, Director of the Western Region, U.S. Im-
migration and Naturalization Service.

Please proceed.

STATEMENTS OF GUSTAVO DE LA VINA, ON BEHALF OF THE
WESTERN REGION, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZA-
TION SERVICE; RICHARD K. ROGERS, ON BEHALF OF THE
WESTERN REGION, LOS ANGELES DISTRICT, IMMIGRATION
AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE; JOHNNY N. WILLIAMS, ON
BEHALF OF THE INS BORDER PATROL; AND FRANK
RICCHIAZZI, ON BEHALF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR
VEHICLES OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. DE LA ViNA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, [ am pleased
to appear before you today to discuss the integrated immigration


72

count on escaping accurate identification thanks to this joint infor-
mation sharing effort.

While serving on the Immigration Subcommittee I joined in the
adoption of language in the 1986 act to expedite the deportation of
aliens convicted of criminal, deportable offenses.

Two years later in the 1988 drug bill we created a special cat-
egory of aliens convicted of aggravated felonies. Just last year the
Congress addressed the question of detention or removal of crimi-
nal aliens and specifically require the Attorney General to operate
a criminal alien tracking center.

The enforcement of these existing laws must be given the highest.
possible priority. I think now we are beginning to work with the
Feds on this. I think there is some real progress on this, but much
more needs to be done. I’m convinced that we need to specifically
deal with those alien felons who, following conviction and deporta-
tion, return to the United States in violation of the Federal laws.

Last year, Joe Sandovol, the secretary of California Youth and
Adult Correction Agency and I wrote Janet Reno in requesting Fed-
eral action to apprehend and prosecute an identified 1,226 illegal
alien felons who had been deported following release from parole
from State prisons only to return to the United States illegally, and
who then began reporting to their State parole officers. They evi-
dently feared more about not reporting to California parole officers
than they did being identified as being in the United States ille-
gally.

I might remind you that last year the Congress passed and the
President signed a bill increasing the penalty for a felon coming
back to the United States after being formally deported to 20 years
in prison.

That has not been prosecuted at the level I would like, and I
know after talking with a number of people in U.S. attorney offices
what they would like.

I recently met with Alan Berson, U.S. attorney in San Diego who
has stepped up Federal prosecution of previously deported felons
who illegally re-enter the country. We will be working together to
have a better flow of information. He has made a commitment that
there will be some prosecutions in that regard. We received a posi-
tive response from Michael Yamaguichi, the U.S. attorney in San
Francisco, on behalf of the other U.S. attorneys. We think we can

lo it.

I think that we have some high-profile tough cases where illegal
aliens have committed felonies in California, have been deported
and now come back, are prosecuted, and are given stiff sentences,
that will send a message of deterrence out there.

Two problems. One is the normal sentence given by Federal
judges now is much, much, much less than 20 years. Second, the
U.S. Sentencing Commission has not revisited this issue, and
therefore the sentencing guidelines are very low in terms of the
sentences that would normally be given for this.

Alien smuggling is a major concern that warrants prioritization.
I would suggest that when you look at additional INS positions and
funding it ought to be considered a priority for enhancement of the
INS Investigations Branch. Sometimes they’re left behind.


VERIFICATION PILOTS

We have testified before about our plans for employment
authorization verification pilot programs. Soon, we will begin the
selection of 200 volunteer employers in the Los Angeles area for the
expanded pilot of the Telephone Verification System (IVS) pilot
program. This system provides employers with a simple, automated
means of verifying the work eligibility of non-citizen employees.
TVS works much like a retail credit card check where employers gain
access to the INS automated database by telephone and receive an
instantaneous response with the newly hired employee's employment
authorization status. If INS hag no information on an individual or
reports the employee lacks authorization, the employer is told to
submit a secondary verification by mail to a designated local INS
office. If the newly hired non-citizen'’s employment authorization
cannot be verified through the secondary process, the INS notifies
the employer. The employee then may go to the nearest INS office

for possible resolution of the matter.

Beyond the TVS expansion, we are in the process of designing
other pilots to allow employers to verify employment eligibility by
using Social Security Administration (SSA) records and INS records;
to simulate linkage of INS and SSA databases; and to analyze
potential improvements and additions to the INS and SSA databases to
make them more accurate. These pilots are consistent with

recommendations made by the Commission on Immigration Reform. No

23


70

lem on the island. The INS had come in and done some sweeps and
found a lot of people were there illegally, and businesses were
upset, and they wanted some direction, and then the INS came
over and had training sessions for some time.

Nobody knows there is a flux there. Nobody wants to talk about
and everybody whispers about it. This is the United States, and if
we have a law that everybody has to whisper about, otherwise law-
abiding citizens, then I think we need to go back and take a look
at it. So I think we need to do that.

After we’ve done that, we need to do some other things. Obvi-
ously, the first line of defense in protecting our borders rests with
the U.S. Border Patrol.

It is quite clear that if undocumented aliens are successful in
making it into the interior the risks of apprehension are greatly di-
minished. Additional border patrol in conjunction with innovative
strategies incorporating the use of new technologies is essential.

I would like to say I have been down to the southern border in
the last month, reviewed it from the air, and on the ground, and
the difference between what I saw 15 years ago and 12 years ago
and 10 years ago as a Member of Congress and today is startling.

The soccer field no longer exists. We used to see thousands of
people organize themselves in a rather convivial atmosphere as
they waited for dark to come upon them, They were actually on the
U.S. side already. They were playing soccer. I assumed they would
be there in camouflaged clothes because they were going to sneak
across the border.

They were there in gaily-colored clothes. I remember seeing
women with red sweaters on and men with brightly colored shirts
and so forth, waiting for dark. They’d waive at the Border Patrol
and they saw the Border Patrol waiting for them, and then by
thousands they would come across and the Border Patrol would be
lucky to stop a couple hundred. That no longer exists.

We have a fence along that line, which was very controversial 10
years ago, but has been put into effect.

The other thing I want to say is let’s not forget the National
Guard. I think the DOD Defense bill does forget the National
Guard, and | think some decisions made by DOD this year are
going to hamper efforts by the California National Guard to con-
tinue to do a great job of support.

If you were down there 5 years ago you would have recognized
that there were no available roads on our side of the border by
which the INS could respond to different groups of people coming
across. Now there is a road system.

Before, the INS had one grader and one contractor, and they
would start at the ocean’s edge, and they would move inland. By
the time they got in, the rainy season started and would wash out
the roads that they worked on, and they would start again next
year.

Now, you have the border patrol being able to access different
parts of the border with a series of roads that have basically been
created by the California National Guard. They work their way in-
land; they still have a number of miles to go. I think they've done
about half the job.


63

I don’t know if any of you are old enough to remember the Public
Law 78 but what was your reaction to that? Should we get back
to that?

I mean I remember it in the 1960's because I was a young Senate
assistant and the issue was being fought out in the Senate, in the
mid-1960’s in particular.

Mr. DE LA VINA. I was in south Texas during the Bracero pro-
gram. Again I was young back then. [Laughter.]

Mr. Horn. Yes.

Mr. DE LA VINA. The numbers were so different than what they
are right now. I think we were dealing with, if I recall it was a con-
trollable amount of people. It was agricultural. There weren’t a lot
of field laborers involved. Even then there was a lengthy process
and bookkeeping that went with it and what have you. It appeared
to be semi-successful.

In today’s climate and I see and would ask Mr. Williams how
many apprehensions his agents made on the border last night. He
says anywhere between—what was it, Johnny, 2,300?

Mr. Horn. Was that just the San Diego border?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. Horn. And about how many tried to come over? Three thou-
sand last night?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We hope not—2,012.

Mr. Horn. But it’s usually a couple thousand a night and you
catch about 1,000 and 1,000 get in, don’t they?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We believe the percentage of our effectiveness has
risen dramatically since Gatekeeper and without going into num-
bers, because someone else could have another number that I
couldn’t disprove, but we think we have at least doubled our effi-
ciency since Gatekeeper.

Mr. DE LA Vina. So with these huge numbers, you know, 2,000
arrests, the program would be targeting such a limited number,
even in agriculture, number of people that would be let’s say em-
ployed, it would still be a huge, huge magnet and I just don’t see
the feasibility of that. My personal opinion is there’s too many com-
ing across right now.

Mr. Horn. Yes. I have one last question and then Mr. Flanagan
has a question.

It seemed to me 20, 25 years ago there were a lot of people help-
ing the Border Patrol patrol illegal immigration—local police, sher-
iff's office, so forth. Just for the record, what happened? Why don’t
they help anymore? Were those Federal court rulings primarily?
What was it?

Mr. DE LA VINA. I think one of the areas and we have all worked
the border during those timeframes, I remember when there used
to be a fee paid to the police and what have you for holding an un-
documented person until the Border Patrol arrived and what have
you.

The society changed. The aspect of it’s been on a curve, up and
down, whether it’s either political or sensitive—there’s been a lot
of interests, a lot of sensitivities involved. It’s been up and down
and in Texas it’s semi-accepted. It’s an on-the-border issue. In the
interior it’s viewed a little bit different.


20

Office for a deportation proceeding before a special immigration
court which has been set up for thie project by the Executive Office
of Immigration Review. After they receive their final orders, these

criminals are promptly deported -- in most cases on the same day.

This first of its kind project is possible due to unprecedented
cooperation with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which
is working to ensure that all deportablé aliens are turned over to
INS upon completion of their sentences. County officials are
providing INS with lists of inmates scheduled to be released before
their release date. This information allows INS to identify
deportable aliens before their release and take them into custody
before they hit the streets. If this one month trial is as
successful as we expect, we plan to provide the necessary resources

to keep the project going.

INSTITUTIONAL HEARING PROGRAM

Since 1988, the cornerstone of our system for removing criminal
aliens has been the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP), under which
deportable aliens in Federal and state correctional institutions
undergo their deportation hearings while serving their sentences.
This allows INS to immediately deport them from the country
following the completion of their sentences, saving time, detention
space, and taxpayers' dollars. In December, 1994, INS approved an

Enhanced IHP for California and four other states that will help INS

16


37

we are, at least for 30 days, we are capturing everybody that is get-
ting out of that jail.

Mr. Horn. At the bottom of page 10, you note that the adminis-
tration has requested $300 million for fiscal year 1996, the maxi-
mum amount authorized by law. Now, Governor Wilson has said
that it costs California between $250 million to $350 million to in-
carcerate illegal aliens in the State prison system and I just won-
dered do you feel that estimate of the State of California is accu-
rate and, if it is, that would consume really more than the whole
authorization tnat the administration is seeking.

Mr. DE LA VINA. What we are looking at, Mr. Chairman, is in-
crease our criminal alien removal program. With the additional re-
sources that we are anticipating and receiving with the budget in-
creases, we anticipate to almost double what we have been doing
in the past. In other words, we were shooting for criminal aliens,
23,000 last year, that is going to be up to at least 58,000 this year
so we are anticipating that with an aggressive program of criminal
alien removal, we will not have or see the high incarceration rate
we are seeing right now.

Mr. Horn. Let me ask Mr. Flanagan, do you have any questions
that you were not clear about on the testimony?

Mr. FLANAGAN. Just one clarifying question, Mr. Chairman.

On the last page of your testimony, if I can read this back to you
here, “in the second quarter of fiscal 1996, we expect to implement
a new tamper-resistant employment authorization document to
deter fraud and allow easier detection of counterfeit documents.
Our goal overall is to make the employment verification system
simpler for employers while minimizing the opportunity for fraud.”

Who will carry that document?

Mr. DE LA VINA. At this point we are experimenting with a docu-
ment. I am going to refer to Mr. Rogers. I think he has worked
with this aspect to kind of give you the who, the what, and what
it is going to look like. It is going to be like a credit card basically.

Mr. ROGERS. Any alien that is eligible to work legally within the
United States that is not a permanent resident.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Any alien who is eligible to work in the United
States who is not a permanent resident?

Mr. DE LA VINA. It would be a non-citizen, sir.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Let me now introduce as part of this panel Mr. Frank
Ricchiazzi, the assistant director for the Department of Motor Vehi-
cles, State of California.

We are asking him to testify because we think some of the points
he is going to make are very relevant to this panel so we can have
a dialog here at the end as we get into more substantive questions.
Mr. Ricchiazzi.

Mr. Riccuiazzi. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and committee member. My name
is Frank Ricchiazzi, [ am assistant director of the California De-
partment of Motor Vehicles and | am pleased to testify before this
committee this morning on the issue of applicant identity.

California is in the forefront regarding personal identification
and we are leading the Nation with policies and technologies that


57

To what extent has the Attorney General sought the resources?
Was she turned down at the Office of Management and Budget,
namely the President or what-not? Just where are we on that?

Mr. DE LA VINA. We have the border enforcement and manage-
ment. I have that as a part—I can furnish that. I can read you
some of the excerpts.

Mr. Horn. Read a few excerpts and then let’s file it for the
record.

Mr. DE LA Vina. All right. This is the 1996 immigration initia-
tive. The President’s fiscal year 1996 budget strengthens border en-
forcement and management by $369 million.

With these funds it is anticipated to increase the number of Bor-
der Patrol agents, augment the number of inspectors assigned to
ports of enter, provide strategic intelligence and investigative infor-
mation at the border and enhance technological equipment capa-
bilities.

A portion of this enhancement will be financed through a new
border service fee, et cetera.

Here is what we are looking at to control at the border: 700 new
Border Patrol] agents. We are looking at controls of ports of entry,
680 new INS inspectors. We are looking at 365 investigators.

Mr. Horn. Now that is nationwide?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. Horn. Now to build a budget to submit, for the Commis-
sioner to submit to the Attorney General, they have come up from
the regions.

What did the Western Region ask for for fiscal 1996 and fiscal
1995?

Mr. DE LA VINA. I don’t have that figure with me.

Mr. Horn. Could you file that?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes, we will.

Mr. Horn. I would like to know, what did you ask for, what did
you get, and I want to see where the gap is and who said no. Was
it the Attorney General? Was it the Office of Management and
Budget? Because it seems to me we have had a national crisis here
for 10 years and the question is are the people fighting the battles
in the field getting the resources they need, and the first question
obviously is did the people in the field ever ask for it and if they
did what was the status of that.

Since you—while you have to stick with whatever the President
recommends, as you know, under congressional procedures you
can—when asked that question you need to furnish the informa-
tion, so you didn’t put me up to it. [ put me up to it.

Mr. DE LA VINA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr, Horn. You are answer-clean when I yell and scream.

OK. Currently the employer does not have the means or the au-
thority to determine whether identification documents are valid, as
we have noted, and that pilot employer verification system in Cali-
fornia will only verify whether the alien number and name exist in
the INS data base, as I understand it.

With the high quality of fraudulent documents this system will
be defeated. How can we ensure accurate data in this system?

Mr. RoGers. The enhancement for the last couple years for this
agency, a significant amount of data enhancement went into in-


23

prosecute 1,000 criminal aliens under these guidelines this year.

Under new guidelines going into effect on June 16, prosecutors
nationwide will begin to add stipulated deportation as part of any
plea bargain. Under this program, aliens who plead guilty to
illegal reentry or other charges must accept a final order of
deportation to be enforced immediately upon the completion of their
sentence as part of their plea. Through these plea bargains we get
deportable aliens out of the country, while saving taxpayers the
costs of expensive and time-consuming deportation proceedings. We
also avoid using limited INS detention space to hold aliens who have
finished their sentences but are awaiting completion of their

deportation proceedings.

Starting this summer, INS District Directors will be able to
order deportations of aggravated felons who are non-lawful permanent

resident aliens without a hearing before an immigration judge.

All of these efforts recognize that the costs associated with
the incarceration of illegal aliens impose a heavy burden on state,
localities and taxpayers, and each of these efforts is designed to
help to reduce the need to expend resources for the purpose of
incarcerating criminal aliens. This Administration was the first to
request funds from Congress to assist states in meeting the costs.
In F¥ 1995, $130 million will be distributed to seven states under

the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program; for FY 1996 the

19


90

And this is a matter that the subcommittee will take up. There
are three issues out of the attorney general’s and your testimony.
T have already asked the staff to work with the staff of the attorney
peneral and your staff on a letter to follow up on this that could

e signed by the whole delegation from California relating to the
National Guard and the building of roads. I think we need to nail
that down with a letter to the Secretary of Defense as well as the
Guard, and also a letter to the sentencing commission on the points
that you made. I think that needs to be nailed down.

So staff will work with your staff. We'll get those to the next
meeting of the delegation on our side, and then ask those on the
other side to also join in on a joint bipartisan effort to get this
problem resolved.

I have found the Attorney General of the United States usually
tries to be very cooperative, so we will ask her about these and see
if she can be helpful.

Let me pursue a few questions before turning it over to Mr.
Flanagan.

First, Mr. Attorney General, as I remember under 187, there was
a false documents provision there, and the last [ knew, there was
some attempt to implement it and no judge had put a restraining
order or stay on that part of 187; is that correct?

Mr. LUNGREN. Generally speaking, all of 187 is under some sort
of order at the present time. With respect to the question of a law
making it an additional offense for someone producing it, we were
arguing that in fact certain parts of the act were so different than
other parts of the act that the court would deal with it differently,
but right about now the entire act is at a standstill as we are fight-
ing in the courts.

Mr. Horn. Are there other laws on the books in the State of Cali-
fornia that if false documents were being sold in MacArthur Park
as the Los Angeles Times has had regular articles, as Senator
Feinstein was able to go and secure documents and Senator Simp-
son has been able to go and secure false documents, do we have
any laws that people can be prosecuted for a State offense, not sim-
ply a Federal offense?

Mr. LUNGREN. There are some laws that apply, but those laws—
let’s just put it this way. When local law enforcement are dealing
with the problems of homicide and rape and other things on the
streets, to expect them to make arrests and prosecutions with, I be-
lieve, misdemeanor status these kind of offenses, is rather unrealis-
tic.

Mr. HORN. When we have the percent of illegal aliens committing
felonies as well as-——

Mr. LUNGREN. Absolutely.

Mr. Horn [continuing]. That we didn’t have 30 years ago when
we had a guest worker program, even with illegal immigration at
that time, which was a trickle, it seems to me they might give a
little attention to dealing with the problem of why people are here
and stay here because of false identification.

Mr. LUNGREN. We have a catch-22 situation facing law enforce-
ment at the present time in that law enforcement has over the
years in California attempted to cooperate with the INS, and I be-
lieve does a fairly good job of that.


44

5

California's on-line access to the INS system has proven very successful, and
minimizes the inconvenience to our legally present customers.

However, to improve the use of INS documents as identity documents INS
raust reduce the types of documents issued by INS. We currently accept over
20 INS documents, and each may have several different versions, That's in
addition to the U.S. birth certificate, and other documents we accept. In order
for us to recognize valid documents, and have good identifying information, it
would be beneficial to the states, employers and any agency relying on INS
documents, to review the fewest types of documents possible. Then, the
identifying information could be standardized, be accompanied by a photo, and
have greater security features.

Expanding the ASVI system to increase the % of documents verifiable
electronically from 75% to closer to 100% is another important improvement.
‘There are certain status's and types of documents that cannot be verified
electronically, requiring a verification process for INS and DMV. This
is a costly and cumbersome system resulting in very Jong delays in the

issuance of the license and ID card.

We support the development of the all driver pointer system. A system which
mirrors the current Commercial Drivers License Information System (CDLIS)
wil prevent icenes fm being ard 0 ts whose privileges

applicants
are suspended or revoked in another state. It facilitates the one-!
driver concept which is impossible to achieve without the exchange of
information, and transfer of records to the new home state.

document is through fraudulent

Gala efor March 901 may ave brn ced ngal by en gal
alien, We know that individuals return to California very y are
Geported If our documenta can be contscated by egonte ie wil be sore &

for deportees to reassimilate in our state, or migrate to other states, and
resume employment or entitlements. If agents have this authority, it will help
us all,

All the databases and communication systems in the world will not prevent the
clever and resourceful individual from assuming multiple identities with aality
fraudulent documents. What is needed is the ability to tie the documents

toa unique physiological identifier commonly referred to as biometric

G
funded multi-state demonstration project completed in 1990 teated the concept
of using a biometric identifier for commercial drivers. The findings were not
conclusive. But much has occurred in the intervening years whereby it may be
time again to validate the use of biometrics in the licensing environment.
California is in a unique position in that we have thumbprint information
collected in digitized form for the approximate 600,000 California commercial
licensees. A demonstration project at this time could be a very progressive



85

people as the Department of Motor Vehicles representative men-
tioned earlier, that really have a State ID or driver's license.

What we are asking from INS is an opportunity that when, in
fact, within this realm of allegations, that we are able to check just
as DMV checks currently. We are also, in our statewide voter file,
looking at hopefully hooking up a network where we are able to
move this information from our 58 individual counties, who will
each have a separate list, to a statewide host. Not to replace the
counties, but just allow them to master check with DMV and with
us to make sure that a person didn’t go from Fresno to Los Angeles
and ends up in a situation where they might vote in either place.

I have written letters to the majority leader, Bob Dole, and the
Senate and to the Speaker of the House, and raised the issue of
cooperation with INS in our office. We are in the process at some
point, hopefully, of receiving that cooperation.

But I come to you today and ask for your help and your support
because I believe it is imperative, and without that I do not believe
that the cases that we have brought forward will ever be resolved.

So it is not my intention to cast dispersions on INS. I know they
have a big job to do. I just look for the same cooperation that the
Department of Motor Vehicles has achieved in California. With
that, I believe we will be able to provide that assurance of the elec-
tion process, and I hope that the people will be satisfied that after
the election they know that the results have been fully justified
and that everyone, winners and losers, can at least walk away
knowing that they’ve had a fair shake.

The attorney general and I have also worked a number of other
areas, and we’re hoping to beef up our three people, or investigator
on our election staff or the whole of California, with a good cooper-
ative working relationship with the district attorneys and the attor-
ney general's office to help us accomplish our job at that same time
that we deliver the service for California.

I appreciate very much you allowing me to come today, Mr.
Chairman, and speak to the committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]


62

We have the best conditions of confinement in the entire world
and we'll never be able to duplicate that in such like countries of
Mexico, Colombia, and that is one of the——

Mr. Horn. Now this is in the existing treaties, is that correct?

Mr. RoGERs. Yes.

Mr. Horn. And as I remember, the one with Mexico is about 18
years old, isn’t it?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. Horn. And that is the one that requires consent so they
don’t even have to return home but what you are saying is, and I
hadn’t realized this until you have just mentioned it, that the con-
dition of confinement must be the same?

Mr. RoGERs. Yes.

Mr. Horn. Well, then even with consent most Mexican prisons
wouldn’t make that standard of a Federal judge’s standard on the
humane constitutional jail space so how many do we send home?

Mr. Rocers. In the State of California the attorney general prob-
ably will be able to identify that more—very few, because this is
a term State also.

Mr. Horn. What do you mean by that?

Mr. RoGers. They are required to serve a specific amount of
their sentence in the institution within the State.

Mr. Horn. I see—before going home.

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. Horn. Yes. OK. Let me move to the next question again, like
the previous one just file it for the record but I want you to get
a flavor of what we are after and if you feel there are some other
things that you want to get in there, do it.

Do current INS policies assume interception at the border for the
purpose of controlling illegal immigration?

What policies will have to be changed to improve our interception
abilities?

If it is impossible to control illegal immigration solely through
interception should we consider a guest worker program to better
track those who are here? In other words, the old Public Law 78
Bracero Program, which applied primarily to agricultural laborers
as I remember.

As employer sanctions are not successfully deterring the hiring
of illegal immigrants, wouldn’t employers be more inclined to obey
the law if employees could be hired through a guest worker pro-

ram?

8 If a guest worker program were established, wouldn't those ille-
gally immigrating today enter through a legal guest worker pro-
gram? The point is if interception isn’t working today and employer
sanctions have been unsuccessful would we not be better off with
a guest worker program, which makes sense for all employers to
participate in the program, thereby eliminating the illegal job op-
portunity, which is what induces the individual to come here in the
first place.

Is it not a fact that the jobs did not exist except through a guest
worker program individuals would lose the incentive to enter the
United States except through the recognized guest worker pro-
gram?


Divisions: EXECUTIVE OFFICE
il ‘Ca ose

for Commerc Cate BILL JONES

Serretarp of State
State of California

TESTIMONY SUBMITTED TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES’ GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE.
JUNE 12, 1995 ~- BELLFLOWER, CALIFORNIA

MR CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE, 1 APPRECIATE THE
‘OPPORTUNITY To ADDRESS YOU TODAY ON A MATTER OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO
‘ME AS SECRETARY OF STATE, AS THE CHIEF ELECTIONS OFFICIAL OF THE STATE -- AND
ALSO AS A CALIFORNIA VOTER

WE ARE ENTERING A VERY EXCITING TIME IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF
ELECTIONS, TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES WILL SOON ALLOW Us To COMMUNICATE,
WITH AND EDUCATE VOTERS AND CANDIDATES IN NEW WAYS AS ELECTION RETURNS
AND CANDIDATE INFORMATION BECOME AVAILABLE TO MORE AND MORE PEOPLE “ON-
LINE”

ALso, THE NEW FEDERAL MOTOR-VOTER LAW WILL CHANGE THE WaY WE
REGISTER AND TRACK VOTERS, WE HOPE To BE ABLE TO EXTEND THE VOTING RIGHT
‘TO MORE CALIFORNIANS THAN EVER BEFORE,

BUT ALONG WITH THESE CHANGES AND ADVANCES COME CONCERNS ABOUT THE
SECURITY OF THE VOTER ROLLS, FOR A CITIZEN'S VOTE TO BE VALUABLE IT Must BE
PROTECTED AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD ABUSE IT

IIs A MATTER OF CALIFORNIA LAW ~ AND, I BELIEVE, A FUNDAMENTAL
REQUIREMENT OF OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT — THAT ONLY THOSE PERSONS WHO
‘ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF CALIFORNIA BE REGISTERED TO VOTE IN
CALIFORNIA, ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL INCENTIVES To BECOME A U.S. CITIZEN Is To
Vore In OUR DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

‘To MAINTAIN CONFIDENCE IN Ou SYSTEM, I HAVE WITHIN THE OFFICE OF THE
SECRETARY OF STATE AN INVESTIGATIONS UNIT WHOSE MissiON Is TO LOCATE THOSE
‘WHO BREAK OUR ELECTION LAWS, AND SEE TO IT THAT THEY ARE PROSECUTED To THE
FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW

"Ensuring the integrity of California's election process"


121

PATRICK J. MeKINE
‘Assistant District Attor

‘CHRISTIE SCHULT
‘Assistant District Attor

‘THOMAS W. SNEDDON, JR,
Distnet Attorney

COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA
June 8, 1995 DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Congressman Stephen Horn

4010 Watson Plaza Drive

Suite 160

Lakewood, CA

ATIN: Ms. Connie Sziebl
District Director

Dear Congressman Horn:

Thank you for the invitation to attend your Committee’s upcoming
hearing related to Border Patrol Implementation Strategies. There
are few contemporary issues that touch nearly every aspect of our
society like the problems created by illegal immigration. It is a
financial issue. It is a law enforcement issue. It is a social
issue. It is a quality of life issue.

Although my remarks will primarily rely upon my observations,
limited data and experiences as a 25 year career prosecutor in
Santa Barbara County and 12 years as the elected District Attorney,
I believe my experience and exposure to the criminal justice aystem
asa whole tells me that Santa Sarbara County is fairly typical and
if anything under-represents the magnitude of the problems created
in local communities by illegal inmigration.

To say that illegal immigration negatively impacts crime and
the criminal justice system states the obvious. Placing exact
figures or percentages on the nature or magnitude of the problen is
difficult, because most agencies, including ours, are not currently
allowed to ask in every case the status of the individual
defendant. I am not aware of any local prosecutor’s office that
systematically tracks the percentage of cases that involve illegal
immigrants or directly relates that status to the percentage of
their caseload or serious crime. On the other hand, just because
we are not able to give exact percentages or empirically arrived at
data, this Committee should not draw the conclusion that the
negative impacts are not significant.

My remarks will focus on activities and responsibilities of
three federal agencies: THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE

> THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE - THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION.
Santa Barbara Otfice Lompoc Office Lompoc Office Santa Maria Office
‘Courthouse 118 Civie Center Plaza 401 E. Ocean BIZD East Cook Street
10S Sana Barbara Street

Lompoc, Calitorma 33435

Santa Mansa. California 93
ra Barbara, Califotmin 93101 8051797 760

(RBs 4750



124

Congressman Stephen Horn
June 8, 1995
Page 4

would provide a greater punishment in a situation where an
individual has illegally re-entered in this country after
deportation and after having been previously convicted in a state

or federal court proceedings and having served a prison term either
in a state or federal institution.

The third aspect of this legislation needs to address
individuals who have been in the country illegally on multiple
occasions either in combination with the factors outlined above, or
simply because of their status of having re-entered the country
illegally on multiple occasions. Inasmuch as the statistics above
indicate that, just in Santa Barbara County alone, illegal
immigrants significantly contribute to serious crime, and compose
at least 18% of the adult population in prison and 12% of the youth
population in the Juvenile Institutions, it seems that there is
abundant justification for such legislation.

Perhaps, this Committee or Congress should study the
advisability of creating a prosecutor’s arm of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service to prosecute these newly created offenses.
I realize present workloads make it difficult for the U.S.
Attorney’s Office to give priority to illegal immigration cases so
perhaps either creating I.N.S. prosecution units or creating a
specific division within the U.S. Department of Justice or U.S.
Attorney’s Office, is the answer to making sure that these
referrals are given the priority they deserve.

As a corollary to this proposition, I also suggest that this
Committee consider, and Congress explore, the possibility of
working out a treaty, or some other type of agreement, with the
country of Mexico to house in a Mexican penal institution those
convicted of these crimes. Consideration could be given to
expanding the proposal to cover some selected classes of inmates
currently incarcerated in state or federal penal institutions.

3.

THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.

You probably ask what the Social Security Administration has
to do with illegal immigration and crime? Current Social Security
Administration regulations and policies preclude the Social
Security Administration from assisting local authorities in
prosecuting California’s laws related to the distribution,
manufacture, sale and possession of phoney identifications commonly
used by illegal immigrants for identification purposes. In the
last six months combined law enforcement and District Attorney
investigation efforts have uncovered two fairly sizeable operations
producing and distributing phoney immigration documents and social

security cards in this county. All attempts to gain Social
Security Administration assistance in simply testifying to the
phoney names and numbers on the SSN cards was fruitless. The

Administration, while sympathetic, disclaimed their ability to
assist us in these prosecutions based upon current regulations.
This Committee and Congress should hear testimony on this problem
and seriously explore either regulatory or legislative changes to


3L

Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. de la Vina.

Before we proceed with Mr. Ricchiazzi and then we are going to
question the whole panel, let me just ask a few simply clarifying
questions on your testimony before we move to the next witness
and then we will question you on the subject generally.

On page 1, you talk about the Operation Gatekeeper redirecting
the flow of illegal aliens. I wasn’t clear to where is that flow being
redirected?

Mr. DE LA VINA. The Imperial Beach station is the most western
part of the sector area of responsibility. It is near the ocean. Most
of the concentration has been located in this area of 5-mile stretch
of border. This is the closest location, let’s say, from the border, to
housing, to the population, to the city. In some instances it is about
1,200 yards, in others it is a half mile. It is a very short distance.
So the majority concentration has been in this 5-mile stretch. Our
resources have been to get in there and the idea is to shift the traf-
fic from this most heavily populated, voluminous crossing area and
move it eastward and as we are moving it eastward, we are moving
it toward the mountains, toward the canyons that lie at isolated lo-
cations away from the city in a manner of speaking.

Mr. Horn. You also mention at the bottom of page 1, you talk
about the strategy including cooperative efforts with foreign gov-
ernments and international airlines to aid in this. I take it is the
Mexican Government included among “cooperative governments”?

Mr. DE La VINA. Very much so. We have been working in a cou-
ple of areas in that regard. One is evolving on border violence on
both sides of the border. Mexican Government has control on their
side of the border which has reduced the violence aspect of it. We
are dealing with the Mexican Government in the ports of entry in
reducing a lot of the lane runner people that are building up on the
Mexican side and running, actually toward the gates or through
the gates, southbound going northbound and they have been coop-
erative in that regard. Mexico is playing a role in this and they
have been cooperative.

Mr. Horn. But they do not have security, as they have on their
border with Guatemala; is that fair to say?

Mr. DE LA VINA. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. Horn. On page 2 you mention that employers are likely to
hire, exploit cheap and unauthorized alien workers. Do you have
the data as to how many you have caught in—that are represented
in that paragraph and over what time period? If you don’t just fur-
nish it for the record.

Mr. DE LA VINA. I don’t have it with me but it is furnished for
the record.

Mr. Horn. Let’s furnish it for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]


Mr, Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to
appear before you today to discuss the integrated immigration
enforcement strategy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS). I am accompanied by Johnny Williams, Border Patrol Chief
for the San Diego Sector, and Richard Rogers, District Director
for the Los Angeles District Office, who will be available to

answer any questions you may have.

Over the past 2 1/2 years, the Clinton Administration has
demonstrated a firm commitment to controlling the flow of illegal
immigration into the country and reducing the presence of illegal

aliens in the United States.

Toward this end, we at the INS have developed a comprehensive

immigration enforcement strategy. This strategy consists of:

(1) Border Enforcement and Management ;

(2) Worksite Enforcement and Verification;

(3) Detention and Removal of Criminal and Deportable
Aliens; and,

(4) Customer Service and Assistance to States.

The INS is achieving significant progress in reducing the
burden illegal inmigration imposes on California and the rest of
the nation. No single element of our enforcement strategy stands

2


46

Mr. Horn. Thank you for that excellent statement of what Cali-
fornia is doing in this area and what you hope to do.

_ I now yield to Mr. Flanagan, the vice chairman, to pursue ques-
tions.

(Discussion off the record.]

Mr. FLANAGAN. Mr. Ricchiazzi, good morning and thank you for
coming.

You came to the end and you talked about strengthening privacy
and that is my greatest fear with this entire process is that we are
going to succumb to the ancient cry and that is, take my rights and
make me safe. The thought of carrying a national ID card so we
can make the employer an effective enforcement agent for INS
scares me. The fact that we are going to have source documents ab-
solutely all the same across the Nation, which riles against our
Federalist way of doing business, the very foundation of the Repub-
lic are the differences in needs of various States and communities
within those States and to nationalize that gives me pause.

Further, while I understand the need, approaching crisis propor-
tion in California, if not already there, I wonder if the tradeoff is
not something we will rue later.

We have seen now with the welfare reform, we have an unprece-
dented number of permanent residents seeking to be citizens. We
have the actual process of immigration theoretically or actually
once invented to help someone in the process of becoming a citizen
as opposed to spending their entire life here without becoming a
citizen is finally being effectuated by pulling away some of the ad-
vantages of living here without becoming a citizen.

I wonder, with that in hand and with all of the excellent testi-
mony we heard about Border Patrol that we cannot further aug-
ment in those areas and actually accomplish where we want to be
without having to have tamper proof documents carried in my wal-
let to demonstrate that I am a citizen—sometime in the future
we're talking about, of course—so that I can be employed. I wonder
if we are not walking down that road and if we really want to be
there.

Mr. Riccutazzi. I think, first of all, Congressman, I would like
to make a comment that I shared with the Senate committee about
a month ago and the reason that we brought—I clearly have made
the comments about privacy. First, here in the State of California,
we have a statute on privacy and I think that it is a pretty strong
statement from not only the Governor but from the State legisla-
ture regarding this Privacy Act.

Mr. FLANAGAN, If I may interrupt you, I’m sorry, I don’t usually
do that, but you went to great lengths to explain to us how the
driver’s license is the source document for demonstrating who you
are and what you are. We heard on many other occasions excellent
testimony from the Director of the Social Security Administration
on how for, literally, decades the great fight has been fought to
keep that from being a national ID card and to keep you from hav-
ing to present that whether it be at the Blockbuster or at the DMV,
to demonstrate you are who you are because we have such national
conscience against it.

So I say, your privacy statutes are wonderful and your comments
about it are most encouraging but you seem to say one thing and


6

Worksite enforcement and verification. Our integrated strategy
also seeks to diminish the access that illegal aliens have to our
worksites. The administration plans to invest an additional $79.5
million in fiscal year 1996 to enhance INS worksite enforcement
and to require 365 new INS investigations personnel and an addi-
tional 202 new Department of Labor personnel. These additional
resources will be concentrated in the seven States most affected by
illegal migration.

We have testified before about our plans for employment author-
ization verification pilot programs including an expanded telephone
verification system, the TVS pilot program in Los Angeles, as well
as other pilots to follow employers to verify employment eligibility.
While we are trying to make the employment verification system
simpler for employers, we are also seeking to minimize the oppor-
tunity for fraud by shortly publishing an amended proposed regula-
tion that would reduce from 29 to 16 the documents that can be
used to establish identity and/or employment authorization. We
also support the administration’s current legislative initiative to re-
duce the number of acceptable documents to six.

In the second quarter, fiscal year 1996, we expect to implement
a new tamper resistant employment authorization document to
deter fraud and allow easier detection of counterfeit documents.

In conclusion, thanks to our integrated enforcement strategy, we
are enforcing the immigration laws more aggressively and effi-
ciently than ever before. We appreciate the interest of this sub-
committee in the immigration enforcement programs and policies of
the Service and we look forward to working with you on these im-
portant issues. We would be glad to answer any questions which
you may have about how these policies and programs are imple-
mented in the Western Region.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. de la Vina follows:]


40

TESTIMONY SUBMITTED TO

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

FRANK RICCHIAZZI
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES

JUNE 12, 1995

Good morning. My name is Frank Ricchiazzi, Assistant Director, California
Department of Motor Vehicles, I am pleased to testify before this committee
this morning on the issue of applicant identity.

As you know, California is in the forefront regarding identification integrity. We
are leading the nation in addressing policies and technologies that impact our
ability to provide secure, authentic, and durable identification.

The DMV is the state agency charged with establishing identity of its
residents. We have issued driver licenses since 1916. We began issuing
identification cards in 1969, when the legislature first began to recognize that
there was a neod for a personal identification document. In 1979 our
legislature stated that as a matter of legislative policy the license and ID card
are the basic identification documents of the State of California. After all, I bet
that each one of us here today uses our driver license more often to prove who
we are than to prove we are licensed to drive. The DL has become the defacto
personal identification document in this nation.

California hss 24 million licensed drivers and ID card holders. We issue over
5000 original licenses and ID cards per day throughout the state, a total of 1.3
million per year. We issue ID cards to children, and to senior citizens who no
longer drive. 73% of our population has either a driver's license or ID card.

During the last 6 years, California has been in the forefront of improving the
integrity of identification and licensing. In 1989, California was the first state
to implement the federally required Commercial Driver License. This was the
first overt move to achieve the objective of the one-driver-one-license concept.
At the same time we began collecting the social security number to use as the
unique personal identifier for commercial drivers. We also began participating
in the CDLIS system which is a national pointer system.

Tn 1990, we were the first state to introduce the use of digitized technol with
the driver license. We went from a paper license system, to a credit card style


120

California. I thank you very much for the opportunity to come here
and address you.
|The prepared statement of Mr. Sneddon follows:]


19

of our highest priorities. We are committed to sending a clear
message: aliens who commit crimes in the United States must know
they will be prosecuted, convicted, and removed from the United

States.

The INS, by intensifying its efforts and re-focusing its
resources, has made great strides in the past two years in its
criminal alien removal program. We are increasing our ability to
identify a greater number of criminal aliens, place them into
appropriate hearing programs, remove them more expeditiously from
the United States, and assure that they do not return without severe
legal penalties. At the same time, by removing criminal aliens
quickly, INS expects to increase the detention space available
detention space to keep other deportable aliens in custody prior to

their deportation.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY JAIL PROJECT

On dune 1, we launched a one-month pilot project with Los
Angeles County that we anticipate will result in the increased
removal of 1,000 criminal aliens, for a total of 1,500. In the
past, many criminal aliens were released directly back onto the
street, Now, INS has agents at the Los Angeles County Jail, 24
hours a day, seven days a week, taking custody of all deportable
aliens who have completed their sentences and are scheduled for

xvelease. Most of these aliens go to the INS Los Angeles District

15


14

while at the same time affording us the flexibility to address the
continuing shifts in cross border traffic. This flexibility is
crucial. It serves one of the primary aims of our border control
strategy, which is to allow us to decide where to fight the battle;
specifically, by allowing us to channel alien traffic away from the
heavily industrialized and populated sections of the border, and
toward remote areas in the east, where the terrain and visibility
increase our chances of making arrests. Now we have placed some of
the most recent Border Patrol Academy graduates at the Brown Field
and Campo stations to bolster the eastern portion of the San Diego

sector.

Arrests in the western-most station, Imperial Beach, have
sustained a 40 percent reduction to date. It is evident that the
effort to prevent illegal entry and.to channel traffic eastward is

working and that reduces crime in our communities.

Finally, another piece of evidence that we are succeeding is
that since the inception of Gatekeeper in October, the standard
smuggling fee for the trip from Tijuana to Los Angeles has risen 40-

60 percent,

ACCOUNTABILITY

Let me focus on accountability for a moment. When we say our

initiatives on the border are working, we mean it. When we

10


3

enforcement strategy of the Immigration and Naturalization Serv-
ice. With me are Johnny Williams, Border Patrol Chief for the San
Diego Sector, and Richard Rogers, District Director for the Los An-
geles District Office, who will be available to answer any questions
you may have.

The Clinton administration has demonstrated a firm commit-
ment to controlling the flow of illegal immigration and reducing the
presence of illegal aliens in the United States. Toward this end, we
at the INS have developed a comprehensive immigration enforce-
ment strategy that consists of, No. 1, border enforcement and man-
agement; No. 2, work site enforcement and verification; No. 3, de-
tention and removal of criminal and deportable aliens; and, No. 4,
customer service and assistance to States.

Effective enforcement of our immigration laws requires coordi-
nated actions at the border and in the interior. Success at the bor-
ders and ports of entry relieve problems in the interior. Removing
the magnet that draws illegal aliens to the interior for jobs and re-
moving criminal aliens in turn decrease the pressure at the bor-
ders.

Our strategy is the broadest and most integrated plan ever devel-
oped by an administration to attack the problem of illegal immigra-
tion within the United States, its borders, and its source countries.

Category border control. In the summer of 1993, Attorney Gen-
eral Janet Reno made a factfinding trip to the San Diego/Nogales
borders. What she found was appalling. Years of neglect meant
that INS lacked enough agents to patrol the border, lacked cars
and lacked radios and lacked computers and essential technology.

After the Attorney General's visit, the administration changed
things for the better. In February 1994, Attorney General Reno and
INS Commissioner Doris Meisner announced the strategic doctrine
of border control called prevention through deterrence.

The goal of this multiyear strategy is clear. We want to raise the
risk of apprehensions to a maximum level so that illegal aliens and
the smugglers who transport them won't try to cross illegally.
Along with creating a strategic plan, we continue with Congress’
help to infuse the border with new resources. Thus far, we have the
following: Increased Border Patrol agents on the line by 40 percent
since 1993; expanded the number of Border Patrol agent basic
training classes to produce 880 graduates by December fiscal year
1995 and at least 1,000 more agents in 1996; committed to putting
5,000 agents on the line by December 1996; and use of the National
Guard and the Joint Task Force 6 to help in construction projects
as needed.

We have also significantly increased and improved the tools our
agents have to combat illegal immigration by adding, No. 1, 1,000
new vehicles, hundreds of new sensors and hundreds of new radios
and 25 new infrared night scopes and, No. 2, new state-of-the-art
technology and basic automation equipment in 283 Border Patrol
stations, ports of entry, and INS district offices in Southwest bor-
der States.

Based on new resources and new strategy, we are achieving what
no other administration has done, significant control over essential
areas of the border.


132

(No response. |

Mr. Horn. Let me just thank those who have been involved in
this hearing, and I want to first start by thanking the city of Bell-
flower for making available this fine facility. It is a good intimate
hearing room.

I saw the mayor pro tem, Ray Smith. He left. And Ruth Gilson
I noted was here. I didn’t see any other council members. Are there
any?

Voice. Former.

Mr. Horn. Former ones are? OK.

We want to thank you. It is a wonderful facility. We used your
Bristol Auditorium for a great briefing by the Corps of Engineers
and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the flood con-
trol situation a few months ago, so we will come back and feel very
welcome in this fine hospitable town.

Let me also thank the counsel to the committee, Mike Stoker.
who is on my left; Mark Brasher, the professional staff member for
putting this together. Don Goldberg of the minority staff is here,
and Connie Sziebel who is the district director for me.

Then we have Pamela Lee of my office, Ron Coppock of the Bell-
flower City Hall. We want to particularly thank you. We really ap-
preciate all your help to the staff in setting up this hearing. Then
Patricia Broughton from the district office, 38th District. She is
outside. She is a caseworker, and if you have problems with INS,
that’s where you head. And then Mara Zhelutta who is the official
reporter. We're most grateful for you being here because we want
a complete record, and we’re sure you're going to give it to us.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, we adjourn this hearing, and
we thank you for your testimony.

(Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee hearing was ad-
journed.}

ie)

39-552 (136)


110

clude INS involvement and cooperation in interior investigations as
well as increased staffing at the border.

The Santa Barbara community is divided on the issue of ran-
domly intercepting illegal aliens on the city streets. I believe that
the majority agrees that many employers are a magnet to the ille-
gal population. Current procedures on employer verification are to-
tally ineffective. [ realize the issue involving tamper-proof identi-
fication and employer verification procedures are a part of the ad-
ministration’s effort to curb illegal immigration. However, there
has been no substantial effort, at least in my area, to investigation
violations of the current procedures.

I can only hope that the new procedures and work of this com-
mittee will also include the personnel resources to enforce these
violations.

Without illegal employment, illegal aliens have little to gain by
entering the United States. If we are vigilant in our efforts to iden-
tify and deport criminals who are also illegal aliens then they
would have little to gain by staying in the United States.

In summary, [ sincerely hope that the efforts of this committee
and the administration result in substantially increased staffing
level in the interior as well as the border regions. It is absolutely
critical.

Additional agents, investigators, support staff, transportation
equipment, holding facilities and immigration judges are all nec-
essary for it to have any effect on the current problem of illegal im-
migration and the criminal element that has attached itself to
Santa Barbara County.

{The prepared statement of Mr. Thomas follows:]


69

A national ID card such as that required in some countries is one
that you have to have in your possession at all times, and which
a law enforcement official can ask you for at any time, and for
which you are violating the law if you don’t have it in your posses-
sion at all times.

We are talking about the Social Security card; we are talking
about the context of employment under the immigration law which
says that you either have to have it at the time you seek employ-
ment or bring it within, | think, 24 or 48 hours thereafter, which
is an amendment that I sought to have in the bill because I
thought there are times when someone might start work and not
have that in their possession, and you ought to give them a chance
to bring it within 24 hours or 48 hours.

So the only change in the law, therefore, would concern the in-
tegrity of the document itself, and I think we ought to stress that
and we get away from the arguments about a national ID card if
you just talk about strengthening the integrity of the document
that exists today.

Our current system, I have to admit, does not work. Employers
are threatened with Federal sanctions for hiring illegal aliens, but
we have not enabled employers to reasonably know whether the
people they are hiring are here legally in the first place.

Another advantage of such a system would be reduced paperwork
burden on employers. According to the U.S. Commission on Immi-
gration Reform, employers have cited what they consider to be ex-
cessive administrative requirements under the current paperwork
regime.

This is not an easy thing. I don’t point the finger at the INS or
anybody else. I know how difficult it was for us to come to a com-
promise in the Congress back in 1986. Nonetheless, that shouldn’t
be the excuse for us failing to act now.

The enhanced verification system I’ve suggested would greatly
reduce the complexity of the current system while at the same time
enhancing its integrity. Once the tamper proof identification card
is established and employers have reasonable means to check on
whether a prospective employee is here legally, we must follow
through by enforcing sanctions on those employers who continue to
flaunt the laws.

You can see this problem any number of different places through-
out California. Recently I was at a wonderful place, I believe, it is
in your district, Catalina Island.

Mr. Horn. It is not in my district. It should be. [Laughter.]

Mr. LUNGREN. You suffer the same as I did when I was in the
Congress. As you know, I didn’t have Catalina Island. I had all of
Long Beach Harbor and half of Los Angeles Harbor, so if someone
were on a boat while in Long Beach Harbor they were in my dis-
trict. However, if they fell in the water, they were no longer in my
district, they were then in the district of Bobbi Feidler because she
was contiguous by water to Marina Del Rey to Ventura, and she
also had, as you know, Catalina.

However, I will assist you in any effort you try to make to have
it redistricted properly.

But I was there recently and spoke with some folks there, and
they talked about how difficult the INS was to deal with the prob-


24

Administration has requested $300 million--the maximum amount

authorized by law.

The initiatives I have outlined will help INS reach its goal of
doubling the number of total criminal alien removals -- from 23,250
in FY 1995 to $8,200 in FY 1996. We also seek to double removals of
other deportable aliens -- from 25,600 in FY 1995 to 53,080 in FY
1996. These are tremendous steps forward in the effort of the
Department of Justice and INS to rid our nation of criminal and
other deportable aliens. Each of these efforts is designed to
reduce the costs associated with the processing and incarceration of

illegal aliens.

WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT

The Administration believes strongly that persons who are
unlawfully in the United States should not have access to our
worksites. Employers who hire unauthorized workers to undermine
labor standards and wages and gain an unfair business advantage must
assume a large part of the responsibility for illegal immigration.
We must stop employers who break the law when they hire unauthorized

workers and violate established labor standards.

Our enforcement strategy is targeted at reducing the magnet of
job opportunities for unauthorized aliens by a variety of different

tactics. By targeting industries and employers with records of

20


10

In short, the Border Patrol -- like the rest of the INS --
was underfunded, understaffed, and ill-equipped. It lacked an
overall plan, Because of a lack of sufficient support staff,
highly trained Border Patrol Agents were pulled off enforcement
tasks to do routine paperwork. Because of a lack of computers and
essential technology, there was no way to track who was coming in,

who had criminal records and who had crossed illegally before.

After the Attorney General's visit, things changed forever.
In February 1994, Attorney General Reno and INS Commissioner Doris
Meissner announced a multi-year border enforcement strategy that
committed this Nation to a new course of border control to combat
illegal immigration. This was a practical and realistic strategy
developed by law enforcement professionals in the Border Patrol,
utilizing the advice of outside entities such as the Department of

Defense Center for Low Intensity Conflict.

The result was a new Strategic Doctrine of Border Control
called “prevention through deterrence." The goal is
straightforward and clear: to raise the risk of apprehension to a
maximum level s0 the potential illegal crosser and the smugglers

will be deterred from trying to cross.


29

use of forged and counterfeit documents and to promote employer
compliance with the law. We will shortly publish an amended
proposed regulation that would reduce from 29 to 16 the documents
that can be used to establish identity and/or employment
authorization. The Immigration Enforcement Amendments Act of 1995,
S. 754, which was proposed by the Administration, would reduce the
number of acceptable documents to six. In the second quarter of FY
1996, we also expect to implement a new, tamper-resistant Employment
Authorization Document (EAD) to deter fraud and allow easier
detection of counterfeit documents. Our goal overall is to make the
employment verification system simpler for employers, while

minimizing the opportunity for fraud.

CONCLUSION

The United States has been called the first "universal" nation
because of the diversity of our ethnic and racial heritage drawn
from around the world. While we welcome immigrants from all
countries who come here legally, we will not tolerate disregard for
our laws by those who come illegally, remain in the United States to
live and work without authorization, or those who hired unauthorized
workers. Effective enforcement of our immigration laws requires
coordinated actions at the border and in the interior. Success at
the borders and ports of entry relieves problems in the interior;
eliminating easy access to jobs or social welfare benefits in the

interior and rapid removal of criminal aliens in turn decrease the

25


98

[Witnesses sworn.]}

Mr. Horn. We will begin the testimony with the chairman of the
board vf supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara, Mr. Timothy

taffel.

STATEMENTS OF TIMOTHY J. STAFFEL, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA; JIM THOMAS,
SHERIFF, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA; AND THOMAS W.
SNEDDON, JR., DISTRICT ATTORNEY, COUNTY OF SANTA
BARBARA

Mr. SrarFel. Thank you very much, and thank you for conduct-
ing these hearings. I am privileged to be here today. I am Tim
Staffel, chairman of the board of supervisors, County of Santa Bar-

ara.

I am going to talk a little bit about the local cost impact about
illegal immigration. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
estimates that 1.4 million illegal aliens reside in California.

Santa Barbara County, a mid-sized county in the State here,
comprises 1.2 percent of the State population. As heard in the testi-
mony this morning, there are a number of reasons, legal reasons,
why we cannot determine the precise number of illegal aliens who
live in Santa Barbara County. We do know that Santa Barbara
County has a proportionately higher share of illegal immigrants
than does the State as a whole because of both data.

Of 584,483,000 births in California in 1993, 2,032,201 deliveries
were funded by Medicaid. Medicaid funded births of illegal aliens
are classified as over-Medicaid, and those on the committee know
that from Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, and of those 39.7
percent in Santa Barbara County were over-Medicaid funded.

In Santa Barbara County 42.2 percent of the Medicaid-funded
births were over cases. And of the 6,601 births in Santa Barbara
County in 1993, 19.6 percent were over-Medicaid.

I'm giving the statistical data. It is one of the few ways that we
can verify or extrapolate information that leads to a conclusion that
lin 5 births in Santa Barbara County were to illegal alien mothers
whose deliveries were funded by Medicaid. These statistics were
from the California Department of Health Services.

Because Santa Barbara County is a federally qualified health
center, there are no direct county costs associated with these
births. The Federal and State governments pay all these costs.
Once the children are born, however, they are U.S. citizens and if
they meet certain income requirements, they qualify for AFDC, Aid
to Families with Dependant Children, food stamps and Medicaid.

These cases are classified as child-only cases. Between 1985 and
1992, the child-only cases accounted for more than one-third of
Santa Barbara County’s case load growth. No calculations have
been made of the estimated direct cost to the county. The State and
Federal Governments provide most of the funding for these serv-
ices. Santa Barbara County does have a direct match for AFDC.

Other miscellaneous health and welfare costs include tuber-
culosis control and programs for the homeless. The direct county
cost for the TB program is anticipated to be $280,000 in fiscal year
1995-96. A study conducted in 1994 estimated that 50 to 60 per-
cent of those infected with TB were illegal aliens. For every TB


91

There was a mandate that that be done, carried in Proposition
187. One of the aspects of our argument before the Federal courts
was that kind of mandated cooperation did not in any way violate
the Federal law. As a matter of fact, was consistent with the Fed-
eral laws.

Nonetheless, the argument thus far has prevailed that we are
preempted from doing certain things because the Federal Govern-
ment has in essence preempted the field on immigration laws.

Hopefully, by the time we finish our multiplicity of cases involv-
ing 187, that will be resolved.

Would you like to add anything, Mr. Jones?

Mr. Jones. I don’t believe so, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LUNGREN. It seems to me that we do need to do something
on that false document situation at both the Federal level—if re-
porters can get that false documents, if U.S. Senators driving up
in big cars can get false documents, I don’t understand why law en-
forcement can’t get false document people. It seems to me that
should be dealt with as the preventive aspect of the problem.

AB 1701, you mentioned, Mr. Secretary, is the statewide voter
bill. Where is that? Before a committee now? The assembly? Is it
anywhere in the assembly?

Mr. JONES. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We've received pretty good bipar-
tisan support. I believe the 1701 passed off of the assembly floor,
passed out of the Senate Election Reapportion Committee chaired
by Senator Polanco last week. Senator Polanco has a bill that has
been amended to be identical to 1701, his 518, and the senator dou-
ble-joined them last week.

So I believe we will have legislation at the Governor’s desk on
this issue hopefully in the next few weeks.

Again, in the bill we don’t speak to the Social Security number.
I know the attorney general’s comments on the Social Security
number and the card as being a way of—if you can make it tamper-
proof, being a plus would be a great help, but we don’t have that
authority. You have that authority in Washington.

We used it once originally back in the seventies, prior to 1978.
We used to use it on the registration cards, but we don’t anymore,
and there are many secretaries, | understand, most of those that
are going the statewide voter file route, which we are going to go
here in California, that at some point would like to have that abil-
ity again.

But what we are trying to do is what we can get done in Califor-
nia to solve our problem. With 73 percent of the people having the
state ID or a driver's license, we believe that we could clean up at
least half to three quarters of these 2 million duplicates on the rolls
with just this kind of a fix.

Mr. Horn. Does California still have the authority to purchase
the roles if people haven’t voted for a number of elections?

Mr. Jones. No, Mr. Chairman. As of January with the advent of
motor-voter there is a process now. We really haven’t had a posi-
tive purge, as you are well aware, since 1978. The old way, which
was if you didn’t vote in two elections and we sent you a couple
cards and you didn’t send them back, we took you off. Since

1en-——


nu

Every commander knows that without a tactical plan, money
will be wasted, problems go unsolved, and lives can be lost. with
this in mind, the INS has developed an arsenal of tactics to use
to fit different circumstances on the border, defined by terrain,

mission, and manner of alien attempted entry.

The INS strategy reflects a flexible and firm deployment of
the resources and assete required to achieve our goals. Each
border area has developed its own tactics within the strategic
plan for combatting the illegal immigration problem that the area
faces. This includes mapping out how new resources are to be
used, Within this strategic framework, we are employing a variety
of tactics, specifically tailored to particular circumstances.
Operations Hold-the-Line in El Paso, Gatekeeper in San Diego, and
Safeguard in Arizona reflect our commitment to shaping an
immigration enforcement plan that is more effective at the ground

level.

With our plan firmly in place, we continue, with Congress’
help, to infuse the horder with new resources where they are most
needed, and responsive to shifts in illegal traffic. Thus far, we

have:

e@ increased Border Patrol agents on the line by 40

percent since 1993;


97

I know INS and the Federal Bureau of Prisons has looked at
some of these, but do you feel that we’re missing something in both
the State and the Federal Government in not making better use of
surplus military camps?

Mr. LUNGREN. [ think we ought to make better use of surplus
military camps, but I will also tell you that we are under orders
and review in Federal courts in virtually every instance.

I think in some cases the conditions to which we subject our men
and women in military would not meet the standards Federal
courts have set for prisoners. That sounds ludicrous, but I will tell
you it is ludicrous.

We have a case we're handling right now with respect to the
mental health program within the California Department of Cor-
rections. I would never argue that we’re all perfect. I would never
argue that there’s not room for improvement, but sometimes you
believe that they wish us to create a system which will guarantee
a standard of medical care—in this case, mental health care—that
is superior to that available to the average citizen. And not even
the average citizen, the upper income citizen of the State of Califor-
nia.

So many times I would say to you, yes, I would like us to make
better use of abandoned military or surplus military installations.
At the same time, [ would be less than honest if I didn’t tell you
that the standards which are applied to us by courts on a regular
basis make it very difficult at times to say we would be able to
achieve that.

Mr. Horn. Now you know why some of us in the majority pre-
vailed—did not permit the Federal courts article II judiciary to be
exempt from unfunded mandates and other matters that the Con-
gress, on at least the House side, has passed; just because of those
worries, that we have a truly independent judiciary that sometimes
go beyond reasonable rules of incarceration.

Mr. LUNGREN. Just remember: Alexander Hamilton said the judi-
ciary would be the least dangerous branch of Government because
it would be so weak. We ought to bring him back and have him—
if we can bring Elvis back, we can bring Alexander Hamilton back
and maybe he can tell us what he thinks about it.

Mr. Horn. I think you're right. Well, we have appreciated you
coming and sharing some of your perspectives with us in this area.

I might say, Mr. Secretary, since the assassin of the presidential
candidate in Mexico lived in the 38th Congressional District and
did not vote, but he registered twice in the county of Los Angeles
to vote, I have a major interest in you trying to get some clarity
and sorting out among illegal aliens voting.

Mr. Jones. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. We are well aware
of that problem and we're looking to try and resolve that. Your help
today has been greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Thank you for coming.

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.

OK. Panel 3, the members representing the Santa Barbara Coun-
ty, we welcome you here, and we will swear you in.

[Off the record. |


102

Testimony of Timothy J. Staffel, Fourth District Supervisor,
Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, Santa Barbara,
California

The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that in
October 1992, 1,441,000 illegal aliens resided in California
(Warren, April 1994). Santa Barbara County comprises 1.2% of the
state population. Although we are not able to determine the
precise number of illegal aliens who live in Santa Barbara County,
we do know that we have a proportionally higher share of illegal

immigrants than does the state as a whole because of birth data.

Of the 584,483 births in California in 1993, 232,101 deliveries
were funded by Medicaid. Medicaid-funded births of illegal aliens
are classified as OBRA-Medicaid (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act). Of the 232,101 Medicaid births in 1993, 91,596 or 39.7% were
OBRA Medicaid-funded. In Santa Barbara County, 44.2% of the
Medicaid funded births were OBRA cases. Of the 6,601 births in the
county in 1993, 1,292 or 19.6% were OBRA Medicaid; extrapolation of
this data leads to the statistical conclusion that one in five
births in our county were to illegal alien mothers whose deliveries

were funded by Medicaid (CA Dept. of Health Services).

Because Santa Barbara County is a Federally Qualified Health
Center, there is no county cost associated with these births. The
federal and state governments pay for all of the costs. Once the
children are born, however, they are United States citizens and if

they are poor, they qualify for Aid to Families with Dependent


118

the mechanics of it. If we have to go to court and fight for it, I
think it is a battle well fought for.

So I encourage you to not give us the battle because there is
some hurdles to overcome. I think that is what makes it worth-
while in my view.

Social Security Administration. As I indicated in my remarks,
you are probably wondering what does the Social Security Adminis-
tration have to do with illegal immigration. It has precisely to do
with the questions you asked the Attorney General, and I can tell
you that in our county the prosecution of people who use illegal
and false identification, under penal code section 113 and 114
which were passed in 187 is alive and well.

As I indicated in my remarks, we have conducted two undercover
investigations in cooperation with the sheriffs department and
some local law enforcement agencies in the Santa Maria area
where we have a lot of illegals.

We busted two of these outfits that are providing illegal docu-
mentation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the cooperation of the
Social Security Administration in coming down and testifying as an
expert that the cards that we found were forgeries.

We couldn’t even get them to come down and testify that the
names on the cards were forgeries. They claimed that it was con-
fidential and privileged information.

Well, I can’t understand why it is confidential and privileged in-
formation for an illegal alien to be in possession of a false and
phony Social Security card. It is mind boggling to me.

Mr. Horn. Which Social Security office did you ask to help you?

Mr. SNEDDON. We asked—it went everywhere. It went from the
local ones up to the regiona) area, and then——

Mr. Horn. In other words, there is an area office in Santa Bar-
bara? How about in Santa Maria, do they have one too?

Mr. SNEDDON. | couldn’t tell you that. I know we——

Mr. Horn. Staff needs to check that. I just spent about an hour
with the commissioner and hopefully she is going to testify this
coming week on field offices/area offices.

Mr. SNEDDON. It is beyond that. I wrote a letter to the Social Se-
curity Administrator, and I got a letter back saying that there’s
nothing they can do about it. They’re looking to changing their reg-
ulations, but they're sorry. I went to the top.

Mr. Horn. Could we get a copy of that letter?

Mr. SNEDDON. Surely.

Mr. Horn. I'll need it by Monday.

Mr. SNEDDON, I don’t know if it was her, but it was a response.

Mr. Horn. When is that hearing, tomorrow in Washington?

Mr. STOKER. Tomorrow.

Mr. Horn. If staff could give him the fax number, we will get it
to Washington.

Mr. SNEDDON. Yes, I will fax it there. Thank you.

Mr. Horn. And any response you got there.

Mr. SNEDDON. Yes. So to me that is an area. If we're really seri-
ously interested in going after these fraudulent areas that needs to
be taken care of.

I'm not unmindful of the fact that some, if not all, of the solu-
tions I’ve recommended above will require additional commitment


65

or do we have a system where I am now required to prove that he
is a citizen with some document or something or do I just suffer
the consequence and have the price of doing business?

This is not someone who is pretending to be a documented alien.
This is somebody who is pretending to be a citizen.

Mr. RoGers. You are required to get them documentation. We
have a system that requires you to get documentation from that in-
dividual so at least to indicate he is a resident of the United States
and a citizen.

Mr. FLANAGAN. And what would that documentation be?

Mr. Rocers. There is a myriad of documentation such as a birth
certificate, a driver’s license, a Social Security number, a State ID
card—there’s numerous that an individual can produce.

Mr. FLANAGAN. And this is a requirement put upon me to avoid
the sanction from INS?

Mr. ROGERS. That’s based on the law.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Well, right, and so consequently I would be a
foolish employer indeed if I did not make it a policy in my company
to have to prove your citizenship to be employed here.

Mr. Rocers. If you do not comply with the law, you are subject
to sanctions. That’s correct.

Mr. FLANAGAN. So we have made great strides in the direction
of having to demonstrate your citizenship and employment status
because of immigration law as opposed to any other law.

Mr. RoGeERs. Right. As well as aliens’ right to work also. It’s non-
discriminatory.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Mr. Chairman, he really voiced my concern. I
find that troublesome and I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.

I thank the panel. You have given some excellent testimony. We
look forward to your answers to those questions.

As you know, the authorization committees, subcommittees head-
ed by two very able Members of the House and the Senate are
working diligently on this issue and we certainly would hope to
make sure you get the resources that you ought to have to do the
job the Nation is expecting you to do, so I thank you for your help-
fulness.

We are going to take a 5-minute recess now and then we will
begin the next panel, headed by the attorney general in California
and joined by the secretary of the State of California.

Thank you, gentlemen.

[Recess.]

Mr. Horn. The subcommittee will come to order. Gentlemen, we
have a tradition on the Committee on Government Reform and
Oversight of swearing in all witnesses, no matter how dignified
they are.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. Horn. We will now begin with the attorney general. The
very distinguished former colleague in Congress, distinguished citi-
zen of this part of the State. After Attorney General Daniel E. Lun-
gren, completes his formal testimony, we will hear the secretary of
the State of California, the newly elected Williams Jones. We wel-
come you.

Attorney general, please proceed.


71

If the cuts that are suggested as a result of the DOD budget go
into place, either they will have to stop their activity, or it will be
10 years rather than 2 years before they complete that task. That
would be one of the silliest things the Congress and the Federal
Government could do.

If you understand that contingent of the National Guard, then
you understand that before then we had to train them to build
roads. So what do we do? We go find areas where they build roads,
and then after they finish we make sure they put it back into the
condition it was when they got there so that when the next crew
comes in they can build a road in a new area. It is teaching them
something, but it is of no new permanent assistance.

Here, it is giving them a product that can be utilized imme-
diately, and the difference between having that there and not hav-
ing that there is the difference between the Border Patrol being
able to respond from one area to the other area of the border by
some sort of mobile vehicle. If you understand that you can see it.

If you go down there you will see one officer or two Border Patrol
officers sitting in one vehicle in a high position, basically being able
to see one-half mile of the border, and recognizing that they are
controlling that half mile by virtue of their access and the fence,
you will understand the difference.

I think it is absolutely astonishing that DOD would not under-
stand how important that is. This is a perfect marriage of a mili-
tary and nonmilitary operation. They are not invading, they are not
out arresting people, they are not doing what I do not wish a PFC
to be doing, which is trying to stop people from coming across the
border. They are a great assistance and I think we ought to look
at that.

I’m aware that the Law Enforcement Act of 1994 authorized
funding of $675 million through 1998 to implement a deterrent
strategy along the southwest border. At the same time, as a former
Member of Congress [ recognize that if we are going to have coher-
ent strategy, there must be a close connection between what is au-
thorized and what is realistically possible in the appropriations
process, otherwise effective planning is hampered.

I present to the committee’s attention a study conducted by the
University of Texas concerning the impact of Operation Hold The
Line in the El Paso/Juarez sector. I think it makes good sense.

The committee should also take note of the progress that has
been made and continues to be made in California with regard to
illegal immigration. I’m proud to say that a product conducted
jointly by the California Department of Justice, my department,
the California Department of Corrections and the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service to accurately identify returning illegal
immigrants using California’s sophisticated computerized finger-
print system is working. We're very proud of that.

Many people think the FBI has the largest computerized
fingerprinting system in the world. That is wrong; our office does.
We are now utilizing an aspect of that in cooperation with those
other departments and services as I’ve mentioned.

The bottom line is that illegal immigrants who use a different
name every time they get caught for illegal entry can no longer


16

@ 1,000 apprehended illegal aliens and over 200 aliens
waiting to cross in Mexican border towns were interviewed.
The aliens reported the border is tighter and harder to
cross since Operation Gatekeeper. They also reported that

smuggling is being disrupted.

@ The apprehension data from the bueiest crossing point
in the entire nation -- San Diego's Imperial Beach station
-- tells us that traffic is being forced eastward exactly

as we had planned it.

© A new fingerprint technology deployed specifically as
part of Operation Gatekeeper is now providing data for the
first time ever on recidivist crossers. Over 50,000 cases
from October through mid-January show clearly that
individuals are attempting entry at Imperial Beach,
failing to get through there and are trying again at

eastern stations.

The situation the Attorney General saw during her walking tour
did not develop overnight. It was created by years of neglect, and
it will take years of hard effort to make full deterrence a reality.
But we now have the plan, the infrastructure, the people and the
resources to get the job done, and we are prepared to keep doing

more.

12


99

case, another 10 people are exposed and TB is thus moving into the
general population. The number of cases is increasing.

Santa Barbara County runs two homeless shelters in the winter
months. In a survey conducted in 1993, 48 percent of those in the
North County shelter, which is in Santa Maria, CA were newly ar-
rived in the area, and 40 percent of them from the Santa Maria
shelter indicated they were from Mexico.

In a Santa Barbara shelter, which is a South County shelter, 23
percent were newly arrived and 30 percent of the total said they
originated in Mexico. Again, these are from surveys. As you know,
you cannot ask certain questions. These are from surveys.

There is no way to quantify the numbers because of this, the new
arrivals who are illegal aliens, and no data is available as to the
immigration status of those shelter residents.

The cost of this program to Santa Barbara County is $132,000
per year. The largest cost to Santa Barbara County is associated
with the criminal justice system because all these costs are direct
county costs and are not offset by State and Federal revenue.

According to the State department of corrections, 18 percent of
Santa Barbara County commitments to the State prison system in
October had INS holds.

In 1993, 12 percent of youths in Santa Barbara County juvenile
institutions were undocumented. These rates were applied to the
total adult and criminal justice costs in the county which include
all costs of misdemeanors and felonies.

The total estimate of costs associated with these services was
$10.5 million in 1993-94 fiscal year. This includes the cost of court
special services, district attorney, public defender, sheriff and cus-
tody and juvenile institutions and probation services.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon, and Mr.
Jim Thomas will testify about the fiscal and practical acts the ille-
gal immigration issues have on their departments.

I think what you will find from the testimony is that the figures
I’ve stated are quite conservative, in fact, understated. But we are
trying to go forth with verified data to the extent that we can, and
again, it is difficult to get data in this area.

The most significant impact on localities is the cost of providing
public education to the children of illegal aliens. In the fall of 1994,
the General Accounting Office estimated that 6.5 percent of stu-
dents in California were illegal alien students.

The total number of limited-English-proficient [LEP] students
was 1.2 million. One could draw the conclusion that LEP students
are U.S.-born children or illegal immigrant children.

In 1994, there were 13,417 limited-English-proficient students
among the 56,977 children enrolled in Santa Barbara County pub-
lic schools. If you extrapolate that figure, 6.5 percent of State stu-
dents are illegal aliens, and if you utilize that figure for Santa Bar-
bara County, again I suggest it is a conservative figure. Perhaps
3,700 of those enrolled in Santa Barbara County schools are illegal
aliens or children of illegal aliens.

The General Accounting Office report indicated that the cost of
educating one child in 1994 was $4,830. Therefore, the total cost
of educating illegal alien children is $17.9 million per year, and
that is an estimate for Santa Barbara County. We know, however,


21

reach its goal of initiating hearings for every deportable alien in

state custody before the end of that alien's term of incarceration.

Congress has fully funded our Enhanced IHP in California. We
are hiring 52 new positions authorized as part of the program and
have doubled the number of detention spaces available to us here in
California from 400 to 800. We are also currently working with the
State of California on the details for implementing this enhanced

program.

Another important’ cooperative effort with the state of
California is a spin-off of the IHP--the Cal-ID project. Under this
program the files and fingerprints of all criminal aliens deported
under the IHP are entered into the California Law Enforcement
Telecommunications System. If they are arrested again, this system
will allow local law enforcement authorities to identify them as
previously deported criminal aliens. These criminals will then be
subject to arrest and prosecution or deportation by INS and our U.S.
Attorneys. Since the program's inception last September, over 4,000
records have been entered into the system and approximately 500

"hits" and follow-up proceedings have occurred.

These records are also being entered into a "hot lookout*
database linked to the automated fingerprint system, IDENT, in place
along the San Diego border and other Southwest border sites. IDENT

uses biometric information to identify individuals apprehended

17


50

violations of paper in other words but we are not fining these peo-
ple for—we are educating in a manner of speaking.

It is out there, we’re out there for the bad boys. We’re the bad
guys who are doing this willfully and unlawfully and exploiting the
illegal aliens. Yes, we want that.

Mr. FLANAGAN. Whatever I can do to help you find the sweat
shop owners, fine. But if you give the enforcement agencies the
tools to—that could possibly be abused and then we trust that you
won't abuse them and I trust that you won't, and I think any rea-
sonable person would, but we are two Geraldos and one Oprah
away from a panel full of people who have been abused by it and
I wonder if we wish to actually put such an onus on the employer
in such a way as to make him a verification agent as opposed to
criminal penalties if he runs such a sweat shop or indulges in mass
hirings. There is a certain fervent feverish pitch about catching ev-
eryone, every illegal and putting them all out, whatever it costs
and whatever it takes. But I will tell you, it is the scariest words
that any free people can utter and that is take my rights and make
me safe. And I've really got problems in the direction we are going
with this, particularly in the employment scope.

As for your excellent testimony about the Border Patrol, I look
forward to telling—I am sure Chairman Horn will have some excel-
lent questions about what more you need and how we can help
more and what more Congress can do and I stand ready to help,
absolutely.

Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Thank you.

Let me just review the 1986 act and one of the authors of it, the
State attorney general, will be here at probably 10 o’clock and we
can ask him something.

As I understand it, Congress did put the burden on the employer,
rightly or wrongly, with employer sanctions if you hire illegal
aliens. If you could briefly summarize what is the test that an em-
ployer needs to meet in terms of interviewing people and hiring
people; what is the basic test?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I want to refer to Dick
Rogers who is active in the Los Angeles area, probably one of the
highest concentrated of employer sanctions projects and violations
and I would like for him to address that, if ] may.

Mr. Horn. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman, today, we have multiple documents
that are eligible for verification or employment authorization. We
have birth certificates, we have drivers licenses, we have Social Se-
curity—there are multiple. And we have provided the employer
with a list of those documents which we feel justify and verify that
status and they are available.

When the employer questions an individual as to his or her em-
ployment, they are required to have a multiple of documents. They
could be a Social Security and a birth certificate, a drivers license
and a birth certificate, depending on what the individual who is
making the application is in the United States, what their status
is. If they are an alien, then they have to provide immigration doc-
uments such as the EAD card in conjunction with additional docu-
ments to verify status in the United States.



95

Mr. Horn. I had raised with the earlier panel the problems I’ve
learned from some of the local judges just 2 weeks ago, and that
is when an illegal alien has committed a crime and they are sen-
tenced to a year in the county jail, that they go in on Monday, that.
the sheriff is essentially releasing them within 1, 2, or 3 days from
their arrival at the jail, and sending them back for deportation, not
having served the sentence on the grounds, I’m assuming, that the
Los Angeles County jails are very crowded, and under their classi-
fication system, if they fall under that, that are up for release.

I haven't had a chance to pursue this yet with the sheriff, and
the staff will, as to whether or not they’re under court order. I re-
member Sheriff Gates was under a court order in terms of over-
crowded jails, but as one judge told me, he sentenced a person to
a year in jail on Monday, and he was back in his court on Thurs-
day, and that he had been to Mexico and back, over the border,
made it illegally, in that interim. The judge was sort of surprised
to see him show up in that court, but he needed something he
thought the judge could provide him so he came back to get it, and
he was supposed to be serving a year in the county jail.

Is that a concern of you as the chief law enforcement officer in
the State?

Mr. LUNGREN. It is of concern to me that we have to allow people
out in many of our local jails, serving only a small portion of the
sentence for which they were given.

However, in most cases of which I am aware, the sheriff is mak-
ing a determination to keep the more violent criminals in.

‘There has been some criticism of three strikes and you're out. I
happen to be a strong supporter of it; it is working, but I view it
somewhat like a rat going through the snake, if you’ve ever
watched that.

The rat is at the beginning of the snake at the present time. It
will soon move on and hopefully be digested. I think in the short-
term local jurisdictions are going to receive a disproportionate im-
pact, but as we take people out of circulation who have been in and
out and in and out of the system, all we're doing is canceling re-
cess, and they will no longer be out to commit more crimes, and
ultimately that will be to the benefit of local and county govern-
ment because they won’t endure those charges.

But in the context of that and the general overcrowding, there
is no doubt that people are being cited out. And if, in fact, they are
cited out before the INS can have an opportunity to do a check on
them and have them deported, they’re going to slip through the
cracks twice.

As far as I know, Sheriff Block—he and I have spoken on this
before—has a good relationship with INS, has cooperated with the
INS, has tried to identify immediately to the INS people who have
come to their attention, while staying at his hotel, that they give
evidence on not being there legally.

Now, he doesn’t make the final determination, he just gives that
to the INS. I will say there has been enhanced effort by the INS
in cooperating with local jurisdictions and the California correc-
tional institutions in recent years. It is still not where it ought to
be. We still have a lot more to be done.


33

Mr. Horn. Then you talk about the lack of computers and essen-
tial technology. Has that need now been met?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes, it has. I was there at San Diego as a street
patrol agent in 1990 and I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, we were
extremely weak in technology, personnel, vehicles. We were trying
to keep our vehicles running. We were still using pen and ink to
process some of our forms. I didn’t have enough personnel to main-
tain the line or heavy presence. As of 2 years ago, the technology
has arrived, we have computers, we have identification systems for
fingerprinting people, we had lights, we have fences. It is a com-
plete changeover, yes. The technology is there.

Mr. Horn. As you note on page 4, you are committed to putting
5,000 agents on the line by December 1996. Now, Congress author-
ized 6,000. Is that 5,000 part of the 6,000? I need to get just a sta-
tistic as to what did you have 2 years ago versus now and where
are they coming from, part of that 6,000 authorization?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Yes. In 1993, or let’s say, in 1994 [ think our
figures are 3,900-and-some-odd agents. We are adding an addi-
tional 700 agents this year plus another 700. I think the total com-
mitment by the year 1998 will be 7,000 Border Patrol agents.

Mr. Horn. You are talking about just the San Diego sector or
about the whole?

Mr. DE LA VINA. Nationwide.

Mr. Horn. Nationwide?

Mr. DE LA VINA. That is correct.

Mr. Horn. Of those, do we know at this point how many are on
the Canadian border, how many are on the southern border?

Mr. DE LA VINA. The majority are located along the southwest
border among the States of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Cali-
fornia. Ninety percent, and I am just guessing, approximately 90
percent or a little bit higher, 95 percent, are located along these lo-
cations. We have three—two principal areas right now where the
majority is being concentrated, which is San Diego, El Paso, Ari-
zona, and in Mac Allen, TX.

Mr. Horn. If you might just furnish an exhibit for the record,
what did you have on these areas 3 years ago, what do you have
this year, what do you plan to have 3 years from now? We might
want to pursue that when we get down to substance.

Mr. DE LA VINA. We will furnish that.

[The information referred to follows:]


17

I do not know how many of you have had the opportunity to see
our new operations at work, but I want to invite each of you to
travel to the border with me to see the changes for yourselves. The
borders look dramatically different today then they did 26 months
ago and I know that the people at the border will teli you how much

they appreciate your help in letting them do their job well.

ANTI-SMUGGLING

Let me now talk about what I consider to be one of the lowest
forms of crime there is -- alien smuggling. Trafficking in human
beings for money, robbing them of their hard-earned dollars and then
ransoming them to their relatives is repulsive. Last month the INS
launched Operation Disruption in the San Diego Sector, which
resulted in the arrest of over 1,777 aliens, the indictment of more
than 20 alien smugglers, and the shutting down of 24 drophouses,
where aliens are held -- often hostages in cramped and unsanitary

conditions -- prior to movement further into the interior.

In the eight months of FY 1995, INS inspectors at the San Diego
ports of entry have intercepted 2,975 smuggled aliens, arrested
2,810 smuggling principals, intercepted narcotics and other
contraband valued at approximately $20,000,000, and referred 2,732

smugglers' cars to the U.S. Customs Service for seizure.

Alien smuggling is not only present along both our northern and

ok)


61

Between the State and the Federal agencies we have made sig-
nificant impact on putting the fly by-night contractors out of busi-
ness,

Mr. Horn. OK. I am going to file the next question but let me
give you the flavor for it and the staff will pursue it with INS na-
tionally and regionally.

We want to know how many employers had sanctions imposed
against them over the last 5 years in California?

How many in the entire Nation?

What is the average sanction imposed?

How does INS determine which agency will pursue sanctions
against an employer?

How does INS determine the amount of sanction which should be
imposed or agreed upon with the employer?

Once a sanction is paid how are the funds distributed?

If all dollars collected in the form of sanctions were required to
be distributed back into employer sanction and enforcement pro-
grams, would employer sanctions be increased?

Would more employers to be identified, should any changes in
current law be pursued regarding employer sanctions to make it
easier to control illegal immigration?

If so, what changes would INS advocate?

Does INS have any plan to advocate legislative changes regard-
ing the employer sanctions?

I realize that is a long list. Just file each one for the record. You
will be furnished, your Commissioner will be furnished, everybody
will be furnished and we will try to lay it out.

Now let me move in the limited time here to another query.

What are your thoughts regarding an extradition treaty whereby
illegals do prison time in the country of origin?

I have suggested that. That is part of a House-passed bill. It is
over before the Senate. I have talked to the President about it and
this would mean renegotiating the prisoner transfer treaties be-
cause as you know right now they have to give consent to go back.

What I want to see happen is if a State or Federal court sen-
tences an illegal to jail or prison time that the treaty would be re-
written so they would have to serve that time in the country of ori-
gin, which would relieve the California taxpayer, the national tax-
payer, et cetera.

I just wondered, does that make any sense to you?

Mr. DE LA VINA. It sure does, Mr. Chairman.

I think that that has been explored probably by another State.
I think Florida has taken a look at that also.

Anything that will assist us in the identification and removal of
especially the felon from our criminal institutions, from our pris-
ons, from the county jails is definitely welcome and to be explored
and evaluated.

As long as they serve their time, it would be here or another
country, I think that’s a good idea.

Mr. Horn. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. RoGers. In the treaty transfers right now one of the stum-
bling blocks is that the conditions of confinement have to be the
same.


130

into the interior of the country from which they came, not merely
letting them go over the border to come back the next night.

It seems to me they've sort of gotten away from that policy. We
need to know to what degree has that been a diplomatic situation
of the State Department, the government of whatever, Mexico, El
Salvador, Guatemala, you name it, 49 countries are involved, and
at least make it a little more difficult for them to hit the southern
border.

We, of course, didn’t even get into the northern border this morn-
ing, but the committee will get into that because we have thou-
sands coming over the northern border.

We also have—and I’ve sat down with the Coast Guard recently
on this—thousands trying to come in by ship from China at both
the Atlantic and the Pacific, at $30,000 a crack, believe it or not;
$2,000 is put up to the mob in China, and then $28,000 of inden-
tured servitude is served over here.

The Coast Guard has been very effective in interdicting those
vessels, and diverting them to Latin America so now you find Chi-
nese from one province in China also coming over the border at
night.

We need to get that on the record as to what the exact break-
down is on border catches, if we will, and get all the data we did
ask for, but to spell it out in terms of where are the resources lo-
cated in the interior of California to meet the needs such as coun-
ties Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, so forth and so on.

Granted, we’re asking them to do a lot, but if they aren’t able
to meet the need, they need to ask for the resources, and that’s
why I wanted in that earlier question to—I don’t know if you were
in the room—to trace it through what did they ask the Attorney
General, what did the Attorney General ask the President, what
did he ask Congress, and what did we do with it, because the only
way you get at it is just keep tracking it down and putting the heat
on.

I think Congress, as I said earlier, is at last acting like they
should have acted 15 years ago, very frankly, and the President
seems to have an interest in it. I think Secretary Cheney, Secretary
of Defense, was the only one who helped get some equipment to the
Border Patrol so he was one bright spot in 20 years of ineptitude,
in 20 years of doing nothing, regardless of party.

That obviously has concerned me a long time, and we're going to
try to put this together with our colleagues in the Senate and in
the House and see if we can’t make a little progress.

Mr. THomas. Getting back to what Congressman Flanagan asked
about, some type of procedures at the Federal level. I am a believer
in that a majority of the people who are doing time in California
could and should do their time in the country of origin.

I know the district attorney and I feel that there are some
crimes, especially major crimes, that they should do their time here
because of ensuring that those times are done.

But the standards of commitment portion of the treaty would
definitely have to be looked at there. Any issues in the treaty that
would allow transfers to be made would be greatly appreciated. I
know that was mentioned by other people here, but certainly from


114

Mr. Horn. Thank you, Sheriff Thomas.

Now we ask the district attorney, Mr. Thomas W. Sneddon, Jr.,
to give his briefing. We appreciate you coming here.

Mr. SNEDDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Congress-
man. It is nice to be back in the area where I grew up. I grew up
just a few miles from here. In fact, my aunt and uncle are still con-
stituents of yours.

Mr. Horn. Bless them. [Laughter.]

Mr. SNEDDON. I appreciate the opportunity to address some is-
sues which I think are on everybody's minds today. I think there
are a few issues that touch nearly every aspect of our lives, like
the problem created by illegal immigration. It is a financial issue,
a law enforcement issue, a social issue, and a quality of life issue
for those of us who live in California.

Although my remarks will primarily rely upon my observations,
limited data and experience as a 25-year prosecutor in both Los
Angeles County and Santa Barbara County and my 12 years as the
elected district attorney in Santa Barbara County, I believe that
my experience and my exposure to the criminal justice system as
a whole tells me what has been echoed by other people in this room
here this morning that Santa Barbara County is fairly typical and,
if anything, under-represents the magnitude of the problems cre-
ated in local communities by illegal immigration throughout the
State of California.

To say that illegal immigration negatively impacts crime and the
criminal justice system states the obvious. Placing the exact figures
on the nature or the magnitude of the problem is somewhat dif-
ficult. Most agencies, including ours, are not currently allowed to
ask in every case the status of an individual defendant.

I’m now aware of any local prosecutors office that systematically
tracks the percentage of cases that involve illegal immigrants or di-
rectly relates those statuses to the percentage of their case load of
serious crime.

On the other hand, just because we’re not able to get exact per-
centages or empirically arrive at data, this committee should not
draw the conclusion that the negative impacts are not significant.

My remarks will focus on the activities and the responsibilities
of three Federal agencies: the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the Social Security Office.

Although some of my remarks may seem to be critical about
shortcomings of some of these agencies, I want to make it clear to
this committee that my view of it is that it is not one of attitude;
it is one of resources.

Enhanced resources, improved communications, new laws and
regulations, a real commitment, a determination by Federal offi-
cials to assist State and local communities must be the key ingredi-
ents to any successful attack on the burdens that illegal immigra-
tions places on the law and justice agencies in this community,
Santa Barbara County as well as the State as a whole.

Let me briefly outline the problems so that my proposed solu-
tions may be placed in their context. As you have been previously
informed, about 14 to 20 percent of the inmate population in Santa
Barbara County is composed of illegal aliens. In 1993, Department
of Corrections statistics say that 18 percent of Santa Barbara


116

lates a court order, absconds with the child, and conceals the child
from detection in Mexico. Although we have been very vigorous in
attempting to recover the children, it is almost an impossible task.

Hopefully, even these remarks, having been brief, the committee
can generally perceive the magnitude of the impact on local com-
munities.

Therefore, I would like to spend just a few minutes talking about
some of the solutions. As I stated in my introduction, the solutions
are quite simple. Basically, their likelihood of success will be geo-
metrically proportional to the seriousness and the commitment on
the part of Federal Government to making the fight against illegal
immigration something more than politica! rhetoric.

Immigration and naturalization. There are two prongs to any
successful INS program, at least from the local level as I see it. The
sheriff has eloquently articulated the need for enhanced resources
at the border in order to discourage, reduce and prevent illegal
entry, and I think that was done well this morning by the INS rep-
resentatives.

As a corollary to any such enhanced enforcement program, there
must be a commitment, a streamlined, timely, and efficient INS en-
forcement program to pick up and deport illegal immigrants who
have been arrested, detained and incarcerated in our local facili-
ties.

The latter without the former would be ineffective, and the
former without the latter would continue to allow nondeported, re-
cidivist illegal aliens criminals to substantially contribute to the se-
rious crime problems in our local communities.

By the way, it is not in my written remarks, but we have also
had problems with INS on voter fraud. We've had at least one voter
fraud case recently where we attempted to get cooperation to prove
the illegal status of the individual and we couldn’t get anywhere
with the people to help us verify that incident.

Mr. Horn. What office were you dealing with on that?

Mr. SNEDDON. In that case we were dealing with the Oxnard of-
fice.

Mr. Horn. I think we just got to have the Federal cooperation.
I would hope—yes, one of the representatives is still here. We need
some cooperation in the Oxnard office on voting fraud. I couldn’t
agree with you more. It’s scandalous.

Mr. SNEDDON. I want to reiterate: I think it is more a question
of resources in some instances than it is attitude, but it is immate-
rial when you try to go to court and prove these cases whether it
is attitude or recourse and you prove a case.

The second is the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I think that the Federal
Government needs to legislatively set what they believe should be
the attitude and the prioritization of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and
the Attorney General’s Office on illegal immigration because I don’t
believe that attitude is there today, for one reason or another.

Despite what I’ve heard here this morning on the prosecutions of
illegal aliens, but which, even given the numbers that they’re citing
coming across, is minuscule in light of the flood of immigrants com-
ing across the border, as a local prosecutor I can tell you what my
experience is and it is nonexistent.


4

Operation Gatekeeper. Part of our integrated strategy called for
focusing resources where most illegal aliens were being appre-
hended, a 5-mile stretch in San Diego called Imperial Beach and
a 20-mile stretch of border in El Paso, TX.

The Border Patrol, utilizing the advice of outside entities such as
the Department of Defense Center for Low-intensity Conflict, devel-
oped Operation Gatekeeper. At the heart of this strategy is a high-
intensity deployment plan. We have deployed 85 percent of the sec-
tor’s agents within a ¥2 mile of the border and have made signifi-
cant physical improvements to the border in this area including
new lighting, new fencing, and new roads.

The strategy of prevention through deterrence is paying off. The
number of arrests in the westernmost station, Imperial Beach, is
down 40 percent to date, proof that the effort to prevent illegal
entry and to channel traffic eastward is working. Furthermore, the
standard smuggling fee for the trip from Tijuana to Los Angeles
has risen 40 to 60 percent.

Our claim of success is not based on conjecture. In order to en-
sure that INS is a good investment, we created an in-house re-
search capacity separate from the Border Patrol to work with aca-
demics, law enforcement experts, and military analysts to gauge
our success. Thus far, the results have been encouraging.

A study overseen by Dr. Robert Bach, the executive associate
commission for policy and planning, indicates that Operation Gate-
keeper is deterring and moving illegal alien traffic away from the
Nation’s busiest Border Patrol station, Imperial Beach, eastward.

The situation the Attorney General saw during her walking tour
did not develop overnight and while we cannot remedy it overnight,
we now have a plan, we have the people and the resources to de-
velop order along our Nation’s borders.

Recently, we hosted a delegation of the Congressional Task Force
on Immigration Reform at the border. They saw firsthand what I
have been talking about. As noted in the task force report, signifi-
cant successes in border enforcement, Operation Hold the Line and
Operation Gatekeeper are the result of increased Border Patrol
staffing and resources. These efforts demonstrate that a commit-
ment of increased manpower can prevent people from illegally
crossing our border.

I want to invite each of you to travel to the border with me to
see the changes for yourself.

Antismuggling. We are focusing our efforts not just on individ-
uals but also on organized smugglers who bring people across the
border and into the interior. In May, we launched Operation Dis-
ruption in the San Diego sector, which has resulted in the arrest
of over 1,777 aliens, the indictment of 20 alien smugglers and the
shutting down of 24 drop houses. In the 8 months of fiscal year
1995, INS inspectors at the San Diego ports of entry have inter-
cepted 2,975 smuggled aliens, arrested 2,810 smuggling principals,
intercepted narcotics and other contraband valued at approxi-
mately $20 million and referred 2,732 smugglers’ cars to the U.S.
Customs Service for seizure.

Criminal aliens. The administration has committed to making
the removal of criminal and other deportable aliens from the Unit-
ed States one of the highest priorities. The INS is now removing


93

I'm sure that over the years you will have a better formed opin-
ion as to the value of motor-voter, either a strengthened opinion
that this really works and was a great idea, or you will be able to
look at it again and say this is something that—this is a great idea,
this was something that was a wonderful idea but isn’t workable.

I don’t know which you will come to. I look forward to hearing
about that.

T have just one question for the attorney general. You mentioned
the use of the RICO statute and expanded use of that. Does Cali-
fornia have a RICO complementary statute?

Mr. LUNGREN. We do not have an absolute complement to the
Federal RICO statute. We do have conspiracy statutes, but I would
not say that we have something that is on all fours with the Fed-
eral RICO statute.

Mr. FLANAGAN. The Federal RICO is indeed one way to approach
this problem that has great efficacy, particularly among the em-
ployers who indulge in sweatshop work, and actually work very
hard to circumvent the law and encourage illegal immigration.

Do you have any concrete ideas on how you would like to see the
Attorney General of the United States or the U.S. attorney here in
California implement RICO or work on it?

Mr. LUNGREN. What we were talking about most specifically was
RICO statutes being brought in in terms of alien smuggling. Alien
smuggling is an aspect of the problem; not the total problem. I
don’t mean to suggest that at all. But is a part of the problem that
is of a serious nature.

A RICO statute brought with respect to some of these groups
that may be loosely connected but nonetheless affiliated, would
send a strong message out there that the United States is very se-
rious about alien smuggling.

These folks are dealing in a cargo of human beings. While some
would argue that they are not as nefarious as drug smugglers be-
cause drug smugglers are bringing a product that will destroy
those who use it, they nonetheless deal with these people in a way
that is oftentimes inhumane, resulting in injury and death.

I don’t think we have sent the message strongly enough out
there, and the RICO statute has been utilized in various different
settings, as you know. Some I have some problems with, on the
civil side of things, but in terms of the criminal side of things, it
does increase penalties, and it is a strong shot across the bow of
those otherwise involved in this.

Mr. FLANAGAN, I will expose this to Senator McCullum of the rel-
ative Judiciary Subcommittee, a committee which I also sit on. I
think there is room for expanded RICO usage, not just for the
smuggling, but for the pattern of misbehavior by repeat offenders,
particularly those running the sweatshops and the other.

It’s an illegal immigrant cartel, if you will, as described by the
INS, and I think there is a possibility for very strong Federal sanc-
tions as opposed to transgressions of Miranda laws. I think it has
great efficacy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Horn. Thank you. Let me pursue a few questions with you,
Mr. Attorney General. You have stressed some of it, but I just want
to get it on the record in one place.


38

improve our ability to provide secure, authentic and durable identi-
fication.

We here in California have over 24 million licensed drivers and
ID card holders. Each year we issue 1.3 million new licenses and
ID cards to all ages. Seventy-three percent of our population has
either a drivers license or ID card.

In 1979, our State legislature stated that as a matter of legisla-
tive policy, the license and ID card are the official identification
documents of the State of California. After all, I bet that each of
us here today uses our drivers licenses more often to prove who we
are than to prove we are licensed to drive. The drivers license has
become the de facto personal identification document in this Na-
tion. Because of this, we are pleased to share our experience and
expertise with this committee.

During the last 6 years, California has been improving the integ-
rity of identification and licensing. In 1990, we were the first State
to introduce the use of digitized technology with the driver license.
We went from a paper license system to a credit card style license
and ID card using digital imaging technology for the photograph,
the signature, and the fingerprint. The new license and ID card
contain a magnetic stripe with a card demographic information en-
coded on it for ease of access and a holographic security feature.

In 1992, California joined many other States who also now collect
Social Security numbers. The Social Security Administration re-
cently agreed to verify SSNs we collect against their data base.

In 1993, Governor Wilson supported and signed into law the re-
quirement that original driver license and ID card applicants pro-
vide proof of legal presence. We believe we have seen a deterrent
effect to the law. We verify the INS documents submitted through
the electronic verification system known as ASVI. These efforts to
strengthen the integrity of the identification documents issued by
the DMV have far reaching impact as with any national effort to
do the same.

The identity document facilitates access to jobs, entitlements and
credit, all of which have costly consequences if access is obtained
fraudulently.

National efforts by AAMVA and the States have produced stand-
ards for digitizing and encoding the licenses and standards for in-
formation exchange. But States cannot achieve the improvements
in identification integrity on their own. Together, all 50 States and
with national support are more likely to achieve greater uniformity
more quickly.

Uniform practices for establishing identity are being developed
for all States by AAMVA. The source documents that have integrity
and are verifiable are key.

National standards for source or breeder documents are also
needed. We see birth certificates with untold variations, making it
very difficult to identify those that are fraudulent. We can identify
the bad attempts at fraud but I am certain we miss the skilled at-
tempts.

Electronic verification of various data elements is also an impor-
tant element for a successful identification system. An electronic
network to verify the U.S. birth documents issued by the 50 States


125

Congressman Stephen Horn
June 8, 1995
Page 5

allow the Social Security Administration to cooperate with local
law enforcement officials when phoney social security related
information or documentation was used.

I am not unmindful of the fact that some, if not all of the
solutions I have recommended above will require an additional
commitment of financial and personnel resources to combating the
negative impacts created by illegal immigration in this county,
state and country. However, in view of the astronomical amount of
money that could be saved by a meaningful, full court press on
illegal immigration, I believe that in the long run it would be a
cost effective program. Moreover, I do not believe that either
this Committee nor Congress should ignore the negative societal
implications created by a policy of encouraging by beguine neglect
illegal immigration to the point where it substantially detracts
from the public’s support and confidence in the ability of
government to protect them from the negative financial, criminal

and quality of life impacts created by the current illegal
immigration crisis.

Very truly yours,

Hovored oting,

THOMAS W. SNEDDON, JR.
District Attorney

TwWS:1f


100

that Santa Barbara County has a larger percentage of illegal aliens
as does the State as a whole. Again, the figures that have been
cited are somewhat conservative figures.

The GAO study and the Urban Institute studies do not include
the cost of U.S. citizen children of illegal immigrants as an overall
cost of illegal immigration. These costs are borne by local and State
taxpayers.

As of 1993, 1 in 5 births in Santa Barbara County were births
to illegal aliens that were funded by Medicaid, and we may make
the conservative estimate that 1 in 5 added students enrolled in
our schools are U.S. immigrant children of illegal immigrants.

Between 1989-90, and 1992-93 school years, 4,131 added stu-
dents enrolled in county schools in Santa Barbara County. We
might estimate that at least 1,000 of the additional children were
born in the United States to illegal immigrants. This is an addi-
tional $483,000 in education costs.

Of the 4,131 added students, there were that many in the Fed-
eral lunch program additional and 4,887 of the added students did
not speak English.

Because of the legal prohibition against receiving immigration
status information with respect to students and/or parents, there is
no way to provide precise data with respect to the number of illegal
immigrants or U.S. citizen children of illegal immigrants enrolled
in these programs.

Santa Barbara County is a microcosm of the State. The reason
I’ve spoken so much about education costs, even though you might
say why would a county supervisor speak of education costs, that
is because the financing situation of the State as a whole affects
counties. The costs of providing health, welfare and education at
the State level are skyrocketing.

In the 1989-90 fiscal year to the 1995 fiscal year funding for K
through 12 has risen from $23.9 billion to $30.1 billion statewide.
An increase of $6.2 billion. Because State revenues are flat or de-
clining, depending upon the tax, the State has shifted an increas-
ing number for counties. In addition in the last couple of fiscal
years, the State has shifted 3.5 billion for property-tax revenue
from local entities to fund schools.

The counties are therefore suffering the burden of illegal immi-
gration more than the estimated direct cost to the counties would
suggest. To balance our budget in Santa Barbara County, the coun-
ty of Santa Barbara County has seen 6 successive years of budget
reductions, and we have inadequate discretionary revenue for li-
braries, parks, street lights, roads and a myriad of other local serv-
ices that the public desires and wants and the taxpaying citizens
demand who pay local property tax primarily to provide the local
school costs which have been skyrocketing.

Additionally, we have had increased fees and raised benefit as-
sessments to fund services which were formerly funded by property
taxes. The full cost to carry out Federal mandates should be borne
by the Federal Government in the areas where the growth in local
costs to administer mandated programs can be attributed to immi-
gration policies set by the Federal Government. This will provide
a direct incentive to provide legal methods to identify specific costs
associated with serving illegal immigrants. It would also serve to


41

license and ID card using digital imagiag technology for the photograph,
signature, and fingerprint. The new licenge and ID card contain a magnetic
stripe with the card demographic information encoded on it for ease of access.
1t also has a holographic security feature to help identify valid cards, and to
increase the difficulty of producing fraudulent cards.

We now have 89% of our licensees and card holders converted to this ayatem.
We have just begun to issue our renewal licenses and cards by retrieving the
digitized photo and signature on file. In 1996, the temporary license issued in
the field office will have the photo on it, similar to New York's temporary
license. Our duplicate licenses and ID cards will be produced using the digitized
photo on file, thwarting impersonators seeking a license with their photo and
someone else's identity. We will be able to transmit the photo to the office
when needed to confirm the identity of a customer. This will thwart efforts to
impersonate someone who already has a DMV record. We will also take the
photo at the start of the application process rather than at the end, so that we
can ensure that the same individual presenting themselves at the start is the
same one who takes the tests, and completes the application process.

In 1992 California joined many other states who algo collect eocial security
numbers for all applicants. Because verification of the number is vital, we
have received permission from the Social Security Administration to verify the
numbers we collect against their database. The regulations have taken effect
which will allow California and all other states to verify SSNs within 48-72

In 1993, Governor Pete Wilson supported and signed into law the requirement
to verify legal presence status when an applicant applies for an original driver
license or ID card. We are not the first state to verify the legal status. One
other state has been doing this for many years. Since the law was enacted, we
have seen a slight drop in our workload that we attribute to the deterrent effect
of the law. Approximately 30% of the 1.3 million documents present
annually to prove legal presence and identity are INS documenta, D Tietog the
first year, we denied over 1000 licenses and ID cards because the document
submitted was fraudulent, We term the license to'the expiration of the INS

nt.

Thanks to support from INS representatives, we are able to verify the INS
documents submitted through the electronic verification system ASVI (alien
status verification system), This verification currently takes place at our
headquarters in Sacramento, prior to mailing the card or license. We do not
release the license unless we receive positive verification from ASVI. This
system is working very well. It provides instantaneous verification. We will be
able to do this verification directly from our field offices later this year,
Approximately 75% of the INS documents are verified electronically. The rest
are sent to INS for manual verification.

The entire legal presence verification process costs California approximately
$1.4 million per year. Approximately $9(,000 is the cost for electronic