S. Hrg. 112–232 

SECURING THE BORDER—2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 30, 2011 

BUILDING ON THE PROGRESS MADE 

APRIL 7, 2011 

PROGRESS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL 

MAY 4, 2011 

PROGRESS AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

SECURING THE BORDER—2011 

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67–122 PDF 2012

S. Hrg. 112–232 

SECURING THE BORDER—2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 30, 2011 

BUILDING ON THE PROGRESS MADE 

APRIL 7, 2011 

PROGRESS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL 

MAY 4, 2011 

PROGRESS AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada* 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

HOLLY A. IDELSON, Senior Counsel 

BLAS NUNEZ-NETO, Professional Staff Member 

NICOLE M. MARTINEZ, Legislative Aide 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

BRENDAN P. SHIELDS, Minority Director of Homeland Security Policy 

CHRISTOPHER J. BURFORD, Minority CBP Detailee 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

* Senator Ensign resigned on May 3, 2011 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ..................................................................................... 1, 35, 61 

Senator McCain .......................................................................................... 3, 37, 86 

Senator Johnson.............................................................................................. 20, 76 

Senator Tester................................................................................................. 22, 73 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 26 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 54 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 64 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 91 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Lieberman ............................................................................... 95, 153, 241 

Senator McCain............................................................................................. 98, 155 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 243 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011 

Hon. Asa Hutchinson, Former Under Secretary for Border and Transportation 

Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security .................................. 5 

Hon. Doris Meissner, Former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and 

Naturalization Service at the U.S. Department of Justice ............................... 9 

Richard M. Stana, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 11 

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2011 

Hon. Veronica Escobar, El Paso County Judge, Texas ......................................... 39 

Hon. Raymond Loera, Sheriff of Imperial County, California ............................. 41 

Hon. Raymond Cobos, Sheriff of Luna County, New Mexico ............................... 43 

Hon. Paul Babeu, Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona ............................................. 45 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011 

Hon. Janet A. Napolitano, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security . 66 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Babeu, Hon. Paul: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 45 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 177 

Cobos, Hon. Raymond: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 43 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 170 

Escobar, Hon. Veronica: 

Testimony with an attachment ....................................................................... 39 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 157 

Hutchinson, Hon. Asa: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 100 

Loera, Hon. Raymond: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 41 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 166 

Meissner, Hon. Doris: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105 

Page

IV 

Napolitano, Hon. Janet A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 66 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 246 

Stana, Richard M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 115 

APPENDIX 

Chart submitted by Senator Lieberman on March 30, 2011 ............................... 97 

Letter from the Department of the Interior with an attachment, dated April 

1, 2011, submitted by Senator Coburn ............................................................... 210 

Larry Dever, Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, prepared statement .............. 224 

GAO report titled ‘‘Overstay Enforcement: Additional Mechanisms for Collecting, Assessing, and Sharing Data Could Strengthen DHS’s Efforts but 

Would Have Costs,’’ April 2011 ........................................................................... 263 

Colleen M. Kelley, National President, National Treasury Employees Union, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 339 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Hutchison ................................................................................................... 137 

Ms. Meissner ..................................................................................................... 141 

Mr. Stana .......................................................................................................... 146 

Mr. Loera ........................................................................................................... 226 

Mr. Cobos .......................................................................................................... 227 

Mr. Babeu .......................................................................................................... 228 

Secretary Napolitano ........................................................................................ 353 

(1) 

SECURING THE BORDER: BUILDING ON THE 

PROGRESS MADE 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Landrieu, McCaskill, Tester, 

McCain, and Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to 

thank our witnesses particularly and everybody else who is here. 

This is part of a continuing series that we have been doing on 

this Committee overseeing our border security operations, and this 

one is important because of the range of the witnesses that we 

have before us and the work Mr. Stana and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has done. We are going to follow this 

with two more hearings on the Southwest Border particularly in 

which we are going to have some State and local officials and then 

Secretary Janet Napolitano will be with us after that. 

The question of border security continues to be important to our 

country in various ways. This morning, right here in this room, we 

began a different series of hearings on taking a look at the institutions of our government that were created after September 11, 

2001, to better protect our country than we were able to on September 11, 2001. We had Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton of the 9/11 

Commission testify. And, of course, in that case we have done an 

enormous amount to increase border security in the sense of stopping terrorists and the instruments of terrorism from coming into 

our country, and with some success, I think. 

I was struck in the testimony that has been filed for this Committee hearing about the interest in the question of what is border 

security—in other words, to better define it. And one series of definitions comes from the Secure Fence Act of 2006 in which they list 

the elements of operational control, and it is with regard to terrorism and its tools. Narcotics and other contraband are obviously 

quite relevant when you think about the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in testimony before this Committee a 

while ago said that the No. 1 organized crime threat in America 

today is from the Mexican drug cartels. 

2 

1The chart submitted by Senator Lieberman appears in the Appendix on page 97. 

Obviously the Mexicans say that we are creating a problem for 

them going the other way and that weapons are coming in from the 

United States. And, of course, probably the most politically sensitive and controversial aspect of border security is quite different, 

which is the security of knowing that people are not coming into 

the country illegally and in that sense making a mockery of our 

law. 

We have spent a lot of money and a lot of time increasing the 

resources that we have devoted to border security. Some numbers 

that GAO provided: 

In fiscal year 2004, when the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) first existed, at that point we had 10,500 agents to patrol 

the land borders. In fiscal year 2010, we had double that, 20,000 

agents at the land borders. 

In 2004 we had 17,600 agents inspecting travelers at air, land, 

and sea ports of entry. That went way up by fiscal year 2010, and 

the expenditures more than doubled, from $5.9 billion to $11.9 billion for personnel, infrastructure, and technology. 

The question that we constantly ask is: What do we get as a result of these investments and how do we measure the results? And 

this goes back to the first question that I raised. 

One of the standards that is used a lot is apprehensions, and it 

has an odd and inverse effect as you look at it. That has always 

struck me as problematic, but it may be relevant. As you can see 

in that chart that we are showing,1 as the number of agents go up, 

the apprehensions go down. So you would say, what does that tell 

us? Well, generally speaking, we have felt that tells us there are 

fewer apprehensions because there are fewer people trying to come 

over illegally, although, as others have pointed out, using apprehensions as the metric here is problematic because the data tracks 

events rather than people. So if one person is apprehended more 

than once a year, it is counted more than one time. 

At different times, in fact, in the past decade, the Border Patrol 

has cited both increases and decreases in apprehensions as a sign 

that they are being more effective. Either they are apprehending 

a higher percentage of those crossing the border or their operations 

have reduced flows. 

There was a recent RAND report that says, ‘‘commonly reported 

Border Patrol measures, such as numbers of illegal immigrants apprehended or miles of border under effective control, bear only an 

indirect and uncertain relationship to the border control mission, 

making them unreliable management tools.’’ So that leads me to 

want to engage you—and some of you have provided testimony to 

that effect—in helping us to see if we can find a better way to 

measure security at the border. In terms of illegal immigration, the 

common sense lay person’s measurement would be how many people are trying to get over and how many people are actually coming 

in as undocumented aliens. 

This question of border security continues to be important to us 

in all the ways that I stated, in terms of the organized crime threat 

represented by the Mexican drug cartels; obviously in terms of the 

terrible violence in Mexico, some of which has threatened border 

3 

communities within the United States; and then in terms of illegal 

immigration, both because when there is a law, we have a responsibility to enforce it to the best of our ability, but also in the context 

of the congressional environment. Estimates vary but there are 

never less than 10 million people who are here as undocumented 

aliens, and I think there is a widely held conclusion that improving 

border security is a precondition to coming back and dealing with 

illegal immigration. Ms. Meissner has actually suggested in prepared testimony an inverse relationship that maybe it should go 

the other way—that is to say that fixing the problem of undocumented aliens may actually help us to better secure the border or 

reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, and we welcome that testimony as well. 

But, anyway, it is an important hearing. I thank the witnesses. 

You come with extraordinary experience and I look forward to your 

testimony. 

Senator McCain, welcome. He has been designated as the Ranking Member by Senator Collins. He obviously has a lot of both expertise and interest in the subject, and I have always wanted to 

work closely with him on something, and this gives me the opportunity. [Laughter.] 

Senator MCCAIN. That is an inside joke. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

your continued interest in this issue, and I know that Connecticut 

is a long way from the U.S.-Mexico Southwest Border, particularly, 

but you have been good enough to come to Arizona and hold hearings there, and it is obviously an issue of great importance to the 

people that I represent. 

I want to thank our witnesses for coming today, and I would like 

to mention I recently returned from a visit to the Arizona-Mexico 

border last week. And while I was at the Douglas Port of Entry, 

I was shown a video taken 3 days earlier of a cartel-led execution 

in Agua Prieta. That is across the border mere yards from the 

Douglas Port of Entry. In the video, three trucks of men armed 

with fully automatic weapons sped down a busy street flashing police lights. After cordoning off a busy city block, they began shooting, firing over 400 rounds, killing an estimated five people and 

wounding 17. This level of violence is new to Agua Prieta. 

Ten years ago, we could not have anticipated the headlines that 

routinely appear in newspapers today throughout the country, detailing the dangers along our Southern Border. For example, on 

March 3, Reuters reported, ‘‘Police link Arizona beheading to Mexican drug cartel’’; and the January 5 headline in the L.A. Times, 

‘‘Mexico’s Drug Violence Respects No Borders.’’ It goes on and on. 

The extreme levels of violence in Mexico that have resulted in 

the killing of 36,000 Mexicans over the past 4 years—and, by the 

way, over that past 4 years, 21,000 Afghans have been killed in Afghanistan, and yet in Mexico there have been 36,000 over the same 

period of time. It has not spilled over. We have had a Border Patrol 

agent killed, we have had a rancher killed, but it has not spilled 

over yet, but it is getting closer. 

4 

As the witnesses today will testify, we are seeing progress, and 

I have witnessed this progress myself, particularly in the Yuma 

Sector, which has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of illegal border crossers. In the Tucson Sector, it appears illegal traffic 

has slowed due to the continuing economic recession, the increased 

numbers of Border Patrol agents, the deployment of National 

Guard troops, and increased use of consequence programs like 

Streamline. And I want to emphasize under Operation Streamline, 

a repeat crosser knows that the individual is going to face increased penalties, it is a strong disincentive for crossing. And also, 

once they are done, releasing them at a border crossing far away 

has also had a significant effect. 

But progress is not success. We are far from success in the Tucson Sector. Forty percent of the marijuana smuggled across our 

Southern Border comes through the Tucson Sector, and there are 

now today—I was just briefed—between 75 and 100 guides sitting 

on mountaintops in Arizona with sophisticated communications 

equipment, food, binoculars, and other equipment guiding the drug 

smugglers as they move up through Pinal County into Phoenix, Arizona, from where drugs are distributed all over America. Phoenix 

has become the drug distribution center for every place in America 

but southern Texas. And so if we still have 75 to 100 guides sitting 

on mountains in Arizona guiding the drug smugglers, I do not 

think we could declare success. 

GAO is going to tell us that only 129 of the 873 miles of the 

Southwest Border are considered to be under ‘‘operational control.’’ 

Additionally, the success our law enforcement agencies achieve at 

protecting our cities and towns is often made at the expense of citizens that live in more rural areas. In other words, as they are driven out into the rural areas, the enforcement efforts in Douglas, 

Nogales, and Yuma are sending the human and drug smugglers 

across Arizona’s ranches and farmlands, particularly in eastern Arizona. 

This is why many people in southern Arizona feel like they are 

living in a no-man’s-land, abandoned by the Federal Government 

and this Administration. It does not help that last year David 

Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection 

(CBP), was quoted in The Arizona Republic, saying that ‘‘the border 

is not a fence or a line in the dirt, but a broad and complex corridor.’’ It is, Mr. Aguilar explained, ‘‘a third country that joins Mexico and the United States.’’ Citizens should not be required to live 

in a ‘‘third country.’’ 

By comparison, the improvements made in the Yuma Sector have 

been a great accomplishment. Despite some people’s recollections, 

this progress was neither easy nor a foregone conclusion. I would 

like to remind you that 10 years ago the Yuma Sector was as out 

of control as the Tucson Sector. Now it is viewed as a success. 

In other words, Mr. Chairman, we know how to succeed. We 

have done it in San Diego, in Yuma, and in parts of Texas. It is 

not as if this is an impossible task. 

By the way, I want to thank Senator Johnson, from Wisconsin, 

for coming to visit our border, and I hope he found it to be an enlightening and enjoyable experience. I know he is a person of great 

5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

personal wealth, and I hope you spent a lot of money while you 

were there. [Laughter.] 

Finally, the National Guard is now going to leave. I have been 

told by higher and lower ranking people that have to do with our 

border that they are indispensable. So I do not know how the Administration can say that we still have significant issues and yet 

remove the National Guard, who also, by the way, gain a great 

deal out of being on the border. So it leaves me wondering why 

members of this Administration who claim they want to make 

every effort to secure the border insist on taking another step backwards by removing the National Guard prematurely. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the witnesses. I have 

probably taken too long in my opening statement, but I know the 

Senator from Wisconsin had the same experience that I do. You 

meet with the ranchers down there. The people, some of them have 

been there four and five generations, and they are afraid to leave 

their homes. They literally cannot find a secure environment to 

drop their kids off for school. We cannot force our citizens to live 

under those kinds of conditions. And I acknowledge again, Mr. 

Chairman, there have been improvements made. But we still have 

quite a ways to go, particularly in rural parts of our States, but 

also this issue of the drug cartels is something which is going to 

be with us for quite a period of time. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator McCain. I think that 

strikes the appropriate note. We feel like we are making progress, 

as the chart suggests, but obviously we have some distance to go, 

and it is very important that we get there for a host of reasons that 

I cited in my opening statement. 

Let us go right to the witnesses now. I thank my colleague, Senator Johnson, whose wealth has been celebrated, and I am very 

happy for him. And, Senator Tester, I am not going to comment on 

your net worth here. This happened before you came in, Senator 

Tester, so it was Senator McCain’s humor. 

Asa Hutchinson has many attributes that I admire, and the one 

that brings him here to us is his service as Under Secretary for 

Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security in the previous Administration. Thanks for coming 

and we welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. ASA HUTCHINSON,1 FORMER UNDER 

SECRETARY FOR BORDER AND TRANSPORTATION SECURITY 

AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. It is a pleasure to appear before you again, and I want 

to thank you for your leadership on this important issue. 

First, let me make it clear that I agree with the comments that 

have been made that significant progress has been made as a Nation in terms of securing and strengthening our border. Since I had 

the honor of serving as the Nation’s first and actually only Under 

Secretary for Border and Transportation Security when the Department was first founded, I have a unique perspective, and I can see 

6 

the progress that has been accomplished in terms of human resources, in terms of technology, intelligence fusion, and State and 

local cooperation. We could only dream about the resources that 

are available today in terms of the Border Patrol agents. In the 

early days of the Department, the number of Border Patrol agents 

was 11,000 and now it is 20,700. The number of border liaison officers who work with Mexican counterparts has increased 500 percent. And as has been noted, the Border Patrol apprehensions have 

decreased by 36 percent in the last 2 years, which I believe is an 

indication of growing effectiveness of our border efforts. Statistics 

are difficult, but I think that is the logical interpretation of that 

statistic whenever you see the apprehensions going down. 

This Committee, I would emphasize, has played a significant role 

in this progress. Without a doubt, more needs to be accomplished, 

and that is the subject of our remarks today. And, Senator McCain, 

I do want to acknowledge that you gave me my first education on 

the border with the promise that you solicited from me that I will 

appear at the border with you. I did and it was a great education, 

as others have received, and I look forward to the occasion to go 

back. 

We are talking about border security, and I will come back to 

that, but I want to mention one other success, which is the United 

States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (USVISIT) program, which requires a biometric check for our international visitors from visa countries. It is a success story. It was 

implemented under very strict guidelines of Congress, and it has 

dramatically improved the security and integrity of our immigration system. But there remains a gaping hole in our border security 

efforts so long as we do not have the capacity to know when a visitor leaves the country. And I would emphasize very dramatically, 

if I could, that we must adopt an exit system with greater urgency. 

I urge Congress to enact firm deadlines for the Department of 

Homeland Security to implement an exit system. 

Now, in the broader picture, I would emphasize three priorities 

that are essential to control our borders: 

First, to accelerate the resources necessary to control our Southern Border. Much of this deals with technology. 

Second, we need to monitor and enforce the law on visa 

overstays. 

And, third, we need to reduce the power and pull of the marketplace for illegal employment. 

All of those three ingredients I believe will serve as a deterrent 

and will serve as all of the tools necessary to be successful in our 

border efforts. 

And despite the fact that we have achieved some success in border security, the fact is that our government has operational control of less than half the 2,000-mile Southwest Border. Now, you 

can define operational control in different ways. I do not think it 

is wise for the government to redefine operational control so that 

we can achieve greater success. I think we ought to have a definition of operational control that the American people understand 

and accept, and if we are short of that, they understand it and they 

understand the gaps. They have to understand the resources that 

7 

are needed to reduce that gap. But I think we have to have that 

level of honesty. 

I would define operational control as the capability to detect illegal entry at the border, and the detection part is important. That 

is the knowledge of when there is an illegal intrusion in our border, 

and then the ability to respond and stop any border breach. Now, 

that does not mean you get everyone, but that means that you have 

the capability to detect it and the ability to respond and stop a border breach. 

Now, with that measurement, which I think has been accepted 

largely, we have control of less than one-half of the Southwest Border. And while we increase it at the rate of 126 miles per year, it 

is still woefully inadequate, and we have to accelerate the deployment of resources, but it should be done intelligently. We need not 

build a fence across every inch of the Southwest Border. It is an 

important tool to utilize, but the fact that you have thousands of 

fence breaches that have to be repaired shows that is not the endall solution. We should use a combination of physical fences and 

barriers, human resources and technology. 

Now, if I might move on to the visa overstays that I addressed, 

it is estimated that 45 percent of the illegal immigrants in our 

country are here because of visa overstays. They come in legally. 

They stay illegally. And this is just as much a part of border security as the Border Patrol agents along the border. It is a threat to 

our rule of law and the integrity of our immigration system, not 

just the hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossings, but the 

hundreds of thousands who enter lawfully but remain illegally because of visa overstays. 

Our border can be breached even more easily by getting a lawful 

visa and remaining in the United States after the visa expires, 

than trying to sneak across the Sonora Desert. And that was evidenced by the September 11, 2001, terrorists who came in just that 

way. At the present we have no effective way to tackle this challenge. On paper the solution is simple, but it is much more complicated than that. 

We must have every visitor who departs the country check out 

using biometrics. This is no easy task. While I was Under Secretary, I worked to develop pilot programs at airports and land borders on the exit system. It continues to be difficult, and Secretary 

Napolitano has retreated from the exit strategy requiring biometrics. In fact, the Department has announced it is no longer pursuing the biometric exit system. It is very clear to me that this solution will never happen without the leadership, the mandate, and 

the oversight of Congress. 

In 2003, Congress was clear in its direction to the Department 

to build the entry system, and you gave strict deadlines, oversight. 

You held us accountable, and it was accomplished on time within 

those deadlines and within the budget Congress gave us. I think 

the same type of intensity has to be devoted to developing an exit 

system where the mandate of Congress is clear and your oversight 

is ubiquitous. 

The third element of border security is interior enforcement, and 

while we always need to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the necessary resources to enforce our immigration 

8 

laws within our country, it is just as important to give the tools to 

the employers so that they know whether they are hiring somebody 

who has legal status in this country, or does not have legal status. 

Right now we have the E-Verify program that is a significant success story because even though it is voluntary, over 250,000 employers are participating in it. But the fact is it gives the employer 

information as to whether that is a valid Social Security number 

or whether there is some other indication that the person is in here 

illegally. But it is not a real-time system that provides a level of 

information needed to assure that the Social Security number is 

not being misused in some means and that program needs to be 

strengthened. 

When this type of capability is deployed, then the magnet will 

lose some of its drawing power for those that are trying to illegally 

enter the country to obtain employment because they will not be 

able to get the employment even if they are successful in going 

across the border. 

I look forward to the opportunity for questions and answers to 

further discuss these particular issues, but let me end with a comment as a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration 

(DEA). It is very significant to me as you look at the increased security and capability at our ports of entry, and a significant sign 

of success is that while the apprehensions of illegal aliens between 

the ports of entry have dramatically decreased, the seizure of illegal drugs has increased, which tells me that the tightening and 

hardening of our ports of entry have been successful. It has forced 

the cartels to move to a much more difficult route to bring in our 

drugs, and, of course, that brings a new level of concern with our 

Border Patrol agents meeting very violent drug traffickers between 

our ports of entry. And so there is more work to be done, and I look 

forward to the leadership of this Committee. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much for that testimony. 

Very thoughtful, really interesting, and it probably would shock 

most people in our country that the statistic you cited, that as 

much as 45 percent of the illegal immigrants in our country are actually visa overstays, people who came in legally and then stayed 

illegally. That is not the common perception. The common perception is that the undocumented immigrants are all coming in illegally, mostly, in the common view, across the Southwest Border. I 

have seen different numbers on that visa overstay, but never less 

than 35 percent. So that is quite a significant number, and I know 

that the politically controversial part of this is on the Southwest 

Border, but if we are really concerned about making a mockery of 

our system of law, then both elements of this have to be dealt with. 

And the probability is that we can deal with this element with a 

better exit system and make a real difference in it than we can at 

the border. But hopefully we can do both. Thank you very much. 

Doris Meissner was, during all of the Clinton Administration, the 

Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at 

the Department of Justice and now is associated with a think tank 

that works on migration policy. So we are very grateful you are 

here and welcome your testimony now. 

9 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Meissner appears in the Appendix on page 105. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. DORIS MEISSNER,1 FORMER COMMISSIONER OF THE U.S. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION 

SERVICE AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Ms. MEISSNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Members 

of the Committee, and thank you for the opportunity to be here 

today. 

My core message today is to urge that the Administration and 

the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, working with Congress, define what constitutes effective border control and establish 

measures of effectiveness for managing and assessing our border 

control efforts. Clear definitions and indicators of what constitutes 

effective border control are essential as a basis for promoting a 

more informed public discussion and broader consensus about the 

effectiveness of border enforcement, especially at the southwest 

land border. 

The need for effective border enforcement and control may well 

be the most widely shared point of agreement in the national immigration debate. For more than 15 years, and particularly since September 11, 2001, both Democratic and Republican Administrations 

and Congresses have allocated unprecedented levels of resources to 

strengthen border enforcement. Yet we have very little basis for assessing the return on that investment, and it would seem that 

many Americans have yet to grasp how much enforcement at the 

border has indeed been strengthened. 

The build-up began in earnest in the mid-1990s. I remember well 

its origins and driving the border enforcement agenda. The Immigration and Naturalization Service fiscal year 1995 budget request 

was the start of more than 15 years of major infusions of people, 

equipment, and technology for border enforcement. As a result, the 

Southwest Border is today a dramatically different place. 

The two highest crossing corridors that historically had accounted for almost 60 percent of apprehensions—San Diego and El 

Paso—now represent only about 20 percent of apprehension activity. Apprehension levels that had reached historic highs of more 

than 1.6 million in 2000 dipped to below 450,000 last year. These 

are lows that have not been experienced since the 1970s. They represent dramatic and positive changes. 

At the same time, the changes have brought with them important lessons and new challenges. By far, the most important, of 

course, has been the experience of September 11, 2001, and the imperative for effective border control in the face of the threat of terrorism. 

Today, the Border Patrol employs 20,700 agents, more than double the numbers just 6 years ago, and a budget that exceeds $11 

billion, an amount that has also grown at a comparably rapid rate. 

But what constitutes effective border control has not been meaningfully defined or debated. As a result, we have little basis for assessing the return on the investment of substantial multi-year border enforcement expenditures or for conducting an informed debate 

on the adequacy of today’s border enforcement strategies and results. 

10 

In addition, disagreements about border control that are often 

based on unexamined assertions about the adequacy or inadequacy 

of current efforts have contributed to a continuing stalemate in 

Congress over the broader immigration reform agenda. 

Opponents of comprehensive immigration reform legislation 

argue that control of the border must be established as a pre-condition for broader reforms. Reform proponents maintain that effective 

border control can only be achieved with broad immigration reform. 

In both cases, ‘‘border control’’ is undefined. 

Moreover, lawmakers ‘‘keep moving the goalpost,’’ as Homeland 

Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has observed. Secretary 

Napolitano has also argued that DHS will never be able to ‘‘seal 

the border’’ in the sense of preventing all illegal migration. 

From a professional law enforcement standpoint, her point is 

well taken. Zero tolerance is unrealistic, and it is not a standard 

to which we hold law enforcement in other realms. Instead, overall 

effectiveness—established through a combination of metrics and 

other factors—is the appropriate goal and assessment for which to 

strive. 

In recent speeches on the Administration’s Southwest Border 

strategy, Secretary Napolitano has been explaining the ways in 

which she argues that today’s approach is working. This is an important step in sparking a responsible debate about border control. 

Still, without greater rigor and broader consensus about what constitutes effectiveness, public confidence and immigration reform 

initiatives will remain vulnerable to assertions of inadequate control. 

Historically, apprehension numbers have served as the Border 

Patrol’s answer to the question of what is effective control. However, apprehensions are insufficient as the primary method for assessing enforcement effectiveness, and I have outlined fuller reasons for that in my full statement. 

CBP and DHS collect many other kinds of data. Especially valuable should be the extensive biometric data that now number more 

than 91 million records of fingerprints collected on persons apprehended since the mid-1990s or coming into contact with the immigration system in ways that Mr. Hutchinson has described, such as 

the US-VISIT program. These data could be analyzed to better understand crossing patterns, repeat entries, smuggling activity, and 

the success of various enforcement strategies. 

Examples of measures of effectiveness that are relevant to border 

control and could be systematically tracked and incorporated into 

regular assessments would include analyses of hot spots and responses to them, crime rates, ports of entry activity as smugglers 

attempt to compromise legal avenues for entry, border community 

confidence and support, and census and other demographic data. 

For example, Mexico’s 2010 census shows that the numbers leaving Mexico have fallen by more than two-thirds since a peak in the 

mid-2000s. Mexican analysts attribute that drop both to the U.S. 

economic downturn and to stepped-up border enforcement. 

At the present time, available measures point in varying degrees 

to meaningful positive progress in securing the borders. However, 

the goal should be to systematically track such measures and allow 

for open assessment of the substantial investments that the counVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Stana appears in the Appendix on page 115. 

try has made in border security. Only then can public debate about 

border control be honest and informed. In turn, determining how 

much and what border enforcement work to keep us safe is essential for building public confidence in the government’s ability to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws and to manage its immigration 

system. 

Thank you very much, and I am happy to answer your questions 

or comments. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much. Very important 

questions that you raise and we will come back to them. 

Mr. Stana, welcome back. Thanks for your work for GAO on this 

question, and we look forward to hearing your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF RICHARD M. STANA,1 DIRECTOR, HOMELAND 

SECURITY AND JUSTICE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. STANA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and 

Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the work that we have done over the past two decades on border security, and my prepared statement summarizes some of the 

more recent work that we have done. We have also done work on 

some of the areas touched on by Mr. Hutchinson, on E-Verify and 

visa overstays. In fact, Chairman Lieberman, if you think the 

American public would be shocked to know that 45 percent of the 

illegal alien population is here through overstaying a visa, they 

might be even more shocked to know that with the tens of thousands of people that we have put to border security at the border, 

the number of people we have in the interior searching for visa 

overstays is in the low three digits. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Much less than a thousand. 

Mr. STANA. Much less than a thousand. A little over a hundred. 

I do not want to repeat some of the statistics that have already 

been discussed. The number of staff at the ports have been increased by 17 percent since former Under Secretary Hutchinson’s 

tenure, and by five times the amount that former Commissioner 

Meissner had when she took over in 1973. In fact, today there are 

nearly as many Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector alone as 

there were guarding all of the Northern and Southern Borders 

when former Commissioner Meissner took office in 1993. So there 

has been a substantial increase in personnel. 

But the personnel is not the whole story. At the ports, we have 

hardened the infrastructure. We have put in a lot of technology. 

We have put in portal monitors. We have put in x-rays. We have 

put in backscatter machines. We have other information available 

at the booth, passcard readers and so on, that inform the person 

in the booth whether the person who is presented to them is at 

least eligible to enter the country as far as the background information goes. 

Similarly, the number of Border Patrol agents does not tell the 

whole story. The equipment that they have is upgraded. The vehicles are much better. They are heavier duty. They have night 

scopes. They have technology. They have radars. They have sensors 

12 

1The chart referenced by Mr. Stana appears in the Appendix on page 97. 

that they did not have before. So the job is made much easier for 

the Border Patrol agents than it was, maybe 10 or 15 years ago. 

But despite all of this investment, this $12 million investment 

last year alone, it is still a fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people entering the country illegally every year, and there 

are tons and tons of illegal narcotics entering the country every 

year. 

I would like to just talk about a couple of areas from my prepared statement, and then we can go to questions and answers. 

First, let us talk about the situation at or near the border, both at 

the ports and between the ports. 

At the ports there is a rather impressive record: 227,000 travelers were turned away when they attempted to enter illegally; 

about 8,400 people were apprehended for a variety of charges, some 

serious; $147 million in currency was seized; as were over 870,000 

pounds of illegal drugs and almost 30,000 fraudulent documents, 

and so on. But beyond these statistics, again, people are getting in, 

as are narcotics, and this is mainly due to a number of factors. 

First, the staffing levels are not up to authorized levels. Second, 

there is a tension between trying to make the ports easier for commerce and legitimate travelers to enter into the country while 

maintaining a focus and trying to fight back complacency of the 

workers at the booth. So that is at the ports. 

Also at the ports we have the outbound enforcement program, 

which I think Senator McCain may have mentioned, where CBP is 

searching for weapons and cash heading south from the sale of 

drugs and to promote the sale of drugs. 

On the cash side, the program is responsible since its beginning 

2 years ago for seizing about $67 million in cash. It sounds impressive, but that is out of a total of about $18 to $39 billion that 

crosses the Southwest Border each year. Not so impressive. 

Add to that the fact that the stored value cards, which are extremely difficult to detect, are coming more and more into the 

smuggling picture, and that is going to present a real challenge to 

law enforcement. 

As far as the weapons side goes, no one really knows how many 

weapons are going south, but there is a substantial number. And 

when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, Firearms, and Explosives 

(ATF) was asked by Mexican authorities to identify the lineage of 

the weapons that they seized on their side of the border, they found 

that nearly 90 percent of them came from the United States. 

Between the ports, similarly impressive apprehension statistics 

in some respects. If you follow the chart there,1 you see that in 

2001, about 10 years ago, it shows that about 1.3 million people 

were apprehended. The past year it was about 463,000. The Border 

Patrol considers this as a success through deterrence. That is one 

interpretation. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas had a different 

interpretation. They overlaid on that chart available jobs, and it 

tracked with apprehensions. In other words, as available jobs dry 

up with recessions, the apprehension rate is sensitive to that. Now, 

neither one of these is an exclusive interpretation, but it is imporVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
13 

tant to understand the context of numbers like this and not attribute it only to the number of Border Patrol agents. 

Again, many more drugs are getting into the country between 

the ports of entry it is mainly marijuana, at the ports maybe more 

on the cocaine side. 

Traffic checkpoints—and I know you have interest in one in Arizona. That one was fairly controversial. Actually, one-third of the 

seizures of drugs by the Border Patrol are made at those checkpoints. You would wonder, well, how do drugs get that far into the 

country through a port and over a highway? They do. 

Regarding the fencing, most of the fence is between Imperial 

Beach, California, and El Paso, Texas. It was constructed at a cost 

of nearly $3 billion. No one knows the effectiveness of that fence, 

but last year alone there were over 4,000 breaches, and these 

breaches cost about $7.2 million to fix, about $1,800 per breach. 

I want to talk about performance measures very quickly. People 

had mentioned the operational control measure, and 44 percent of 

the Southwest Border and only 2 percent of the Northern Border 

are considered to be under operational control. It is not a perfect 

measure, but it is a refined measure. The Border Patrol has various steps it takes to make sure that it is not just a scientific guess. 

It is not perfect, but the Border Patrol has, at least for public consumption, decided not to use that, and they are going to a new set, 

which will be ready next year, in fiscal year 2012. In the meantime 

they are just counting things. They are counting apprehensions; 

they are counting joint operations; they are counting cash seizures. 

That is the numerator. There is no denominator so you do not 

know a batting average, if you will. 

There are many other ways to come up with performance 

metrics, and we can talk about that in the question and answer 

session. But I want to talk about two other issues very quickly. 

The first has to do with information and intelligence sharing, 

and here I think there is a much better story. It has improved, not 

only between Federal agencies but among Federal, State, local, 

tribal, and some of our partners on the Northern and Southern 

Borders. Again, it is not perfect. There have been problems with 

sharing data in some cases. People can get parochial with some 

data, and that should not be. In other cases, the Fusion Center information that is sent out to the State and locals may be of questionable value, but they never really assess the value of these products. And for their part, the State and locals are not provided guidance as to what the Federal agents might be interested in as they 

gather statistics. So as far as information gathering, there is good 

news and there is not so good news. 

Finally, technology. As you know, Secretary Napolitano canceled 

the SBInet program, and DHS is replacing it with something called 

the Alternative (Southwest) Border Technology program. It will 

probably use similar towers to those used with the SBInet program. The first towers are up for funding for fiscal year 2012. They 

are asking for about $240-some million to start that process. We 

have been tracking the rationale for the Alternative (Southwest) 

Border Technology program. We examined the analysis of alternatives they used. We found that there are some flaws in it that 

concern us. We have not yet been given access to the documents 

14 

that would allow us to trace how those analyses made it through 

technology laydown and translated into a budget. We are continuing to look at that program, and we will have more information 

later in the year. 

Finally, with respect to US-VISIT, as Mr. Hutchinson pointed 

out, there is some good news and there is some not-so-good news. 

The good news is the entry side. Every visitor that enters the 

United States through a port of entry is to be fingerprinted, and 

their documents are to be swiped, and their identity is to be confirmed. 

The not-so-good news is on the exit side. Not having an exit capability is not that much of a concern with seaports because we 

mostly see cruise ships and that is a closed system. With airports, 

it is difficult. Our airports are not really configured the way they 

are in foreign countries to gather exit information, so what they 

rely on are airline manifests, which is sort of reliable but not 100 

percent. On the land exit side, it is just a big problem. It is just 

difficult to do, and perhaps our Canadian perimeter security negotiations that are just getting underway may allow for an arrangement where our exit becomes their entrance and we can exchange 

information. 

That is my oral statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Stana. That was 

very helpful. We will do 7-minute rounds of questions. 

I think there is an agreement across the board here that we have 

increased our resources, particularly on the Southern Border where 

most of the concern has been, and we are doing better at the reduction of illegal immigration coming over, but there is not total uniformity of opinion on if the fact that there are fewer immigrants 

coming over illegally is the result of the increase in the resources 

we are putting there. I am thinking of the Federal Reserve data 

that was described. Common sense would say that it is having that 

effect, and both Mr. Hutchinson and Ms. Meissner have said essentially that it is not possible to achieve 100 percent stoppage of illegal immigration. 

I wonder what our goals should be here. I know we talked about 

how do you define border security. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 

that I cited defined it as the ‘‘prevention of all unlawful entries into 

the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful 

aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.’’ 

It is interesting that not only Secretary Napolitano but her two 

predecessors, Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Thomas Ridge, at a 

recent colloquium, they said that they thought that was an 

unreachable goal. 

So let me just begin with you, Mr. Hutchinson, what is a reasonable goal here by way of defining what we want to achieve in border security? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. To me the missing element is the measurement as to what percent we are able to apprehend that are coming 

across. If we are detecting and apprehending 400,000—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. There used to be the statistic that for every 

one you catch, there are three that get through. I have no clue 

15 

whether that is accurate or not. Those are just anecdotal statements. But I think there has to be a greater measurement of that 

because if the economy increased right now, I have no doubt because of the double number of Border Patrol agents, our apprehensions would dramatically increase. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Would go up, right. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. And so the question is not whether we are apprehending more, but of those that are trying to come across, what 

percent are we apprehending? And I think people that are very 

smart need to address that issue, and I think that is the unknown 

part of the equation. 

I think in terms of definitions, I really am disappointed, quite 

frankly, in the Border Patrol trying to redefine what is effective 

control or operational control. They have a definition. It is a measuring standard and just because it does not look good to say we 

only have half of our sectors that are under operational control is 

not a good reason to change the definition. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. No, I hear you. I want to make explicit 

what I think is implicit in how I opened this question, which is we 

have made progress both by observation and by the various metrics 

that are established, but still, even by the metric that is on the 

board based on apprehensions—I think nobody would disagree that 

there are hundreds of thousands of people coming across the border 

illegally every year, and that is broadly unacceptable. 

Ms. Meissner, what can you say to help us understand better 

what our goals should be and how we might best achieve them? 

Ms. MEISSNER. The goal is probably something that is also subjective and relative. The goal that we thought we ought to have in 

the 1990s, when we had a very permissive attitude about our labor 

markets and about our economic growth, and the role of migrants 

in that setting was a very different sense than we have had since 

September 11, 2001, and in a tighter economy. So this is not entirely science. However, there certainly needs to be more science in 

it than has been the case, and I would subscribe to what Mr. 

Hutchinson has said here about needing to know much more fully 

what percentage or what proportion of the crossings are actually 

people that we are able to apprehend. 

But I think it is also the case that we have demonstrated—and 

Senator McCain made reference to this in his own experience— 

with the contrast between Yuma and the Tucson Sector right now. 

I made reference to the difference between El Paso now and 10 

years ago, San Diego now and 10 years ago. When you go to those 

places—and I spent many an hour in those counties and in community meetings with local leaders, etc., hearing the complaints, talking to them, working inch by inch with the Border Patrol from the 

ocean to the Otay Mountains to really bring that part of the border 

under control. When you go there now, it is not that people are not 

concerned, it is that they recognize that there is an infrastructure 

in place in which they can have confidence. That is not to say that 

there are not going to be breaches from time to time. But it is a 

question of the sense of chaos versus the sense that somebody is 

in charge. 

And so that is both science and numbers and knowing the percentages, but it is also really working on the ground in a commuVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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nity policing way to deal with the issue of border control along the 

Southwest Border. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I think you were the one who referenced 

the Mexico Census of 2010? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Did the U.S. Census of 2010 give us any 

guidance as to numbers of undocumented immigrants there are in 

the United States now? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Yes, but we do not have that yet. As you know, 

the census is—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We do not have that detail yet? 

Ms. MEISSNER. It is being rolled out in pieces, and we just have 

this most recent information about the degree to which our population has grown based on immigration, which includes illegal immigration. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. It is very important that illegal immigrants are counted in our census. 

Ms. MEISSNER. That is correct. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Stana. 

Mr. STANA. Well, I would agree with everyone’s observation that 

you have to have a numerator and a denominator, the people you 

catch versus how many are out there. It is difficult to do. The Department is contracting with a firm to try to gather more information about the flows, where the flows are going, the numbers of the 

flows, and so on. And that is supposed to be incorporated into the 

2012 new statistics. So we will wait and see how well they can do 

that. It is a difficult task. 

But I think there are some things that could be done in the 

meantime to better measure success, and I agree with everyone on 

the panel about that. I do not think it can be denied that the border is in better shape today than it was previously. How much further can we go? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. STANA. And I think taking advantage of some of the technology that they already have in place to count things would be advantageous. For example, each and every apprehension is supposed 

to be noted by Global Positioning System coordinates as to where 

that apprehension took place, and they have maps to show where 

the apprehensions took place. Out of that you could create a measure, like how many apprehensions did you get within 5 miles of the 

border. It is Management 101 that you get what you count. 

Another thing you could do with the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System data, the five-print data, is count 

the number of recidivists, and that may help you better understand 

what the flows are and if you are dealing with the same numbers 

of people again and again or if you are dealing with new people. 

And, again, with respect to border violence, it is true that there 

is some concern, although it has not spilled over quite yet in large 

numbers. But I think we need to get a better measure and a better 

handle on that because the uniform crime reports (UCR) from the 

FBI do not capture a lot of metrics that might be useful. 

On the other side of the border—and I do not know about this 

one incident you talked about across from Douglas, Senator 

McCain—but a lot of times the violence is trafficker-on-trafficker 

17 

violence that is not captured by the UCR. And maybe getting a 

metric on trafficker-on-trafficker violence would be helpful. 

I would like to see a batting average for the Border Patrol that 

could better interpret that graph, but as of yet, it does not exist. 

It does exist on the Office of Field Operation side, at the ports of 

entry where they have a Compex System, where they measure success scientifically. People who were given authorization to enter the 

country are selected through statistical sampling and instructed to 

proceed to the secondary area where they do a more detailed analysis to see whether the officer in the booth made the right decision. 

And those statistics are not very impressive, by the way, but it is 

a good measure. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. My time is up. Senator 

McCain. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Stana, to follow 

up on that, most of the violence is obviously between the drug cartels. The problem is that violence spreads to weddings, children, innocent civilians, and an interesting statistic is that in the time that 

President Felipe Calderon has been president, some 21,000 Afghan 

civilians have been killed. In that same period of time, some 34,000 

Mexican citizens have been killed. So the level of violence is something—one of the reasons, frankly, is because the drug cartels intimidate the media in Mexico as well. There is very little doubt 

that, except for the Mexican army, there is very little reliance that 

the government can have on any of the other law enforcement 

agencies. So if they are having gunfights on the street next to 

Douglas, Arizona, in Agua Prieta, to me it is just a matter of time. 

And I guess I would ask Mr. Hutchison and Ms. Meissner, did the 

cartels have guides on mountaintops in Arizona when you were in 

the business? 

[No response.] 

Senator MCCAIN. No, they did not, and this shows the penetration of the drug cartels into my State. And they have weapons, and 

they have sophisticated communications equipment, and they have 

very sophisticated drug transportation capabilities, as I said in my 

opening remarks. That is throughout the country, not just Arizona 

but throughout the country. That puts a different aspect of the 

issue of illegal immigration. 

For example, 10 years ago, Mr. Hutchinson, even when you and 

I went to the border, probably the majority of people who came 

across came back individually or in small groups. Now they come 

across as a result of the drug cartels and human smugglers, in 

large groups, in a very highly organized way, and the only problem 

with that is the mistreatment of them, as you know, is horrendous. 

The drop houses, the rapes—I mean, it is just terrible. 

So I guess my first comment is on yours, Mr. Hutchison, that if 

you do not like the statistics, which shows that operational control 

is 44 percent of the Southern Border and then only 15 percent is 

airtight, then change the definition. And I guarantee you that 

changing the definition you will see better numbers. And I think 

that is disingenuous on the part of the Secretary of Homeland Security to change the definition of operational control. But I can also 

understand why if you are interested in giving the impression that 

things are better because the Border Patrol under this parameter 

18 

reported that 873 of the nearly 2,000 Southwest Border miles are 

under operational control, and they will improve an average of 126 

miles each year. That would take us another 9 years at that rate. 

I guess also this issue of recidivists that you talked about, we 

have found in the Yuma Sector and other parts of the border that 

not only increase but also when you send them back, take them all 

the way over to Texas or vice versa, that has had a very salutary 

effect, too. Have you found that out? 

Mr. STANA. Yes. In the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program 

we have found that has reduced the recidivism rate the further you 

bring them into the Mexican territory. 

Senator MCCAIN. You mentioned SBInet. According to, I think, 

your organization, we wasted about $800 million and got 17 miles 

of fence under—— 

Mr. STANA. Well, actually, it is better and worse. It is about $1 

billion and you got 53 miles. 

Senator MCCAIN. A billion dollars we spent for 53 miles—— 

Mr. STANA. Just on the towers and the cameras and the radars, 

yes. 

Senator MCCAIN. And, as usual, no one was held responsible. 

Mr. STANA. Well, they will use that technology. It is finally getting to the point where it is getting stabilized, but now the SBInet 

program has ended, and we are starting anew. I think some of the 

risks that are out there are that they are looking for off-the-shelf 

technology again and our searches on the Internet and elsewhere 

just are not finding a whole lot of other alternatives that seem to 

perform much better. But we hope that they are successful with 

the new program. 

Senator MCCAIN. One of the things that our Attorney General 

did, Mr. Hutchinson, was follow the money, and they were able to 

have a significant degree of success. It seems to me that is a good 

example of another way to counter these people. Are you familiar 

with that program? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am, and actually I read that and Mr. Stana’s 

testimony I think talked about what we can learn, many of the 

GAO reports from the Arizona Attorney General’s investigation and 

following the money, and obviously you have to do that going after 

the cartels. 

I do think that the exit program where we are looking for outbound money is a very worthwhile emphasis that we should have 

because if they do not have the capability of getting back the cash, 

then they are not going to be able to accomplish their objective. 

You can sell drugs in the United States. The second part of it is 

getting back that cash. And we have never concentrated on that before in terms of our inspections, and I think that is something we 

really should target. 

Senator MCCAIN. Ms. Meissner, one of the relatively new issues 

associated with this whole problem has been the southward flow of 

guns and ammunition. In fact, again, when I was just down there 

last week, they apprehended—I believe it was a vehicle with 6,000 

rounds of AK–47 ammunition. I mean, these are not small. And I 

wonder if you have any thoughts about that particular issue. I 

frankly think the Mexicans have a very legitimate complaint. 

19 

Ms. MEISSNER. That is not something I have experience with because it certainly was going on during the time that I was in the 

government, but it was not at all the issue that it is today. Regarding the question of southbound controls, as we have said here, government agencies are having a difficult enough time trying to figure out how one would do southbound controls just in terms of information in the US-VISIT system. But that further layer of southbound control you are suggesting is difficult. 

I do think that the deeper point you make about being sympathetic with the Mexican dilemma on this goes to the issue of border 

control in general. In fact, we are asking law enforcement to do the 

job of responding to fundamental laws of supply and demand in the 

economy and problems of human nature and drugs that they have 

no role in creating. And so they are dealing with symptoms of deeper trends and issues in our societies and that is one of the reasons 

that we cannot expect 100 percent perfection in this. The underlying causes are not things that law enforcement is suited to address. 

Senator MCCAIN. Mr. Chairman, we have an outstanding U.S. 

Attorney in Arizona. His name is Dennis Burke, and just recently 

we had a ballot initiative in Arizona which basically legalized the 

medical use of marijuana. And I asked him how that coincides with 

the fact that we are trying to stop the Mexican farmer from growing marijuana and sending it to the United States, but yet it might 

be okay for a person to grow some marijuana in their backyard. 

Frankly, he had no answer to that dilemma. That is a problem, 

isn’t it, Mr. Stana? 

Mr. STANA. Yes, it is a problem. Part of the reason why it is just 

tough to get at the southbound cash if we are talking about that, 

for example, is in order to run those operations, they have to take 

the people and the resources out of inbound operations. And these 

are not 24/7 operations. They do not have a separate area for outbound secondary inspections. You may have seen that if you visited 

the ports in Arizona. The secondary area is just off to the side, and 

traffic is going by, and these agents are lying on the ground and 

cars are whizzing by just feet from their own feet. So we are really 

not structured to do that sort of thing. 

As for the question on how much cash and drugs we are going 

to get if we substantially increase that investment, that is unknown. Just like there are spotters on the mountains looking for 

drug avenues, there are spotters waiting for the inspection operations to go down. If there is an operation underway, they tell the 

traffickers to go have lunch for a while, come back at 3 o’clock, it 

will be wide open, you can take the cash or weapons south. 

So, it is a tough problem. I think it would be extraordinarily expensive to seal the borders, as was suggested here, and total control is an awfully high bar to achieve. But there are some things 

we can do with far less money perhaps that would improve our success. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator McCain. 

I will call on other Senators in order of arrival: Senators Johnson, Tester, Landrieu, and McCaskill. Senator Johnson. 

20 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like 

to thank the witnesses. This has been pretty informative. 

I did make a trip last week down to the port of entry in Nogales, 

again, to get myself up to speed on this issue. And, Mr. Stana, I 

would first of all agree with you. They are dramatically increasing 

the infrastructure down at Nogales, but even as the infrastructure 

stands now, they are understaffed. They are not at full capability. 

In our desire to beef up the Border Patrol—and I do not want this 

to be a competition, but have we concentrated too much on Border 

Patrol and not enough on customs agents at those ports of entry? 

Mr. STANA. Well, the bigger problem with the agents at the port 

of entry is keeping them. They have a much higher attrition rate 

than you would think. And, of course, now the economy is not in 

as good shape as it was just a couple of years ago, so attrition is 

stagnant. But they have an authorization of about 20,700. They are 

at about maybe 1,200 short of that. They get close to it, the number 

falls back, close to it, it falls back again. They try to staff the bigger ports like Nogales to the best of their ability, but it is difficult 

to get agents to go to places that are not very attractive or that 

are very expensive. So they are up against some real challenges 

there. 

Senator JOHNSON. I would say, first of all, the level of the dedication of those individuals was high. It was very impressive. It seems 

like they cycle people through. A lot of military folks go through 

a training program. Is that pretty much a standard mode of operation in terms of staffing those? 

Mr. STANA. I have not seen too many military people in the primary booths. I have seen them sometimes assisting in secondary 

inspection areas. The military are often used as spotters, almost 

like the cartel people on the mountains. They also are in the mountains looking for people trying to get into the country and alert the 

Border Patrol to get there for an apprehension. I have not seen too 

many of them at the ports. 

Senator JOHNSON. I would like to turn my attention just in terms 

of this definition of a secure border because it is critical. I mean, 

if we are going to actually move to the next stage, I think a lot of 

people do talk about securing the border first. And without definition, you never get to that second stage, which I think we absolutely have to get to. 

So what is the stumbling block? Where does the argument occur? 

Why can’t we come up with a definition? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Well, I am not sure that we have really forced 

ourselves to confront that issue. I think that this hearing and your 

leadership in identifying progress in border enforcement is very important. I am glad to hear you say that it is legitimate to be asking 

questions about how far border enforcement has come because the 

debate basically has been a debate where border control is bandied 

about as though we do not have it and we need it, or we are only 

going to get it if we do other legislation. We must go deeper than 

that. 

So if there is a recognition in the Congress and committees like 

this to ask questions about border enforcement effectiveness, I 

would hope that the Administration and the Department of HomeVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
21 

land Security are interested in answering those questions as part 

of the overall case that they make about their efforts. Maybe there 

is a way here to come together on thinking—having more of a 

shared view of what we are really striving for in border enforcement as the basis for having a more honest debate. 

Senator JOHNSON. Does anybody have a recommendation for a 

definition? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Well, I think we could come up with one. 

Senator JOHNSON. Mr. Hutchinson. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, Senator Johnson, I did recite a definition 

that probably is very similar to what the Border Patrol used before 

they rejected the definition. But it is to be able to detect border intrusions and to respond effectively to those. That is what is expected. 

I think the challenge is that there are really two questions: What 

is operational control? And then once you define that, how do you 

achieve 100 percent operational control, and how much is it going 

to cost? And I think that is the challenge, so that if we have only 

achieved half, less than half operational control, the American public is going to say what is it going to cost to do the whole thing, 

and that is their expectation. And that is where we have to be honest with them. It is going to be a gradual process to get there because of budgetary constraints. 

Senator JOHNSON. I mean, define ‘‘detection.’’ 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, detection—and that is where it would 

come in helpful to know when there is a border intrusion. That is 

where we have to use technology. It is the integrated towers. It is 

to be able to know whenever there is an intrusion and that is the 

detection part. And if we are not able to respond, then that gives 

us the statistics as to what is our batting average, and it tells us 

a great deal more information when we know we have the detection capability, and I think that is where we have to accelerate the 

technology side. 

You asked about more personnel in the booths and so on. That 

is always an issue. We need to continue to do that. But you can 

be more flexible in your personnel when you invest in the technology side. 

Mr. STANA. Yes, I would agree with that. Having what they call 

situational awareness is key because otherwise you do not know 

what you do not know, and it is hard to come up with the denominator that we have been talking about. What is the number of people crossing the border? 

The new technology, the tower technology, is useful. I do not 

know if you have been down on the border and saw the Mobile Surveillance System truck with the 25-foot boom that comes up and on 

top is a camera. They also have a laser pointer on them. Not only 

do they detect illegal crossers, but they point out to the Border Patrol where to go to apprehend them. That would be a very useful 

thing. Not only do you have situational awareness, you have something guiding you to the target. So I think there are other things 

along those lines that could be done. 

Senator JOHNSON. Now, we have achieved some pretty good successes, like you mentioned in Yuma. We are measuring that in 

22 

some way, shape, or form, so why not use that exact same measurement? How is that occurring? 

Ms. MEISSNER. That is basically apprehensions. I mean, it is apprehensions and it is as we were talking earlier. It is a sense in 

the community, and it is a recognition that there is a concentration 

of resources that is actually changing the circumstances on the 

ground. People do not feel, experience, or see the kind of lawlessness and chaotic conditions that they did a year ago or 2 years ago. 

But fundamentally the metric is apprehensions, and what we do 

not know is what is going to happen in Yuma two harvests from 

now when the labor market perhaps comes back in a different way. 

There are all kinds of things that we could project that are likely 

to change in the future that will change the apprehensions, and it 

may not mean less success or more success. It is just that apprehensions are relative and they do not fully tell the story. They are 

a valid measure, but they cannot be the only measure, and they 

have basically been the only measure. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Johnson. It was interesting, and, of course, as I said at the beginning, the odd thing is 

that when the apprehensions go down, we conclude that there is 

less illegal immigration, right? 

Mr. STANA. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I understand why we do that. We assume 

that the increasing number of border agents has meant fewer people are trying to come over; therefore, there are fewer apprehensions. But another way to look at this logically would be, well, that 

is not the way to measure it; that apprehensions would somehow 

be correlated in number to attempts to go over the border illegally. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I know it is very difficult to pin a lot on 

a subjective standard. There is something to be said for the attitude of the neighboring community because they are there. Senator 

McCain has told us, if you keep seeing people crossing your land, 

well, that is pretty obvious that the system is not working. If there 

is an orderly effort to stop them and the numbers goes down, then 

you assume it is. 

Let me go on. Senator Tester, thank you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You bring up a 

lot of good points and there are more questions that crop into my 

head with every word that is spoken, but I will stick with what I 

have down here, and then hopefully I will have time for some other 

ones. 

First of all, thank you all for what you do and I appreciate you 

being in front of the Committee. Dr. Stana, I thank you first. I very 

much appreciate your work and the research, findings, and recommendations. Very helpful, I think. 

Since I have been on this Committee and since I am from Montana and we share a 550-mile border with Canada, I have been 

concerned about low-flying aircraft. The GAO report that was set 

out said that we have about 32 miles that are secure, and we can 

get into their definition of secure versus someone else’s definition, 

23 

but I do not want to do that at this point in time. But they said 

about 32 miles are secure. 

I live about 80 or 90 miles south of the Canadian Border myself 

and have a lot of friends up there, and low-flying aircraft is something that I think is of concern to me and I think it is a concern 

to the people across the country, or it should be. 

Radar seems to be a cost-effective tool to get our arms around it. 

We have had our struggles with getting that implemented, although I talked to Secretary Napolitano and she seems to be on the 

same page. Could you just give me your thoughts about low-level 

radars, is it a reality, can it happen, should it happen, or should 

it not happen? 

Mr. STANA. Well, it probably should happen. There is a cost to 

it, let me put it that way. I think the areas of Montana you are 

referring to are in the Spokane sector with the Border Patrol. 

Senator TESTER. No. Actually it is true in eastern Washington, 

but it is also true in eastern Montana. 

Mr. STANA. OK. 

Senator TESTER. Eastern being the eastern two-thirds. 

Mr. STANA. The reason I bring that up, we did some work on the 

Northern Border and I believe you were one of the requesters of 

that, Senator. 

Senator TESTER. I was. 

Mr. STANA. And one of the things we found was exactly what you 

are saying, is that in that part of the country, the radar capability 

is key because the biggest threat is low-flying aircraft. 

Senator TESTER. That is correct. 

Mr. STANA. In fact, if I remember correctly, there was a joint Department of Defense (DOD)/DHS exercise in 2008 where they 

brought in DOD radars and the DOD radars detected as many lowflying aircraft in the months that the exercise was in operation as 

normally DHS identifies in a year. 

Senator TESTER. That is right. 

Mr. STANA. So it is much more sensitive, although many of those 

aircraft were moving east-west rather than north-south. But still, 

it had the capability of detection. That is a big problem and it 

needs to be addressed, and perhaps we need to look to the Pentagon for some of these answers. Some of their equipment would 

be more expensive at DHS because of economic order quantities 

and things like that—but they do have technology that is more sensitive and would be very useful in areas like this. 

Senator TESTER. Without that radar, it is just basically eyeballs, 

right? 

Mr. STANA. Pretty much and there are not that many Border Patrol agents up there. There are only about 2,000 agents for the 

4,000 miles between Washington and Maine. 

Senator TESTER. There is a lot more now than there used to be, 

I will tell you that. 

Mr. STANA. And there are Forest Service agents and others. 

Senator TESTER. I would like to get into that, too, actually. Is 

there opportunity to maybe reduce some of the manpower if radar 

was up there? Could you see that as a possible cost savings? 

24 

Mr. STANA. Well, I think you could study that. The activity on 

the Northern Border is not what the activity is on the Southern 

Border. It is just two different solutions. 

Senator TESTER. No doubt about it. 

Mr. STANA. I think before I would talk about reducing manpower, 

I would like to see how effectively we can integrate this new technology. 

Senator TESTER. Right. What I am saying is, if it works as advertised, there could be some possibility there. 

Mr. STANA. Well, anytime you increase situational awareness 

and can actually pinpoint incursions, then you can direct your resources much more effectively, and thereby, perhaps, reduce the 

need for agents. 

Senator TESTER. Very good. Commissioner Meissner, I have recently called for an investigation into so-called sham universities, 

that basically manipulate immigration laws to offer student visas 

to allow foreign nationals into the United States. They abuse the 

system, they ignore the laws, they threaten our security, and I 

think they are opening a back door to thousands of potential 

illegals. Are you familiar with these schools? Are you aware of any 

effort to rein them in? 

Ms. MEISSNER. No, I am not, but it is not something that I have 

looked at. I have been out of government for 10 years, so it is not 

something that I am working with at the present time. 

Senator TESTER. Any of the other folks on the panel? Go ahead, 

Mr. Hutchinson. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. We implemented the International Student 

and Exchange Visitor Information System program which is for the 

international students, and part of it is the qualification of the 

school or the university. And so, you have to be qualified for that 

program. I think that is something they have to look at tightening 

up, so I am aware of the abuse. But they do have a program that 

actually addresses the international students and the programs 

that qualify for that. 

Senator TESTER. There has been some talk about the US-VISIT 

Program and how, in fact, it is good at getting the folks coming in, 

but it is not so good getting the folks going out, and I do not know 

how you solve that problem myself, and hopefully there are some 

minds that can talk about that. But how effective is that program 

if you cannot determine exits? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. It is not. And that is the challenge. That is 

why we have the visa overstays. 

Senator TESTER. Right. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. There is a lot of simple things that can be 

done. I was very impressed with Dr. Stana saying that such a 

small percent of resources are devoted to 45 percent of the problem. 

That is a significant challenge and it needs to be addressed. 

Mr. STANA. And I would add to that, Senator, that whatever hits 

they get on US-VISIT, they send them to ICE, but then you have 

a limited number of people to react to it. So this is one of those 

things where you have to right-size your total response. If you have 

the best US-VISIT system in the world but you do not have anybody to chase the people that you identified, it is not useful. 

25 

Senator TESTER. Yes, but we make folks run through a pretty 

rigorous routine to acquire a visa to get into this country, do we 

not? 

Mr. STANA. That is correct. Unless you are in a visa waiver country. There are about 28 or 29 countries where you do not need a 

visa. 

Senator TESTER. So why is there not that same rigorous work 

done when the visas run out? We know when they run out. 

Mr. STANA. That is absolutely correct, and when they run out, 

they do check whatever information they have from I–94s past or 

through airport manifests, but it is not perfect. 

Senator TESTER. I did not hear Senator McCain’s statement early 

on, it was before I came here, and I wished I would have. But we 

will read that in the record. You did touch on something about people crossing land, and I can tell you that on the Northern Border, 

there is a tremendous resource out there called local police, county 

police, farmers and ranchers, that know this land like the back of 

their hand. 

Is there a concerted effort to get those folks involved or are we 

dealing with so much secrecy here that we cannot get them involved? 

Mr. STANA. No, they do get them involved through the task 

forces called Integrated Border Enforcement Teams and Border Enforcement Security Task Forces. They do try to get the local, State, 

tribal, and of course, Canadian Mounted Police, in your case, involved in these task teams to share information, resources, and occasionally do joint operations. It is working OK. In fact, if there is 

a limitation there, there is a proliferation of these task forces and 

the locals say they just cannot go to every task force meeting. They 

do not have enough people. 

Senator TESTER. And there is no need to have meetings for the 

sake of meetings. The real question is, in this country you have the 

highway patrol, you have the county police, and you have the city 

police. 

Mr. STANA. Right. 

Senator TESTER. Outside the task forces, is there an outreach to 

those folks saying, ‘‘We want you to be a part of this equation.’’ If 

we work as a team, we get more stuff done. And we are going to 

share information with you and, by the way, some of it is pretty 

sensitive, but you are in law enforcement and so am I. 

Mr. STANA. A lot of that is supposed to be happening, but it all 

boils down to that special agent in charge, whether it is ICE or 

whether it is the Border Patrol or whoever, making those kinds of 

agreements work. Sometimes they work great and you get kudos 

for our people; other times it does not. 

Senator TESTER. Just one more question and then we will make 

this very quick. In Great Falls, Montana, we have an international 

airport where airplanes fly in and oftentimes, it being fairly close 

to the Northern Border, there is some port security that takes 

place there. There is a rule on the books that says you have to take 

them to an international airport, which are in Spokane, Seattle, 

Minneapolis, Denver, or Salt Lake. 

We are working with CBP on this, but recently, planes have been 

turned away. They have been turned out of Montana, we have done 

26 

it before, and they have been shipped somewhere else. I have to tell 

you, it is somewhat disconcerting to me that we are going to ship 

a potential plane that has some issues revolving around terrorism 

to Salt Lake, which is halfway across the country, from a northsouth standpoint, instead of dealing with them more locally. 

Now, I know there are bigger planes, bigger numbers, that is the 

story, but smaller planes, smaller numbers, there is no reason why 

those cannot be done here. Could you give me your thoughts on 

that? 

Mr. STANA. Well, I think it would probably depend on what 

agents and resources are available at the airports. 

Senator TESTER. That is the problem. It used to be done. We 

have different agents now and it is not being done. 

Mr. STANA. Right. And so, you would have to get on the list of 

locations that are authorized to have the appropriate agent. 

Senator TESTER. I do not want to hang you gentlemen out on 

this, but it seems a bit crazy to me. I mean, if they could do it with 

the previous agent, why can they not do it with the next one? Especially if there has not been any incidents and they have caught 

them. 

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the hearing. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for testifying. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Senator McCaskill, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Lieberman, and I thank 

all of the witnesses for being here. I think as we struggle with how 

we define success or failure along the border, it gets back to the 

old prosecutor’s dilemma. How do you prove what you have prevented? 

And that is where the apprehension figure is difficult because it 

could be that we are apprehending less because we are doing a terrible job, or it could be we are apprehending less because we are 

doing a really good job and fewer people are trying to cross the border because we are doing a good job. 

It reminds me of that which is live by the sword, die by the 

sword, when I was a prosecutor, the crime statistics. It was the 

very same problem. When crime went down, nobody was anxious 

to say the prosecutor had done a great job by preventing crime. But 

when crime went up, it was a real problem. I am glad we are trying to tackle it because I think it is very easy to say over and over 

again, ‘‘Secure the border.’’ It is much harder to define in objective 

terms what that really looks like. 

As we say over and over again, ‘‘Secure the border,’’ I was proud 

to co-sponsor, along with Senator McCain, a bill fully paid for last 

year that added $600 million to border security, including drones 

for realtime surveillance. I am assuming that there is no one on 

the panel that disagrees that this technology, in terms of realtime 

camera surveillance, unmanned, could be extremely effective along 

the border as it relates to criminal activity. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. And it gives us the detection capability. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. And so, imagine my surprise when 

we put $600 million in, fully paid for, that is part of what was cut 

27 

in the Continuing Resolution (CR) that was passed by the House 

of Representatives. So I am willing to bet that most of the folks 

that were excited about passing that CR in the House of Representatives, I bet they said, ‘‘Secure the border,’’ a few times during 

their campaigns. So I was surprised when we got a bill that basically took some of the money that were paying for this $600 million 

and used it for something else, rather than the $600 million that 

we need to, in fact, secure the border. 

I would like to spend my remaining time on employer enforcement. I am a big believer that one of the problems we have had 

is a failure to be aggressive about employer enforcement. One of 

my first hearings in this Committee, I was shocked when the 

woman that was in front of us for confirmation to head ICE, when 

I asked, ‘‘Could you tell me how many employer criminal prosecutions there have been in the last year?’’ She had been running the 

program for awhile, and she said, ‘‘We do not keep that number.’’ 

Then they tried to tell me at the time that not only do they not 

keep that number, they could not even get it for me. So I had my 

intern sit down with Google and go through and try to figure out, 

over the course of years, how many workplace enforcements had 

been brought against the employer. It was a shockingly low number, Mr. Hutchinson. 

Now, the audits and fines are up the last couple of years, and 

I would like all of you to comment on how fundamental employer 

enforcement is because these folks are not coming across the border 

for vacation. They are coming for a job. And the reason they know 

they have come for a job is because up until fairly recently, I do 

not even think we were doing that good a job on employer enforcement. I think we are doing better. 

But I just think it is a real opportunity for deterrent if these employers think something serious is going to happen to them. I know 

you mentioned E-Verify. I am a big supporter of E-Verify. But I 

would like you all to speak to that. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I agree 100 percent with you and it is my understanding, I think it is fairly evident from the statistics, that for 

various reasons, there has been a shift away from employer enforcement in the last couple of years by ICE. And they are doing 

audits, they are doing intelligence-based investigations, but they 

have diminished from what they were doing 2 and 3 years ago. I 

think that is a concern. You have E-Verify, you have a lot of reputable employers, but you always have those that want to skirt the 

law and take advantage of illegal employment. 

So you have to have that capacity because you have to pull down 

the strength of the magnet. So I think that has to be re-invigorated 

and I hope that ICE will maintain a vigorous approach to employer 

enforcement. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, now maybe the statistics I have been 

given are wrong. Is it the audits are up and the civil fines are way 

up in the last 2 years? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Right. 

Mr. STANA. Well, there is a difference between an audit and a 

work-site raid, and work-site raids are down and the audits are up. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Yes. 

28 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, the work-site raids that used to happen, they would happen, but all they did was round up the immigrants. They never did anything with the employers. I mean, nothing happened to the employers after a work-site raid. So, I mean, 

I am pretty confident that in the last 10 years, there was nothing 

in that record to brag about in terms of employer enforcement, in 

terms of holding people accountable. 

In fact, I raised a fit about a workplace raid in Missouri. This 

was a renowned employer of illegal immigrants. Everybody in town 

knew it, everybody in the community knew it, and they did a workplace enforcement, rounded up the illegal immigrants, detained 

them, but did not do anything to the employer until I raised a fit, 

and then finally the U.S. Attorney did something. 

So I am confused as to whether or not you think we used to do 

more workplace enforcement than we are doing now in terms of 

employers being held accountable? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is my understanding. I hope Mr. Stana 

can comment on this. I will tell you that whenever I was Undersecretary of Homeland Security, we were not doing very well on employer enforcement. So we are starting at that low level, and that 

was post-September 11, 2001, because our resources were going to 

critical infrastructure like the Sears Tower and doing audits of 

those. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. So we were focused on that. And we realized 

the tremendous gap because we were not doing sufficient work-site 

enforcement and so ICE picked up the ball and invigorated that. 

They got a lot of criticism because it did include what you mentioned as some random enforcement and inspections. I do believe 

that it led to employer investigations. You can quibble about that, 

but I think those are the facts. 

But there is a deterrent effect in there as well. There is a concentration on audits and they have the civil fines, but I believe the 

comprehensive enforcement policy against employers has changed 

and diminished. 

Mr. STANA. You know, this is not one Administration versus another. This goes all the way back to the Immigration Act of 1986 

when we first started getting into this. We gave amnesty, we created an I–94 system, which I think you know what that means, 

and then we promised enforcement. Well, two of the three legs of 

that stool were stood up. We never put the enforcement in place. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. STANA. I think on average, we spend maybe 300 staff on 

work-site enforcement. When you compared that to the 20-somethousand Border Patrol agents and to the 20-some-thousand people 

at the ports and whatever else is going on, having 300 people dealing with the magnet, just does not add up. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I am a big believer that if we start putting 

a few of these employers in handcuffs and you actually prosecuted 

them, when they have done this over and over again and you can 

prove they knowingly had seven or eight people working at their 

place with the same Social Security number, give me a jury. I can 

prove they knowingly broke the law, and I will bet you could too, 

Mr. Hutchinson, knowing your background. I bet you could, too. 

29 

So I do not condone illegal immigration and I do not think it is 

a good thing, but the notion that we have done high profile efforts 

against illegal immigrants in the workplace, while we had the 

thing in Iowa that got a lot of press, there have been very few 

incidences where I think employers have been held accountable for 

knowingly and repeatedly violating the law when it comes to illegal 

immigration. I would like to continue to work on that. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the witnesses. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Can I just interupt? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Sure. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Commissioner, go ahead. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Because I think it is such a core point. I mean, 

we would all agree, I certainly agree, that employer enforcement is 

essential to the equation here. I also think that the element about 

employer enforcement that keeps getting overlooked is that it is, in 

my view, the best response to the overstay problem and the people 

who overstay their visas that we have. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Ms. MEISSNER. All the talk about Southwest Border enforcement 

we know is not going to get there. I appreciate the issue of exit controls where US-VISIT is concerned, but that is not the way to deal 

with overstays. It is important to do that, but the idea that once 

somebody has not left, you would then try to send ICE agents 

around the country to try to find them is not an effective use of 

resources, particularly for people who have been visitors, which 

largely is who they are, who have left the name of a hotel in a particular city on their I–94 and that is all you have. 

What you have is the job. That is what they are doing. They are 

staying here to work. And so, if you have a viable employer 

verification requirement in the enforcement system, you address 

the overstay part of this and you get a much more balanced, integrated, effective, across-the-board deterrent. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Absolutely. I could not agree with you more 

and I thank all three of you very much for your testimony today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator McCaskill, and I would 

be glad to work with you on this. I think it is very important. I 

have a few more questions. I just want to focus on the visa overstay problem because the testimony has been very helpful and I 

think informative about the extent to which visa overstays constitute the illegal immigration problem in our country. 

Just as a factual basis—I will start with you, Mr. Stana, but welcome others to testify—what do we know about the visa overstay 

population? In other words, I presume intuitively that they are different from the illegal immigrant population in terms of where they 

come from. Also, perhaps because we at least have the information 

that they came in legally, I presume we have a better idea of who 

they are. Am I right? 

Mr. STANA. Well, we know who they are. We know what address 

they left with the inspector at the port which may or may not have 

lasted more than a day. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. STANA. But they have been very effective in blending into the 

society. 

30 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I guess when I say we know who they 

are, I really mean we know where they came from. 

Mr. STANA. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We know which country they came from. 

Mr. STANA. Yes. And that is an issue with the visa waiver program. Visa waiver status is only to be given to certain countries 

that do not have a large overstay population. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. STANA. And sometimes those two statistics are not matched 

very well. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. My presumption is that most of the illegal 

immigration is coming over the Southwest Border, and therefore, 

it is probably Mexican nationals and Central or Latin American nationals. Whereas—and I ask if I am correct—the visa overstay population coming in legally and then staying illegally is from elsewhere in the world. 

Mr. STANA. Could be from Asia, could be from Europe, or Africa. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mostly flying in. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mostly flying in, right. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And obviously mostly not, therefore, coming at a land border. 

Mr. STANA. Coming through airports of entry. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Exactly. And can we draw any conclusions, anything we know about why they are overstaying? Are they 

overstaying and becoming illegal immigrants for the same reasons 

that those who come in illegally are? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. They are doing it because they can. They could 

have a 2-year visa, it could be a 3-month visitor visa, or a student 

visa, and they just stay. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. They know that we do not have the capacity, 

they do not have to check out, they can circumvent the system, and 

so, it is hit and miss as to any follow-up, if any at all. We cannot 

track them. 

Ms. MEISSNER. But fundamentally, it is a jobs issue. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is what I was going to ask. So in 

that sense, they are coming for the same reason that we think most 

of the immigrants come for. 

Ms. MEISSNER. And they may have come completely legitimately 

to visit for awhile and then they change their view. 

Mr. STANA. Or they work on an H1–B. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Exactly. 

Mr. STANA. High tech and they just stay. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. Did you want to add something, Mr. 

Meissner? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Well, I would just add that this number—Mr. 

Hutchinson used 45 percent—sometimes the number has been that 

high. I think the recent estimates are more in the 35 to 40 percent 

neighborhood. I feel a particular kinship to it because when I was 

Commissioner, we put out the first numbers on that dimension of 

the unauthorized immigration problem. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Ms. MEISSNER. It was an incredible eye-opener. 

31 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Ms. MEISSNER. And it continues to be overlooked as an element 

of this phenomenon. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Absolutely. 

Ms. MEISSNER. I would add it to the list of analytics that I think 

that the government should be reporting on, on a regular basis, 

and analyzing, because not only is it an important part of the 

issue, but there is some reason to believe that perhaps it is going 

down to some extent because of the controls that have been put in 

place in the 2000s through US-VISIT and through the consular and 

visa-issuing programs which, in fact, have been effective. But 

again, we do not know. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That was my next question about whether 

there are any trends and numbers of visa—— 

Ms. MEISSNER. We think that there is a trend and the best information on this at this point is available through the Pew Hispanic 

Center. The government is not regularly reporting on those kinds 

of things, and I believe it should be doing so. We think that perhaps the trend of overstays is coming down to an extent. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Down. 

Ms. MEISSNER. But again, we do not know whether that is—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Because of the economy? Because of the 

fact that there are less jobs? 

Ms. MEISSNER. Right now, it is always going to be a commingling 

of the economy and of enforcement. It is difficult to know. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I agree totally. We need more analytics and 

these are numbers we should be able to achieve. You think about 

the illegal crossings. We do not know who is coming across a land 

border illegally, but we know who is coming in, the starting point, 

with the visas. 

Ms. MEISSNER. Exactly. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. And so, all it takes is an audit sample where 

because we have their home address in the foreign country, we 

have where they are supposed to stay here in the United States. 

You have an audit team that audits a certain percent, extrapolate 

from that. I would think you would be able to get a good analysis. 

Mr. STANA. Yes. We have a report coming out next month on the 

visa overstay issue. I cannot really talk too much about it now because it is not yet public and we do not have all the agency comments, but all of these things are issues that my co-panelists here 

have talked about. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So you are answering some of the kinds 

of questions we have addressed here? 

Mr. STANA. Some of these kinds of questions. As far as how many 

there are, I have seen estimates as high as 57 percent recently, but 

I think the point still remains, who knows? Because you do not 

know what you do not know. 

And the other thing is, some of these overstays are kids, the kind 

who used to backpack through Europe for 2 weeks and now are 

backpacking through the United States for 2 weeks. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. STANA. And the duration of overstay might be for 6 months, 

a year or something. It is not always a hard core population of 45 

32 

percent who are working at a multinational firm in Denver. Many 

of them just overstay for brief periods, but a lot of them do come 

to stay and they come with the intention of staying. I think it is 

fair to say that the word is known in other countries that, based 

on relatives or others they have seen come here, overstaying a visa 

is a loophole, it is a way to get in. It is much easier than crossing 

the Southwest Border. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. I presume that once you get a 

visa—now, that may be difficult, but if you get a visa to come here 

in one of these other categories, if you decide to overstay, the odds 

of apprehension are very low. 

Mr. STANA. Well, I would extend that. No matter how you get 

into the United States, once you are in you are in unless you misbehave. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, that is true. I guess I was thinking 

that anybody who comes over illegally is putting themselves at 

some risk, sometimes physically or at a cost, but if you are able to 

get on an airplane legally and come into this country and you decide you want to stay, the odds you are going to be caught are very 

low right now. 

Mr. STANA. Well, I think that gets to former Commissioner 

Meissner’s point, that an effective way to do this is through work 

authorization permits. It certainly neutralizes that magnet. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. Let me ask you a final question on 

the nexus between border security and immigration reform. The 

premise we have been operating on—part of why we are doing this 

series of hearings—is to see if we can agree on a common ground 

on what we are striving for in terms of border security. What is 

achievable? What the problem is? How much of the problem is illegal entry? 

And if we can do that, then to have that be a premise for dealing 

with the undocumented alien population of the country. I know 

some people say actually that is not all bad, but maybe if you look 

at it the other way around, too, that if we deal with the illegal immigrant population, that will contribute to effective control over 

our borders. Anybody want to comment on that, either Commissioner Meissner or Secretary Hutchinson? 

Ms. MEISSNER. I am happy to comment on it. I do think that we 

obviously have been talking about border enforcement. It is an essential part of the equation, but there is an equation here. And 

that is that we rationalize our immigration system in a way that 

is suited to today’s economy and to, more importantly, what we 

think the economy and needs of the country for the future are 

going to be. 

Those needs, I think, certainly by many measures that I know, 

need to include immigration and they need to include better avenues for people to come to the country legally for work purposes 

across the spectrum. And we do not have a system in place that 

does that and we need to put that into place. Were we able to do 

that, it would be easier to enforce the laws because there would be 

laws that are more aligned with reality on the ground, economic, 

social, and labor market driven. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

33 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The fundamental foundation is the confidence 

in the immigration system as a whole. That starts with border security. You pointed that out, Senator, and once you have that and 

the people have confidence that the immigration system has regained its footing, then I think they are willing to look at what else 

we need to do. But it starts with that. 

Because immigrants do provide the energy in our society, such 

a great part of our fabric, we want to make sure they are a part 

of that, and the legal path here is very important to meet the needs 

of our economy and to make sure they do not go by some other 

means. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I agree. Thank you very much. I think it 

has been a very informative and helpful hearing, which will be a 

good preface for the subject matter hearings that follow. 

We are going to leave the record of the hearing open for 15 days 

for additional questions and statements, but for now, again, I 

thank you very much for your testimony today. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(35) 

SECURING THE BORDER: PROGRESS AT THE 

LOCAL LEVEL 

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:36 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Pryor, McCain, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I think we will begin the hearing. I will 

begin my opening statement and hope, with the inherent ability I 

have as a U.S. Senator to continue talking for long periods of time, 

that I will be able to fill the space between now and when Senator 

McCain arrives. 

I thank the witnesses for being here. I appreciate it very much. 

Today’s hearing is the second in a series that the Committee is 

holding to examine the progress made over the past decade as a 

result of the infusion of substantial Federal support to secure our 

borders—particularly our border with Mexico—and how we can 

build on the current level of border control. 

At our first hearing, the panel of experts outlined the significant 

increases in manpower and resources that have been sent to the 

border over the past decade, and they all agreed that progress has 

been made toward securing the border but that, of course, much 

more still needs to be done before we can say we have done everything we can do. 

Last week’s hearing also raised, I think, some important questions about how we define and gauge border control and about the 

inadequacy of our current measurements of what is inherently a 

difficult question, which is to gauge how many people are coming 

over illegally. If we knew that they were all coming over and when 

they were coming over, presumably we would apprehend them all. 

So we understand it is a difficult challenge. Our witnesses agreed 

that the metrics collected and disseminated about border security 

must be improved to provide us with the best possible understanding about how well the border is being secured. 

Right now, for example, apprehensions of illegal border crossers 

are at their lowest levels since the early 1970s—with 465,000 people apprehended last year compared to 1.6 million in 2000. Now, 

this is interpreted by many as a clear sign of progress—and these 

36 

are people who believe that the substantially decreased number of 

apprehensions means that border control operations are deterring 

people from crossing illegally. I guess it also assumes the same 

basic percentage of apprehensions as compared to the total number 

of people attempting to go over. But that is an interesting question. 

Nonetheless, at various times in the last decade, the Border Patrol itself has turned this formula upside down and pointed to increases in apprehensions of illegal crossers as evidence of progress, 

in that case arguing that the increasing apprehensions meant that 

agents were targeting their efforts better. So, in my opinion, apprehensions are obviously one indicator of border security, but we 

have to see if we can find a better, more direct way to conclude how 

many people are actually trying to enter the country illegally and 

how many people actually succeed in doing so. 

I realize, again, that this is not an easy undertaking, but some 

Border Patrol sectors—including the Tucson Sector—are already 

using cameras, sensors, and footprint analysis to conclude how 

many illegal entries are occurring. It gives them a little more data 

to make a conclusion that, in the end, is an estimate, but we are 

trying to make it as educated an estimate as possible. I think we 

have to expand this across the entire border in order to give us a 

better idea about whether our border security strategies are succeeding and to help the Border Patrol marshal its resources more 

effectively. 

The panel we heard last week also agreed that the apprehension 

rate of illegal border crossers cannot be the only way we measure 

border security. Other factors, they said, must be considered as 

well, including a subjective factor but one that presumably is based 

on objective experience, which is public perceptions. That is, can we 

measure and consider how secure people in border communities believe they are as one indication of how secure they actually are. 

In confronting the problem of illegal immigration, I think we 

have also got to take into consideration a statistic that was testified to last week that would probably surprise most people, which 

is that, depending on who you talk to, between 35 and 45 percent 

of the people now in this country illegally originally entered the 

United States on valid visas that subsequently expired. 

Welcome, Senator McCain. I saved you from hearing half of my 

opening remarks, understanding that you were on your way. 

So, in other words, what I am talking about is that these are 

people who were legal immigrants who became illegal because they 

overstayed the period of time in which they were legally authorized 

to be here. And most of these people did not enter the United 

States across our border with Mexico. So that is a separate category of this problem of illegal immigration and one that I think 

people have to understand as we deal with the problem. 

To help us get beyond the statistics and understand the situation 

on the ground—because last week we really heard from Washington-based administrators and experts—we have called a panel of 

witnesses that we are privileged to have before us today, people 

with real firsthand experience along our entire Southern Border 

from Texas to California. You are the people who confront this 

problem of illegal immigration and border-related crime every single day in your positions as sheriffs and judges. 

37 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dever appears in the Appendix on page 229. 

2The prepared statement of Senator McCain appears in the Appendix on page 155. 

I think the Committee is very interested in your views on the 

status of our control of the border closest to you right now, on what 

we can do to improve that control, and on how much the terrible 

drug-related violence in Mexico has spilled over into your jurisdictions. 

I would also like to know, and I will ask about whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics which reflect decreased 

rates of violence in a lot of the border communities reflect your experience within your own communities. 

Last week, we heard testimony that border security cannot be 

achieved in isolation from our immigration system of laws and that 

hundreds of thousands of people will continue to risk their lives to 

illegally cross our borders unless and until we reform our immigration laws, and presumably what was meant here is to create a system that allows immigrants to enter legally for temporary periods 

of time for work and then to return. So, assuming we have time, 

I am going to ask our witnesses to address the relationship between immigration reform and border security because the ultimate aim of these hearings is, one, to do oversight on what we are 

getting in return for the considerable Federal investment in border 

security; two, obviously what we can do to improve it; and, three, 

there is a political equation here which has to do with the relationship between border security and our current immigration system, 

which just about everyone agrees is broken. 

So, with that, I thank the witnesses very much for being here, 

and I call on the Ranking Member, Senator McCain. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for 

being a few minutes late, and I want to thank our witnesses. And, 

Mr. Chairman, if I could, I would like to submit for the record testimony by Larry Dever, who is the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona.1

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection. 

Senator MCCAIN. I thank the witnesses for being here and taking 

the time from their important duties. 

The deadly violence in Mexico has fundamentally changed the 

jobs of law enforcement along the border. They are now asked not 

only to serve eviction notices, assist courthouses with the transport 

of prisoners, and execute and service process of civil litigation matter, but you are also now our Nation’s first line of defense in defending our homeland, and for that we are very grateful. The job 

of sheriff or sheriff’s deputy is more difficult, more challenging, and 

more dangerous than ever before. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement that I will submit 

for the record.2

I do not think there is any doubt that there have been improvements in border security or a dramatic increase in violence on the 

other side of the border. 

I was recently down in Douglas, Arizona. Agua Prieta is the town 

on the other side of the border. Three nights before I was there, 

38 

three sport utility vehicles (SUVs), blue lights flashing, blocked off 

the traffic on the street right on the other side of the border, took 

a left turn, half a block down from the border crossing, individuals 

jumped out and a fusillade of automatic weapons fire kills five people and wounds 14 others. That is in the block next to our border. 

And I appreciate the fact that our border towns are safe on our side 

of the border, but it is not logical to assume that will be the case 

when the level of violence on the other side of the border continues 

to escalate. It just cannot happen. 

I just saw it on the TV: 59 more bodies were found in the same 

place where 70 bodies have been found recently. Cities like Monterrey and others where we never expected this kind of violence to 

take place are happening. And I think that Sheriff Paul Babeu will 

tell you, and I believe the other sheriffs will, the level of sophistication of the drug dealers has dramatically increased. 

We now have, according to the High Intensity Drug Trafficing 

Areas (HIDTA) in Arizona, between 75 and 100 guides sitting on 

mountaintops in Arizona—not on the other side of the border, but 

on mountaintops. They are armed. They have sophisticated communications equipment, food, and they stay for a long period of time. 

They guide the drug smugglers up to Phoenix which has become 

the drug distribution center for America with the exception of parts 

of Texas. 

Then you couple that with the lifestyle of the ranchers and the 

residents of the southern part of my State who are not in a secure 

environment. That is why the Federal Government has put up 

signs that say, ‘‘Warning: You are in an area of drug smugglers 

and human smugglers.’’ They would not be putting up those warning signs if there was not a reason to warn our residents. They are 

afraid to leave their homes because of home violations. 

Now, there are not many citizens in the southern part of my 

State, but they should have the right to live in a secure environment. They should have the right to drop their kids off at a bus 

stop without fear of them being endangered. 

So we have a lot of issues, as you pointed out. One of them is 

that we have not had a national conversation about—and we have 

to—the demand issue. What is the situation also with a State like 

mine and California where medical marijuana is allowed? We are 

going to try to stop that farmer in southern Mexico from growing 

marijuana, but we are going to allow someone in Phoenix, Arizona, 

to grow marijuana for ‘‘medical purposes?’’ I am not sure that has 

a lot of logic associated with it. 

And I asked our U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, who is a great 

man, and he said he did not know how he was going to handle this 

issue either now that it is going to be quasi-legal in my State of 

Arizona for marijuana usage. But at the same time, right now at 

least, the cash crop is marijuana, more than cocaine or any of the 

others. And last year, in the Southwest Border, just in the Southwest Border States, seizure of marijuana was 1.7 million pounds, 

and 1.2 million of these pounds were seized in the Tucson Sector. 

So I acknowledge that there has been improvement. I acknowledge that our sheriffs on our side of the border are doing a great 

job in keeping our communities safe. I do not acknowledge that 

when you see the level of violence continue to escalate on the 

39 

1The prepared statement of Judge Escobar appears in the Appendix on page 157. 

southern side of the border, we are somehow immune from that 

spilling over to our side of the border. There is no logic associated 

with that. And I think that Sheriff Babeu and I believe our other 

sheriffs may tell you that it used to be when you saw a drug smuggler, they dropped their product and ran. Now many of them are 

armed and ready to fight. That is a very different situation and a 

very different challenge to our sheriffs and their deputies. 

I could go on for a long time, Mr. Chairman, but the purpose of 

this hearing is to hear from our distinguished witnesses, and I 

want to thank them again for their outstanding service on the front 

lines. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator McCain. 

We will go first to the Hon. Veronica Escobar, County Judge for 

El Paso, Texas. Thanks for being here, Judge. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. VERONICA ESCOBAR,1 EL PASO COUNTY 

JUDGE, TEXAS 

Judge ESCOBAR. It is my honor. Thank you very much for the opportunity. 

I have the honor of being the County Judge for El Paso, Texas, 

the greatest city in the United States. In Texas, the County Judge 

is the chief executive of the county. I preside over a five-member 

commissioners court, which has budgetary and administrative authority over county government operations. 

The County Judge is elected county-wide. That means, as of the 

2010 census, I now represent 800,000 people in the world’s largest 

bi-national metropolitan community. 

El Paso also happens to be the safest city of our size in America, 

and we have consistently been ranked among the top three safest 

communities in the United States for well over a decade. Not only 

do we have some of the lowest crime rates in the Nation, but a recent poll of our citizens shows that we know we are safe and we 

feel safe. 

Residents who live on the U.S.-Mexico Border have seen their 

communities used as a convenient backdrop to heated debates and 

political posturing about immigration and drug policies. Incredibly, 

it has been said by some elected officials, two from my own State, 

that there are bombs going off in El Paso, and that is absolutely 

untrue. As a border community, we have challenges, no doubt, but 

exploding bombs are not among them. 

What happens when the rhetoric escalates and the facts get lost? 

It hurts my local economy. It hurts our ability to recruit talent. It 

negatively affects our convention business, and it does not address 

the real problems. 

We are all concerned about and devastated by the tragedies occurring every day on the other side of our river. The drug war is 

raging just across from where I live in the streets of Ciudad 

Juarez. I am glad for the assistance being given Mexico, and I hope 

there is more to come, including discussions about our own contributions to the drug war that is devastating Juarez and El Paso 

families. 

40 

In the meantime, illegal drugs continue to flow north to feed 

Americans’ insatiable appetite for them. U.S. guns used in that 

bloodshed continue to move south, and El Paso, like other border 

cities, is a corridor caught in the middle of that north-south activity 

as well as the rhetoric that emanates from our State’s and Nation’s 

capitals. 

My local law enforcement agents are dealing with transnational 

gang activity. My jail houses them. Our prosecutors are pursuing 

charges against them in court. And my local property tax base is 

shouldering much of that burden. The Federal Government has 

been aware of the costs associated with the challenges we face on 

the border, and we appreciate your support through the State 

Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) and through HIDTA 

funds. But, unfortunately, they have not grown as the need has 

grown, and so my local property tax base then shoulders whatever 

is not shouldered by the Federal Government. 

Grants offer an important supplement, but sometimes they can 

be inflexible, not allowing my sheriff’s office to purchase vehicles, 

for example, through Operation Stonegarden. 

We need investments that supplement our ability to recruit and 

hire more officers. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 

(COPS) grants, for example, flowed into Texas, but the El Paso 

County Sheriff’s Department and the El Paso Police Department, 

law enforcement agencies on the border, we did not receive any of 

that funding. 

We become more concerned with the talk of slashing budgets and 

cutting support to our communities, and we believe it will erode 

the gains we have made in getting the Federal Government to assist us as we assist you. 

When the war between the cartels began to reach a critical level 

in Ciudad Juarez, we saw a pattern emerge that we never predicted and that has not stopped. Our county hospital district, which 

houses the only Level I trauma facility in the region—the next closest is 275 miles away—began seeing victims of violence who were 

rushed through our ports of entry and into our emergency room. 

Since 2008, we have spent $4.9 million in trauma care for the victims of Mexican violence. To date, we have been compensated for 

only $1.2 million, leaving local property taxpayers to pick up the 

$3.7 million in uncompensated costs. 

We have repeatedly requested funding from the Merida Initiative 

to help offset those costs borne by our local property tax base because we just do not see that financial burden diminishing unless 

the United States changes its drug policies or the cartels suddenly 

declare a ceasefire. 

Where has some of the funding gone if not to my trauma facility 

or increasing my law enforcement capacity? It has gone to a wall. 

While Federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise 

the wall, it is to me and others an example of considerable Federal 

dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junkyard. 

The vast majority of border crossers are not criminals but economic migrants, and as you know, a significant amount of illegal 

drugs are funneled through our ports of entry. A true fix to undocumented immigration would come from comprehensive immigration 

41 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Loera appears in the Appendix on page 166. 

reform, and, frankly, it would take away the platform by so many 

State leaders who want our local law enforcement agents to enforce 

Federal immigration laws. And for the record, all of my local elected officials oppose using local law enforcement to enforce Federal 

immigration laws. Community policing is what keeps us safe, and 

having my local law enforcement become de facto immigration 

agents would erode that trust. 

Another facet of an overall fix should be our border ports, which 

lack significant investment in our infrastructure and personnel. We 

have $70 billion of commerce that comes across my ports of entry, 

and we need more modern ports. 

I live in a thriving, safe, and wonderful border community. I am 

fiercely loyal to and very proud of El Paso. While some politicians 

like to use caricatures of the border for purposes of political rhetoric, rhetoric that portrays my community as dangerous, volatile, 

and unsafe, the reality for me in El Paso, for those of us who live 

there, could not be more different. 

Do not get me wrong. We have challenges. But those challenges 

can be addressed much more effectively by more responsible burden sharing by the Federal Government, whose mission it is to secure our borders and, by extension, our public safety, our commerce, and our immigrant population. We are indeed on the front 

lines, and a safe border means a safe Nation. But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria 

and xenophobia only hurts our border communities, my economy, 

our commerce, and the economy of the Nation. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Judge. 

Next we will go to Sheriff Raymond Loera, who is the sheriff of 

Imperial County in California, which has an 84-mile border with 

Mexico. Sheriff, thanks for coming all the way across the country. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. RAYMOND LOERA,1 SHERIFF OF 

IMPERIAL COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 

Mr. LOERA. Well, thank you very much. It was a pleasant trip. 

I was sitting the whole way. 

Thank you very much for the invitation to speak before this 

Committee. It allows me the opportunity to bring to your attention 

the significant and important work being done in a small but very 

important corner of the United States. This work is being done in 

an area already hit hard by economic pressures and diminishing 

resources. Even with these significant handicaps, law enforcement 

in the Imperial Valley is making significant headway in making 

the entire United States a safer place. 

The Imperial County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for law enforcement and detention in the county of Imperial in California. 

Imperial County extends 4,597 square miles, bordering Baja California, Mexico, to the south, Yuma to the east, San Diego to the 

west, and Riverside County to the north. The county contains seven 

incorporated cities and 10 unincorporated cities. The estimated 

population is 172,672. There are three ports of entry in the county. 

Two of the ports of entry are in Calexico and the third one is in 

Andrade, close to the Yuma, Arizona, border. 

42 

Imperial County is a rural and agricultural community. Clean 

energy, wind, geothermal, and solar are emerging, and Imperial 

Valley could be a significant player in these fields in the very near 

future. However, currently the unemployment rate is consistently, 

and has been for many years, 24 to 25 percent. 

The Mexicali-Imperial Valley corridor is a significant, lucrative 

drug-smuggling corridor. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports that during fiscal year 2010, the Calexico ports of entry led 

with the most cocaine seized, as compared to seizures at other 

ports of entry along the Southwest Border. For fiscal year 2011 this 

trend continues, and for fiscal year 2011, the Calexico ports of 

entry also lead in crystal methamphetamine seizures along the 

Southwest Border. 

Mexicali, Baja California, which borders the city of Calexico, has 

a population of 936,826. Mexicali has not experienced the degree of 

violence reported in other areas along the border, such as Juarez 

and Tijuana. 

Intelligence has indicated for some time that Mexicali is a neutral zone, a safe haven, due to the plaza having been controlled for 

many years by the Joaquin ‘‘Chapo’’ Guzman drug-trafficking organization. Recently, there are indications that this is changing. This 

is evidenced by the killing of five individuals on January 24, 2011, 

at a bar in Mexicali, Mexico. Intelligence reflects that the BeltranLeyva organization may be vying for control of the Mexicali Plaza. 

The Imperial County Sheriff’s Office is part of the Imperial Valley Drug Coalition, comprised of 20 participating law enforcement 

agencies. This is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area initiative. 

This HIDTA is administered by the Southern California HIDTA, 

the California Border Alliance Group. 

The Imperial Valley Law Enforcement Coordination Center 

houses the following initiatives: The Imperial County Narcotics 

Task Force, Major Mexican Traffickers, and the California Department of Justice’s Major Narcotics and Violence Team. Although not 

currently housed at the Imperial Valley Law Enforcement 

Coodination Center (IVLECC), it supports the Border Enforcement 

Security Team and the FBI Safe Street Task Force, which are also 

HIDTA initiatives. These task forces and the Intelligence Support 

Unit are made up of various State, local, and Federal agents, officers, and analysts, to include deputies from the Imperial County 

Sheriff’s Office. 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) 

established an office within Imperial County in 2009. The domestic 

component, Project Gunrunner, is the primary focus of ATF El 

Centro’s efforts within Imperial County. ATF El Centro partnered 

with the California Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms in 

2010, as members of a Firearms Trafficking Task Force to implement the domestic component. 

In summary, Imperial County is a significant drug-smuggling 

corridor and poses a potential security threat not only to Imperial 

County, but also the rest of the United States. As rival drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) seek to take over the Mexicali Plaza, 

violence is expected to escalate in Mexicali. The Mexican DTOs 

have adjusted their smuggling methods to counteract law enforcement efforts, such as the utilization of tunnels and ultralights. The 

43 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Cobos appears in the Appendix on page 170. 

sharing of intelligence between agencies is critical in order to plan 

for and tackle these challenges. Imperial Valley law enforcement, 

working with all available partners at the IVLECC is an example 

of what can and must be done to counter these public safety 

threats by working together and putting turf issues aside to accomplish this mission. 

Also, just between the time that you contacted me and this meeting, there was a finding—and I will pass it around for you to look 

at, but there is a picture on April 2—I believe they caught the people that may have been responsible for or at least partly responsible for that shooting where five people were killed, and you would 

be amazed at the amount of military-type arms that they located. 

Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Sheriff. Thanks very much. 

Next we have Sheriff Raymond Cobos, who is the Sheriff of Luna 

County, New Mexico, which has a 54-mile border with Mexico and 

is directly across from the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, which has 

unfortunately, sadly, been experiencing a lot of violence lately. 

Sheriff, thank you for being here, and we welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. RAYMOND COBOS,1 SHERIFF OF LUNA 

COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 

Mr. COBOS. Thank you, Senator. It is an honor and a privilege 

to testify before this Committee. 

Let me start by saying that I just want to enumerate some 

changes in the last 10 years, some of these specific to Luna County. 

We experienced a doubling of the number of Border Patrol agents 

in the Deming Station, from around 250 to a little over 500. 

We have increased the technological infrastructure along the border to include additional sensors, cameras, fencing, border vehicle 

barriers, and the construction and completion of the Forward Operating Base along Border Highway State Road 9. This is supplemented by the incorporation of National Guard personnel that 

monitor these systems and free Border Patrol agents for the field. 

The Border Patrol has partnered with local law enforcement in 

all-terrain vehicle (ATV) operations. We coordinate checkpoint operations with the Border Patrol. They do theirs and then we do our 

traffic enforcement program in close proximity. 

We have noted that the citizen complaints about Border Patrol 

activity has changed from ‘‘very few Border Patrol agents’’ to ‘‘too 

many’’ in many instances. That strongly indicates the effectiveness 

of the Border Patrol strategy. The presence of Border Patrol agents 

is the most visible sign of the Federal Government’s efforts at practical control of the border, at least in my area. 

Luna County crime statistics have plunged along with the apparent numbers of apprehensions of undocumented persons in the El 

Paso Sector, which includes Luna County. And you have many of 

those instances along with narcotics seizures. 

There are many factors affecting the decline in numbers of persons crossing illegally into the United States, at least in the Luna 

County area. We attribute that to the state of our economy, the soVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
44 

cial stress in Mexican society, particularly the increased Federal, 

State, and local enforcement on the U.S. side, and possibly cooperation from law enforcement counterparts in Mexico in some instances. 

We have greater unity among the levels of government agencies 

outside of law enforcement. That has increased. We get notified by 

the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and 

the FBI on local residents in HUD housing with outstanding warrants, and we act upon those immediately. 

In Luna County’s case, one cannot overlook the quality of leadership of the Federal law enforcement agencies. I simply would have 

to credit the close support from El Paso Sector chiefs, patrol agents 

in charge, in particular in my area, Daniel Serrato, former patrol 

agent in charge Rick Moody—who is now, I think, the assistant in 

the Tucson Sector—and Chris Mangusing, who moved over next 

door to the Lordsburg Station. And it seems every time we form a 

particular close relationship with one of these supervisors, they 

move them on to somewhere else. But that simply increases our 

ability to network. 

The one thing I want to emphasize here is that we are the recipients of the Operation Stonegarden program. Through that program 

we have been able to put officers out in the field, work very closely 

with the Border Patrol and other agencies. We have gone ahead 

and initiated a five-county memorandum of understanding (MOU) 

where we establish a MOU with four other sheriffs, sheriffs of 

neighboring counties of Hidalgo, Grant, Otero, Dona Ana, and my 

county, Luna. We cross-commission deputies, so it is a force multiplier. But we have gone ahead and done this on our own in response to the increased violence, and so that way we can trade resources. 

We did this well ahead of Operation Stonegarden. But Operation 

Stonegarden allows us to give our residents services that we could 

only dream of about 10 years ago. 

We are blessed in Luna County with relatively flat terrain, a few 

mountains. We cannot say the same thing about our neighboring 

county, which is Hidalgo County. They have a thousand square 

miles more than we do. We have approximately 3,000; they have 

about 4,200 square miles. We have 54 miles of border; they have 

about at least twice that. We have a population of a little over 

27,000 with 33 sworn officers; they have a population of about 

5,000 with 8 officers. They try to address the problems coming in 

through their area. 

What we have done very successfully is moved the activity out 

of our area in conjunction with the Border Patrol and pushed it 

into the Hidalgo County side, which adjoins Cochise County. There 

is no question about it. We address the issue of feeling safe along 

the border. The statistics indicate that there is very little of that 

activity. However, the one thing that we do know—and that is one 

of my agreements with Sheriff Dever in Cochise County—the character of the people that are coming across now, particularly in the 

drugs, is much more hostile. They are much more willing to defend 

their product; they are much more willing to carry arms and use 

them. And, yes, in our areas we do have lookouts that are stationed 

on mountaintops—not so many in our county because, like I said, 

45 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Babeu appears in the Appendix on page 177. 

we shut down that activity pretty much for practical purposes. But 

I know in neighboring counties we do have evidence of people that 

are stationed on the top of mountains guiding people across. That 

is why the Border Patrol uses our deputies to patrol the highways 

so they can get into the mountains and counteract that ability. 

So, anyway, the one thing I do want to do is make sure that you 

understand that, particularly with Operation Stonegarden, we 

want to make sure those things continue because it has been pretty 

much of a success story in our county, and you cannot walk away 

from success, because it is a recurring issue. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Sheriff. I appreciate the reference to Operation Stonegarden, which this Committee has supported over the years. 

And the final witness, Sheriff Paul Babeu, Sheriff of Pinal County in Arizona, which is in the Tucson Sector for the Border Patrol, 

located between the cities of Tucson and Phoenix and, therefore, in 

a major drug- and human-smuggling corridor. 

Sheriff, thanks for coming here, and we look forward to your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. PAUL BABEU,1 SHERIFF OF PINAL 

COUNTY, ARIZONA 

Mr. BABEU. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and Senators, I appreciate 

the opportunity, not just as the Sheriff of Pinal County—I happen 

to be Arizona’s youngest sheriff. I like to remind my fellow sheriffs 

of that in Arizona. And I have also served as the president of the 

Arizona Sheriffs Association for the past 2 years, and I bring a 

message from Arizona: Mexico is not our enemy. President 

Calderon and the leaders of Mexico are not our enemy. The people, 

the citizens of Mexico, are not our enemy. It is the drug cartels of 

Mexico that have destabilized Mexico, nearly toppling their government, that are the enemy of Mexico, are the enemy of America. 

And that violence is not coming here. It is here. 

Pinal County is the fastest growing county after the decennial 

census, growing 109 percent in population this past decade. We 

also have another title. We are the No. 1 pass-through county for 

drug and human smuggling in all of America. And people would 

say, ‘‘Well, you have got Santa Cruz County, you have got Cochise 

County, you have got Pima County to your south.’’ And I will use 

the words of the Border Patrol, saying, ‘‘Sheriff, all roads from 

these three counties go to Pinal County.’’ And so we are the No. 

1 pass-through county on their way to metro Phoenix, as our Senator, John McCain, pointed out. 

So what is going on? And is the border more secure than ever 

before? And when I share that with my citizens and the families 

of Pinal County and throughout Arizona, I can tell you, they laugh, 

because we know the reality on the ground. The Tucson Sector is 

overwhelmed. And you can add all the resources that you would 

like, in terms of staffing and manpower, but they forget key elements. And I have told Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John 

46 

Morton and Commissioners Alan Bersin and David Aguilar, all the 

leaders, that they are forgetting key elements that will bring the 

solution to a secure border. Because as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, earlier on, what is the end state? Where are we going here? 

And what do we want to get to? And you are looking at numbers 

over the past decade. 

Well, the end state a lot of folks want to talk about is immigration reform. Well, I can tell you, myself and the majority of people 

in Arizona, I think throughout America, are saying absolutely not, 

until this border is secured, like it is in the Yuma Sector, that discussion does not have legs. And we are not talking about back in 

1986 when amnesty was provided to approximately 2 million people. We are talking 12 or 13 million-plus individuals. And are we 

in the business of having that conversation now? Absolutely not, 

because the border is not secured. 

If we had the Border Patrol’s estimate, 219,300 illegals in the 

Tucson Sector were apprehended alone last year, and they say to 

me in briefings—these are people who work for Secretary Napolitano—that reflects 1 out of every 2.6 that come into the Tucson 

Sector. That is—do the math—385,000, approximately 400,000. I do 

not know how you figure out if there are 400,000 people that got 

away, we do not know where they are from, where they are going, 

and who they are. That is a problem for us in law enforcement because close to 17-plus percent have a criminal record already established in the United States. Some of these people are wonderful, 

good people who want a better life, albeit it illegally. And then you 

have other than Mexicans (OTMs), and you have people from countries of interest. 

I can tell you, when I served as the commanding officer of Task 

Force Yuma—I have completed 20 years in the Army National 

Guard, proudly served our country in Iraq. Down in Yuma, I was 

the task force commander commanding 400, 700, at times up to 

over 1,000 active duty soldiers and airmen in Operation Jump 

Start, and this is the basis for what the solution is. And you do not 

have to look anywhere closer than to your right. 

Senator John McCain and Senator Jon Kyl have the solution to 

secure the border so we can get to this point that we all want to 

get to. We know we need to. We as a republic have allowed us to 

get to this point—Democrats, Republicans, all of us. This is our 

government, and the solution is the 10-point border security plan 

that needs to be brought to bear. Three of the key elements are 

6,000 armed soldiers deployed to the border, 3,000 of those in Arizona, 1,000 each to the other three border States—3,000 is not because it is Arizona and I want more support. It is where nearly half 

of the illegals are coming in. And you have the OTMs and people 

from countries of interest, and this is where it is a national security threat. And then while they are deployed for that up-to-2-year 

period, you build the necessary infrastructure. 

I served as a combat engineer. You point out the path of least 

resistance. Back about 15 years ago, as a young lieutenant, I 

brought combat engineers to north of Tijuana, south of San Diego. 

We built 14-foot, corrugated steel, no-climb fence with steel 6 feet 

under the ground, and it works, because there are proven historical 

paths where there is built-up urban centers north and south of the 

47 

1The exhibits referenced by Mr. Babeu appear in the Appendix on page 180. 

border. What you want to do is deny immediate assimilation. The 

Secretary often quotes that ‘‘Show me a 50-foot fence, I will show 

you a 51-foot ladder,’’ and she thinks she has won the argument. 

Well, the key here is you have to have enforcement, you have to 

have surveillance, you have to have infrared cameras, you have to 

have lighting, and we even built roads that traverse east and west 

north of those barriers so Border Patrol can rapidly deploy to intercept, to make that apprehension. 

And that brings us to the third point. You need to have the deployment of soldiers and to build the necessary infrastructure, and 

then you go to this novel concept of enforcing the law. And when 

that happened in the Yuma Sector, you have seen, as we sit here 

today, a 96-percent reduction in illegal entries. That is what a secure border looks like. The rest of America deserves it and is demanding it. And then we can get to this reasonable discussion dispassionately. 

I have other information I would like to present in the record.1

I am running short on time. But that violence that we have had, 

the cartel hits have actually arrived in America. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Sheriff. 

We will do 7-minute rounds for the Members of the Committee. 

You have all been very helpful in testifying. 

Let me begin with you, Sheriff Babeu. I know you mentioned law 

enforcement. What is the key factor that has made the border in 

the Yuma Sector so much more secure? 

Mr. BABEU. During Operation Jump Start we have seen one of 

the high watermarks. In 2005, there were 134,000 illegals apprehended that year. Now you are looking at 7,100, thereabouts. And 

how did we get there? There is not one soldier there. So we have 

to have these components that I shared earlier. We had armed soldiers. We deployed four or five at one position north of the border; 

to the right limit, the same number; to the left limit; and virtually 

along the Colorado River we formed a human curtain, and in other 

areas along the border. 

Now, I have soldiers, airmen from the Midwest, from back East, 

and they say to me as I troop the line, ‘‘Sir, we have not seen anybody in 4 days. Are we really making a difference?’’ And I chuckled 

and said, ‘‘That is exactly what we want to see.’’ 

Eventually it grew to a 74-percent sustained effort. And then the 

Border Patrol and their leaders—and there are heroes in the Border Patrol—could focus on other criminal elements and to reinforce. 

Then they started to go zone by zone within the sector—what is 

called streamline. No longer is there a diversion program. The 

slang is ‘‘catch and release.’’ Everybody is prosecuted, and that immediately was found out south of the border and said, hey, you 

cannot go through here because you are not detained for a short 

period of time, less than a week. Now it is 14 to 21 days, up to 60 

days, to go through that process. So that alone is a deterrent. And 

then you are formally deported. So this needs to be brought uniformly across the border. 

48 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So you would say if we took some of those 

practices to, for instance, the Tucson Sector, there would be a significant decrease in illegal crossings? 

Mr. BABEU. Absolutely, Senator. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask the panel just to briefly get 

into the question of how, from the point of view of judging the results we are getting from the Federal investment, to better judge 

border security and what border control we are getting in return. 

You heard me talk about the number of apprehensions being used. 

Judge Escobar, any other thoughts about how we might do that? 

Judge ESCOBAR. Well, I think the way that we are ranked the 

safest city in the United States is through FBI statistics on criminal activity happening in my community. 

And as I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, we are the 

safest city of our size in the Nation, and that is going back 11 or 

12 years. We have been in the top three—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Has there been any alteration in those 

crime statistics in the years since violence has so dramatically gone 

up across the border in Mexico? 

Judge ESCOBAR. We achieved the status of being the safest city 

in the Nation last year, and before then we had been No. 2 or No. 

3 consistently. 

And so last year was when we finally peaked at No. 1. I would 

be vehemently opposed to militarizing my border. What keeps us 

safe is a great relationship and community policing between our 

local law enforcement and our neighborhoods. And if, for example, 

law enforcement, as I mentioned before, becomes an immigration 

officer or if you have military patrolling the streets, that changes 

the dynamic and that changes the trust and a neighborhood’s ability to report crime. And we depend on that relationship and that 

communication to keep us safe. 

Now, what has been extremely helpful, Operation Stonegarden, 

any Federal funding that has come through HIDTA and SCAAP, it 

helps offset the burden carried on the shoulders of my local property tax base, and it helps us use our resources more effectively. 

But as we have been growing and we have not seen the investment 

continue, that is where I have really a tremendous concern because 

we either have to scale back operations or the burden on the local 

property tax base grows more significantly. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Am I correct that El Paso is not a major 

smuggling corridor? 

Judge ESCOBAR. It is. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It is. So even though it is, your crime statistics are as low as they are. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Right. And we have achieved that designation, 

even though we live across what is called by some the most dangerous city in the world, Ciudad Juarez. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Judge ESCOBAR. And, again, we have not done that by militarizing our border. We have not done that by having local law enforcement enforce Federal immigration laws. We have done that by 

smart community policing, trying to be strategic about how we invest our money, but really the Federal funds that come to my community are critical, and they are not enough. 

49 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You know, it is interesting. You have two 

different models. Sheriff Babeu, you talked about in Yuma more of 

a law enforcement model that has worked. And you have one which 

is quite different. It is law enforcement but it is more community 

policing, community involvement. 

Sheriff Loera, any thoughts about how folks within your jurisdiction feel about their safety and how we might better measure border security and border control? 

Mr. LOERA. It is interesting that you put it that way, that you 

have two different models here. Yuma Sector goes into Imperial 

County. Part of that issue is that we have one of the largest or 

most active recreational areas, the Glamis Sand Dunes, which can 

at times bring up from 150,000 to 160,000 people in one area. 

Prior to the fence being put up, we had several problems. One 

was that when these large groups of people are there, the cartels 

or the smugglers would just jump on their ATVs and mix with the 

crowd, and we had a real difficult time in controlling any traffic 

coming north. 

Before the fence came up, people would drive straight across into 

Imperial County, get on the highway, I–8, which runs east and 

west, and their favorite tactic was to drive against traffic because 

they knew that the law enforcement were not going to get involved 

in that or would call off a pursuit so that they would not harm any 

other people. 

When the fence came up, that almost came to a standstill. There 

are no more pursuits, at least of that magnitude. The fence came 

up and now the crowds do not mingle as much as they did. The 

problem now is that, as Clint Eastwood said, they adapt and overcome. We are now seeing an increase in tunnels. Tunnels are going 

through from Mexicali to the city of Calexico. We found probably 

four or five in the last few months, and they are getting more and 

more sophisticated. 

We have gotten the ultralights which are now flying over the 

fence. My understanding is that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) task force has 20 or 25 ultralights in stores that they 

have found. No drugs, but the assumption is that they were used 

for drugs, the drugs were successfully flown over and picked up, 

and the ultralight is a minimal loss to them. 

In Imperial County, we have a strong community policing ethic 

that we really push. I will tell you on my behalf as a sheriff that 

I do not want to be involved in enforcing immigration laws. But I 

think the community supports us in doing the job that we need to 

do. And it has been built up over many years. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Thank you. My time is up. Sheriff 

Cobos, do you want to answer that? 

Mr. COBOS. As far as measuring the statistics, obviously one of 

the things that we use is our local statistics. Back in 2005, we were 

catching vehicles on the road just by being out there on traffic 

checkpoints and doing saturation patrols simply for traffic enforcement. We were picking up vehicle after vehicle. Mind you, there 

were four or five people on the shift at a good time, but they would 

be picking up three, four, five vehicles a day. Now I do not think 

we would get that many in 6 months. An obvious change. So our 

statistics bear out that it has been effective. 

50 

What happens, of course, is that we see our neighboring county, 

especially Hidalgo County to the west bordering Arizona, so it appears to me that we have pushed that activity. So there is no question about it in our mind. And in terms of how the people feel for 

the most part, we initiated a number of activities, including our 

farm and ranch patrol where a deputy goes to each ranch along the 

border and talks to the ranchers, and he does that about three, 

four times a week. Not so much that we expect that will do much 

more than show the flag. Our presence along the border at regular 

intervals indicates to them that we are always ready to respond. 

We also have a community patrol which goes along each little 

unincorporated area that knocks on doors and asks the people how 

they feel about things. But, again, the main, consistent feeling that 

we get is that they realize—because they see in the news media the 

terrible tragedy that is occurring in Mexico. And let me point out 

it does not necessarily have to be a violent attack on the United 

States. In my county we had a mayor of a small town, the police 

chief, and a member of the governing board of trustees arrested by 

ATF and about five or six other individuals for illegally purchasing 

firearms and then sending a number of them into Mexico. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So, in other words, it was not violence, 

but they were corrupted by what is going on. 

Mr. COBOS. Exactly so. That is a subtle way of introducing violence. So to me that was a very black stain on law enforcement. 

I hate to get emotional about it, but I was outraged, and so were 

a number of other heads of agencies in that area. But that is one 

of the things that—you do not have to introduce a platoon of AK– 

47-carrying people to come across the border and do violence. You 

can do this through the almighty dollar. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Sheriff. Senator McCain. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank 

the witnesses. Thank you, Sheriff Babeu, for your continued service 

to the country. I noted with some interest that both Sheriff Loera 

and Sheriff Cobos are Vietnam veterans. Thank you for serving. 

Mr. LOERA. I have to clarify. That is the Vietnam-era for me. I 

did not serve—— 

Senator MCCAIN. Vietnam and Vietnam-era veterans, thank you 

for serving. And, Judge, congratulations on your outstanding record 

of service. 

Do you recall, Sheriff Babeu, how many bodies we have found in 

the desert around Tucson? I think it is around 200. 

Mr. BABEU. Yes. There was a large article looking at illegals, 

Senator, who are being brought up, and we often ask where is the 

human rights outrage for the lack of care or concern for human life. 

Senator MCCAIN. And I believe that number continues to go up, 

the number of bodies we find in the desert of individuals, either because the coyotes have abandoned them or for various reasons. 

And, of course, another human rights issue is the unspeakable 

things that are perpetrated on these illegal immigrants by the 

coyotes, especially young women. They are horrifying stories. 

Did I hear you correctly, Sheriff, when you said that the building 

of the fence was a very important step forward in your ability to 

control the border? 

51 

Mr. BABEU. I think it was. I will be truthful with you, Senator, 

that when it was first proposed, I had my doubts as to how successful it would be, even with the Border Patrol coming in and being 

a proponent of it. I think that it is a piece—— 

Senator MCCAIN. I do not mean to interrupt, but isn’t it that the 

key here is not just a fence but also the surveillance capabilities 

plus manpower? Isn’t that pretty much the conclusion that we 

could draw? I am not putting words in your mouth, but—— 

Mr. BABEU. No. I think that is correct. 

Senator MCCAIN. And that is sort of what has happened in your 

area of jurisdiction? 

Mr. BABEU. Well, it is right now. Like I said, our issue is that 

we have not seen this level of violence. The corridor issues have 

been historical. We are concerned about the violence like in Tijuana 

and some other areas spilling over, which there are indicators that 

it may be coming, and coming faster than we are prepared for. 

Senator MCCAIN. I noticed this, by the way, this morning: Mexican forces seeking kidnapped bus passengers stumbled on a mass 

grave holding 59 bodies. This is beyond belief, some of the things 

that are happening. 

Sheriff Cobos, what is your view of the measures that need to be 

taken to secure the border? Do you pretty much agree with Sheriff 

Loera? 

Mr. COBOS. Yes, I am very much in agreement. One of the things 

that I need to point out, in the Port of Palomas, adjoining our port 

of entry, on our side we erected a 12- or 14-foot barrier fence that 

extended out to about 11⁄2 miles on either side. You speak about 

the bodies we found. I remember up until about 2 or 3 years ago, 

we had found 36 bodies by various agencies. 

Senator MCCAIN. Where did you find them? 

Mr. COBOS. They were out in the desert. The remains were stumbled upon by people, or sometimes—in one case we received a call 

from a Border Patrol agent in the Yuma Sector saying that he had 

received a call from a person indicating that one of his relatives 

that he had, had died in our area. We went to milepost 56 or 57 

on I–10, which is west of us. We went there and, sure enough, 

within 10 or 15 minutes we found the body. And, again, the same 

scenario, people get sick, they get abandoned, and unless you have 

a very close relative or a very close friend with you, they are going 

to leave you there to die or fend for yourself. 

One of the things about that fence is that it stopped women and 

children. We got pretty tired of having to rescue women and children. We were looking for a 16-year-old immigrant that was supposedly dying. We went out on four-wheelers, and I found probably 

about nine in an area. They had broken off bushes and covered 

themselves with them in about 110 degree heat. They laid there all 

night long. But one of them was a woman with a 9-year-old daughter, and, again, it is one of these things. You saw the desperation 

in their faces, but we simply had to take them out of the area. 

So we are going to be working closely with Border Patrol because, if anything else, we do not want them dying in our desert. 

We do not want them dying anywhere. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you. 

52 

Sheriff Babeu, you obviously made the case for the three-legged 

stool here: Surveillance, fences, and the personnel requirements. 

One of the misnomers that I think is out in America is that we cannot control our border. And the fact is you mentioned the Yuma 

Sector is largely secure. The San Diego Sector is now secure where 

people used to just run up in traffic to cross the border. Parts of 

Texas are secure. So it is not that we cannot achieve that. And, 

yes, they will use ultralights and, yes, they will dig tunnels. I think 

it was in Douglas, we found 11 tunnels in the last short period of 

time. So they are very inventive and ingenious, and, again, we 

need to have this conversation about demand. 

I congratulate you, Judge Escobar, on having the country’s safest 

city, and it is a testimony to your and others’ great work and other 

public servants. But I also was interested in a couple of your statements. You said, ‘‘We are indeed on the front lines, and a safe border means a safe nation. But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only 

hurts our border communities . . . our commerce, and the economy 

of the Nation.’’ Then you went on to say, ‘‘. . . Federal dollars 

being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community 

look like a junkyard.’’ 

Let me just tell you that I respect your opinion and maybe that 

is the case in El Paso. The Federal Government has found it necessary—and I will be glad to show you a picture of the sign—to put 

up a sign in the southern part of my State reading ‘‘Danger: Public 

warning. Travel not recommended. Active drug and human smuggling area.’’ It goes on to say, ‘‘If you see suspicious activity, do not 

confront. Move away and call 911.’’ 

I do not think we should ask our citizens who live in any part 

of this Nation to be subjected to an environment where our own 

Federal Government has to put up signs warning our citizens that 

they cannot travel freely in our sovereign territory. So I must say 

I respect your view about ugly fences and junkyard things, all that. 

But it certainly does not apply to my State, nor the citizens of my 

State. And so I respect their views, and I do not criticized anybody, 

and I certainly do not view the ranchers who live in the southern 

part of my State who are subject to repeated home invasions as 

xenophobic. And I hope that you were not including the citizens of 

my State in your comments about people who practice xenophobia. 

I would be glad to hear your response to that. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Thank you, Senator. When you create walls 

along the Southern Border, you are simply shifting the flow of the 

undocumented elsewhere, either through tunnels or to more extreme terrain, where they are more than likely to die in higher 

numbers. And so if you want to tackle the issue of the undocumented—and there are different types of undocumented migrants. 

Clearly we can admit that there are migrants who are here for economic purposes to seek out a better life, and they are here frankly 

because there are Americans willing to give the undocumented employment. And so there is a pull. It is the fundamental law of supply and demand. If there were not the demand in the United 

States, then you would not have this supply chain. 

And, again, all you are doing is moving the issue or the challenge 

either into some other community or through tunnels, and in my 

53 

humble opinion—and I am not a Federal decisionmaker, but I 

think if you want to tackle the issue of the undocumented, you can 

do it through comprehensive immigration reform. And if you are 

able to tackle that and utilize your resources much more wisely on 

trying to attack the problem of those who are trying to traffic in 

drugs or trying to create harm in communities, then I would rather 

have my Federal law enforcement agents focused on that population than on chasing migrants who are here because there is an 

American company offering them a job. 

And the same thing goes with drug trafficking. It is our insatiable appetite for illegal drugs that create these corridors. And the 

longer we go not acknowledging that or dealing with that, we are 

not going to get to the root issue, is how I feel about this. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, thank you, Judge, and I appreciate your 

opinion. So basically your assertion is that we cannot secure our 

borders. That is a fundamental assertion that you and I have a 

strong disagreement on because I think the security of our citizens 

is our first and foremost obligation. 

You said the answer is comprehensive immigration reform. I 

must tell you that a major part of that obviously—and I know you 

are a strong advocate for it—is amnesty. I have seen that movie 

before. I saw it in 1986 when we gave amnesty to 2 million people 

who were in this country illegally on the promise and commitment 

that we would secure our borders and that we would not have a 

problem anymore with illegal immigrants. Now we have 10 or 12 

million people who are here illegally. 

So to somehow assert that comprehensive immigration reform 

will stop or stem the flow of people coming into this country illegally, I think, has not been authenticated by history. So I appreciate and congratulate you on having a very safe city. It is hard for 

me to tell the family of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent that 

was just murdered, or the rancher who was just killed, or one of 

Sheriff Babeu’s deputies who was just wounded, that it is OK, we 

really do not have to take additional measures to get our border 

secured. 

Those 75 to 100 guides, they are not there guiding people who 

would come across the border looking for a job. They are guiding 

the drug cartels that are bringing the cocaine, methamphetamine, 

and marijuana into Arizona and then to Phoenix where, according 

to the HIDTA people, it is distributed throughout the Nation with 

the exception of some parts of Texas. So I strongly appreciate and 

respect your view, but I strongly disagree. And I think the lessons 

of history are on my side. 

And, by the way, I would be glad to have Judge Escobar respond 

to that. I think you have the right to. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Is there something in particular you would like 

me to respond to? 

Senator MCCAIN. Would you like to disagree that we gave amnesty to 2 million people and the promise that we would have our 

border secured and we would not have the problem anymore? Do 

you disagree with that? 

Judge ESCOBAR. Here is what I disagree with. I disagree with 

your characterization of my testimony as stating that I do not believe we can secure our borders. I absolutely believe we can secure 

54 

our borders in a smarter, more effective way. I think when you 

have modern ports of entry—when you look at your cell phone and 

the things you can do with your cell phone—my 14-year-old son can 

hold up his cell phone, and there is an application that will tell him 

what song is playing. That is a pretty modern application. 

The ports of entry in my community have remained essentially 

unchanged. There has been very little investment in technology in 

my ports of entry that will help keep us safer. I think there are 

smarter ways to expend our resources. I think it is a combination 

of funding, technology, and policy. But when I hear anyone advocate for militarizing the border or trying to create a situation that 

I do not think utilizes our resources in the most effective way, I 

feel obligated to speak up. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I thank you for that comment, and none 

of us are advocating militarizing the border. What we are seeking 

is the National Guard to supplement the Border Patrol and not 

through military action on their part, but they have played a critical role in surveillance, identification, assistance in a variety of 

ways to the overworked and overtasked Border Patrol. The head of 

HIDTA, the head of Border Patrol on the border, I asked them, 

‘‘How has the National Guard helped you here?’’ And all of them 

said they are ‘‘indispensable.’’ And they are not militarized. They 

are not physically arresting any illegal immigrant. There is a Posse 

Comitatus situation here. But the work that they have done, in the 

words of the people who are down on the border, they are ‘‘indispensable.’’ 

I have long overused my time, Mr. Chairman, but this is a very 

important conversation. I take some of your recommendations very 

seriously. We need to address the issue of demand, and I agree 

with you on that very seriously. And I also understand the attraction of jobs. I also understand that if we are going to have immigration reform, employers must be punished who hire people who 

come to this country illegally. 

I think there is a lot of common ground that we are going to have 

to seek, and I am confident that we can. But I cannot say to the 

citizens of Pinal County who have guides sitting on the mountains 

near where they live that we have the border secure and we can 

move forward with comprehensive reform. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator McCain. That was an 

important exchange. And thank you, Judge. 

Senator Coburn, you are next. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. Thank you to each of you for being 

here. I have planned a trip to the border, maybe, depending on 

what happens on the Continuing Resolution, and that will be, I 

think, on April 18 and 19, and a couple of you I hope to see. 

Sheriff Babeu, are you aware of any pressure that local law enforcement has received, or the Border Patrol, in terms of reducing 

the number of arrests for deportation? 

Mr. BABEU. Senator, ironically enough, I just spoke with Sheriff 

Larry Dever within the hour on the cell phone—there has been 

some public controversy over those statements where the head of 

55 

the Border Patrol here in Washington, DC, has come out and said 

absolutely that is false, that is untrue, literally calling Sheriff 

Dever a liar. So I called my lieutenant, Matt Thomas, earlier today 

as well. He is a career deputy, came up through the ranks, was a 

sergeant in charge of our narcotics task force, working undercover, 

and he said, ‘‘Sheriff, I have heard that myself directly from Border 

Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector.’’ 

And then I called T.J. Bonner, who has been the national president of the Border Patrol Council, within the last 2 hours. He was 

the president from 1989 to 2011. He just retired a month ago. And 

he says, ‘‘Absolutely.’’ Not firsthand, but he has all of his Border 

Patrol agents, many of them, giving firsthand accounts of that fact. 

I do not have firsthand myself, but I can tell you that we need help 

out in Arizona. In anybody’s scorecard, if the majority of people are 

getting through undetected, that is a failing grade, period. The people in my county do not feel that the border is more secure than 

ever, and we are 70 miles north. 

Senator COBURN. Are there particular ways that any of you all 

would say things we are doing that make it more difficult for you 

to secure—or at least administer your law enforcement on your 

side of the border? Are there things that we, through the Federal 

Government, are doing that make it more difficult? 

Mr. BABEU. Yes. The Federal Government, President Obama, 

and Eric Holder should stop suing the State of Arizona. At a time 

that we need help, we ask for help, we try to pass laws on our 

own—which is not the solution. S. 1070 is not the answer, even 

though I support it for uniform enforcement. We need the help that 

we have been talking about, is real border security. And instead we 

have teams of lawyers sent to fight our State and then malign us. 

And then those of us who are proud to serve in law enforcement 

and as protectors are made out to be the bad guys. We stand up 

for the rule of law. It is not race, color, or national origin. Two hundred of my deputies are Hispanic. So what are they saying about 

them in the application of the law? 

Senator COBURN. Sheriff Cobos. 

Mr. COBOS. Our relationship with Border Patrol in my county is 

very close. We have never had any indication—I was even unaware 

of any controversy going on until shortly before I arrived in Washington yesterday. 

But the one thing I will say is that in terms of any inhibitions 

on the part of the Federal Government, I think it is better to say 

there are things that the Federal Government can do. 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Mr. COBOS. And one, in particular, is our biggest problem of communications along our Southern Border in my county, and I know 

that the Border Patrol and other agencies build infrastructure, 

communications towers and so forth. What I would like to see is 

a good study of that to see if any of that infrastructure can be used 

to incorporate and include—— 

Senator COBURN. That is a great idea. Do you know of anybody 

that is working on that? 

Mr. COBOS. There are plans, I believe, to build towers in—— 

Senator COBURN. But to incorporate you into the communication 

loop. 

56 

Mr. COBOS. Not that I am aware of, no. 

Senator COBURN. That is key. Thank you. Sheriff Loera. 

Mr. LOERA. Senator, I do not know if you were here for the part 

where I spoke about the coalition that we have in Imperial County. 

Senator COBURN. Yes, I was. 

Mr. LOERA. I think we have a very strong working relationship 

not only with the Border Patrol, but with the DEA, the FBI, and 

all of the Federal agencies. That has not always been true. Ten 

years ago you could not get us in the same room. 

I think that things are going well. The Border Patrol has been 

very accommodating with working with us. So I think that the relationship is good. 

Operation Stonegarden has been very good for us and everybody 

in Imperial County because of our financial issues that we have. 

It has not only allowed us to support them but also support our 

communities. 

Senator COBURN. But you do not see anything specifically that 

we are doing now that is a negative factor, anything the Federal 

Government is doing that is a negative factor in terms of you being 

able to carry out your job? That is really the question. 

Mr. LOERA. I do not think so. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. Sheriff Babeu, why do you think 

the Department of Interior recently replaced warning signs on 

lands on the border with signs claiming to be the information 

signs? Why do you think that happened? 

Mr. BABEU. The signs that Senator McCain pointed out, are 

probably the highest insult that you could pay the citizens of Arizona, and all Americans should have been outraged at that—not 

only the Federal Government not helping us, but putting up these 

signs. We screamed about it. Our governor went on TV and talked 

about it. All these 15 billboard signs that were put up were put up 

in my county, not even on the border but 70 miles north of the border, warning American citizens that in a certain part of America 

travel is not recommended because foreign cartels basically, I 

guess, control these areas. And weeks before the November 2, 2010, 

election, these signs miraculously came down, and more politically 

correct signs about high-level law enforcement at the Federal level 

is taking place here. They say, by the way, call 911. Guess who 911 

is? Me. And they have these others signs that are up, that have 

been up for some time, ‘‘Travel caution. Smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area.’’ Well, thanks for the 

public warning for that. 

Senator COBURN. Have the conditions changed to warrant such 

a switch? 

Mr. BABEU. The conditions changed because the American people 

are becoming aware of the inaction, and then the insult of suing 

Arizona on the Supremacy Clause saying that inherently it is their 

job. We are saying do your job. So at least they did us a favor and 

took down those signs. 

Does it warrant it? We just want them to act. How has it become 

my job as the local sheriff to go out there and fight foreign cartels? 

We have arrested these people. We have had hits. Here is one such 

hit, who was working for the cartels, and he was shot half a dozen 

times in Casa Grande, Arizona, and his wife and family said beVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
57 

1The letter referenced by Senator Coburn appears in the Appendix on page 215. 

cause the cartel suspected he was working for local law enforcement and he was giving information to us, and that is why he was 

killed. 

In Chandler, Arizona, we have the local Chandler Police Department, which I used to be an officer, and the very beat that I served, 

now it comes out months later as the Freedom of Information Act 

requests for these reports show that this is connected to the cartels, a man was stabbed a number of times, and had his head cut 

off in Chandler, Arizona. 

So this violence, it is not just coming here. It is here. 

Senator COBURN. I think you have seen a copy of the letter that 

I recently received from the Department of Interior 1 that no Bureau of Land Management lands are closed to visitors because of 

border-related criminal activity or that only 3 percent of the Buenos Aires Refuge is closed to visitors or that only 68 percent of 

Organ Pipe National Monument is closed to visitors. 

Are you aware of other areas effectively closed to visitors? 

Mr. BABEU. In Pinal County, Senator, I can tell you—and I personally inspected myself and took pictures and showed Senator 

Kyl, and I believe I showed Senator McCain as well—70 miles 

north of the border, they are putting steel rail, actually used for 

railroad tracks. They cut it and put on Normandy barriers and put 

1.3 miles near the Vekol Valley south of I–8 to try to divert all of 

this traffic. Well, guess what they do? They just drive around it. 

And so why are we putting barriers this far north? They should be 

on the border. 

So there are certain parts there. That is where these signs are. 

So the Federal Government has said travel is not recommended 

here. So, in fact, yes, they are. 

Senator COBURN. I would presume in the Tucson Sector you are 

aware of federally owned lands on the border that are used by 

smugglers and drug cartels to smuggle narcotics and illegal aliens? 

You are aware of that? 

Mr. BABEU. It happens. Ask Nancy Henderson about it—it is not 

on the border where it is sparsely populated. In my county families 

have to plan—they leave a family member home while somebody 

is going shopping for food because they do not want somebody 

breaking into their house and stealing their property. And this was 

one of our cases in Arizona City, right off I–10. I know Nancy Henderson, who is a young widow, who says, ‘‘I am an American, and 

I do not feel free in my own country.’’ And her husband was an 

avid gun collector. She was at work. And she came home, and they 

had busted open her safe with a pick axe and pry bar, stole all nine 

of her weapons, all of her ammunition, went in her cabinet, took 

food items, packages of batteries that she had there, and six pairs 

of heavy-duty socks. 

Well, you do not have to be a detective to figure out what happened here. They did not take her computers. They did not take 

her TVs or her jewelry. And then there were footprints going from 

her house to Wildcat Peak in the Sawtooth Mountains, where there 

have been three individuals who have been arrested who were 

scouts, lookouts for the cartels who provide safe passage. 

58 

There are eight families, three of them had the courage to come 

forward to stand with me to talk about it to the media. It is just 

outrageous. I asked them, ‘‘Why did you wait 3 days to come forward?’’ One of these families, Pat and Penny Murphy, were personal friends of mine for years, and they said, ‘‘We were afraid we 

would be killed.’’ 

Thirty-five miles outside of America’s sixth largest city, Phoenix, 

Arizona, we have American citizens who are in fear of drug cartels 

in Mexico, that they were going to be killed by that scout living in 

a cave in the mountains, less than a mile from their backyard, or 

by the people that came and resupplied him with food and water 

or by the people they work for. 

Senator COBURN. Are you responsible for recovering bodies of 

those that die on Federal lands? 

Mr. BABEU. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. Why are you responsible for it? 

Mr. BABEU. We are the local law enforcement and have jurisdiction. Border Patrol, anything happens, they call us. If there is a 

rape or if there is an assault, I have to take a deputy out of a beat 

that is primarily responsible to answer 911 calls. So you cannot divorce this from local law enforcement and the impact upon public 

safety. And I have other pictures here of kidnappings and people 

who were dumped in canals, people who were shot. 

This was one of two individuals who were illegals, kidnapped in 

Phoenix, Arizona, and brought not to other parts of Phoenix but to 

Pinal County, and these two guys, when the vehicle stopped, they 

could not come up with a $3,000 ransom. This is what they told 

us. And they knew they were going to be walked out and be executed. They ran for their lives, and this guy was the slower of the 

two and got shot twice in the back. 

In other cases, here is one gentleman who was kidnapped, ducttaped, thrown in the canal after he was killed. And that is happening here. 

So we care about these people. My deputies are dispatched with 

the same urgency if you called and were in a head-on collision. We 

respond to families who are abandoned. As the sheriff said, we had 

nine individuals, two adult men, five women, two children ages 6 

and 11, that were abandoned. They finally got into an area where 

they had cell service, and one of the men called, in Spanish, and 

asked for help. We triangulated his location, and we went out, our 

deputies. They had not had water for 2 days, could not even move. 

They were drinking their own urine for 2 days. 

The compassion of law enforcement, the compassion even of my 

soldiers and airmen—we never got in any gun fights. As the Senator pointed out, through Posse Comitatus, we did not have enforcement authorities, we did not go on patrol. We were a physical 

presence and a deterrent. 

Senator COBURN. I want to make one last statement, and anybody who wants to respond to it. I notice in your testimony, Mr. 

Babeu, you used the word ‘‘illegals.’’ And I notice that Judge 

Escobar, an officer of the court, she uses the word ‘‘undocumented.’’ 

And I just find it curious that somebody that is a smuggler or a 

drug runner can be labeled as undocumented when, in fact, they 

59 

are a felon. They may not be convicted yet, but they certainly have 

crossed the border illegally. 

And so, I think it is unfortunate that we are going to try to— 

because I use the word ‘‘illegals.’’ I wonder if I am considered 

xenophobic because I do not use the word ‘‘undocumented.’’ And I 

just find it curious that we are trying to move this debate in terms 

of making things worse rather than to making things better. 

The fact is if you cross the border illegally, you have committed 

an illegal act. And if you are a drug runner and have done that, 

I think it is highly unusual that we would call them ‘‘undocumented.’’ 

Mr. BABEU. Right. 

Senator COBURN. I think they are illegal. And so I do not say 

that because I do not care for Hispanic people. I say it because it 

is a fact. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Senator, if I could respond? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go ahead. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Clearly, this is a question that refers to my testimony. 

Senator COBURN. I said that. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Right, and so that is why I think I should be 

the one to respond. I appreciate that. 

I think what is important here is to understand the difference 

between economic migrants, people who, as the sheriff himself 

pointed out, are here because they want to improve their lives, they 

want to put food on the table for their children, and there absolutely is a difference between them and drug smugglers and 

coyotes, people who take advantage of the poor and the most vulnerable in the most difficult conditions. I never called you or anyone on the dais xenophobic—— 

Senator COBURN. I did not imply that. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Well, that was the implication. 

Senator COBURN. No. Let me take over here. I said is it because 

I do not use that word, does it imply that I am xenophobic. I did 

not say anybody said that. 

Judge ESCOBAR. So if you meant it rhetorically—— 

Senator COBURN. But you have to admit, in the debate out there 

that is going on, the emotional debate that is going on in our country today, is if you do not use the proper words, then you are automatically categorized. And we are never going to solve this problem 

when we do it that way. The problem is we have people breaking 

the law. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator, I will let you respond, and then 

we are going to have to move on. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Thank you. I think what is important is keeping 

the debate rational, and I think my perspective is completely rational, and it comes from a point—I live on the border. I live, as 

I mentioned, in the largest bi-national community in the world. 

And so I do think I have credibility when it comes to telling the 

story of what happens on the border, just as everyone on this panel 

has credibility before you. And simply because I have a difference 

of opinion in the nomenclature of how I choose to refer to migrants—and, again, I believe there are criminals that are coming 

across this border, that are intending to harm people, intending to 

60 

provide illegal drugs to Americans who want them and ask for 

them and pay for them. But I see a difference between the two populations. And I identify—— 

Senator COBURN. But you do not see it as an illegal act to come 

across our border if you are undocumented? 

Judge ESCOBAR. It is an illegal act. But you choose a different 

nomenclature than I do, and I am not critical of your nomenclature, and so if you are critical of mine, you have to evaluate 

what motivates that. I do not know. 

All I can tell you is it is important in this country to have rational discussion, not based on what you want to believe but based on 

the facts. And so I bring to you a certain set of facts. If you do not 

like those facts, I cannot control that. All I can do is bring before 

you what has made my community safe. It is interesting that you 

ask the question what can the Federal Government do better, and 

you asked it of everyone except me. And I am going to tell you 

what you can do better 

We need stronger investment—we are trying to line up all of our 

radio communications among all law enforcement, Federal, State, 

and local, in El Paso. We would love more Federal support in doing 

that. We think that will make us safer, smarter, and more effective 

in terms of all law enforcement levels. We would like more technological advancement in our ports of entry. We would love for you 

to supplement HIDTA and SCAAP funds, which are not funding 

the complete burden of what we are trying to do with you because 

we do want to be a partner with you. 

Regardless of ideological beliefs about nomenclature, we are one 

and the same and wanting to ensure we are all safe. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good note to end on. 

Judge ESCOBAR. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I actually think there were some meetings 

of the mind along the way there. 

Judge ESCOBAR. I hope so. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I have to go to a meeting on the budget 

impasse now, and I want to solve it because I want Senator Coburn 

to be able to come and visit you on the border. I am prepared to 

yield the gavel to Senator McCain, if you have any more questions. 

Senator MCCAIN. I have no more questions. I want to thank the 

witnesses. It has been very helpful. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It really has been. I think you used the 

words ‘‘rational’’ and ‘‘respectful.’’ It has been a rational and mutually respectful discussion, and you did exactly what the Committee 

hoped you would do, which is you brought us firsthand experience, 

real live experience, different reactions but right from the border. 

So you have helped our inquiry very much. 

We are going to leave the record of the hearing open for 2 weeks 

for any additional questions or statements to be added. 

In the meantime I thank each one of you not only for coming 

here, which took some effort, and contributing to our oversight but 

also for the work you do, the tough work, really critical work every 

day. So stay safe and God bless you. 

And with that, we will adjourn the hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m, the Committee was adjourned.] 

(61) 

SECURING THE BORDER: PROGRESS AT THE 

FEDERAL LEVEL 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Carper, Pryor, Landrieu, Tester, 

Collins, McCain, and Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. We welcome everyone. The topic for the hearing today is ‘‘Securing the 

Border: Progress at the Federal Level.’’ This is the third in a series 

of hearings we have been doing on border security, focusing particularly, of necessity, on our Southern Border. But just as history 

changed on September 11, 2001, in another way, much more positively, history had a turning point on Sunday with the killing of 

Osama bin Laden. And I would be remiss not to say a word of 

thanks to you, Madam Secretary, Janet Napolitano, and to all the 

people who work with you in the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), and by extension to all the people in the security sector of 

our government—military and intelligence—who performed so brilliantly and bravely and worked together to bring about the extraordinary result that was achieved on Sunday in Pakistan. 

The teamwork that was so pervasive in the successful assault on 

that compound in Pakistan is precisely what this Committee hoped 

for when we worked so hard first to establish the Department of 

Homeland Security in 2002 after September 11, 2001, then introducing and bringing forth the legislation that created the 9/11 

Commission Act, and then considering in two phases and advance 

through the Committee, and ultimately to enactment, the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, reforming the intelligence community. I think all of us are very grateful and very 

proud of the work that was done. And since this is the first opportunity I have had to see you in public, I wanted to thank you and 

ask you to thank all those who have worked with you. And I hope 

you will say a few words about that in your opening statement. 

Also, as good as we feel about what happened on Sunday in Pakistan and as much as we know that it makes us safer, and the 

world safer, we also know the war against Islamist terrorism is not 

62 

over. The enemy is still out there and will continue to try to attack 

us here at home, and to the extent that you are able in your testimony, I think, either in the opening statement or in questions, I 

would like to ask you a bit about the post-bin Laden sense of homeland security. 

Let me come back to the topic of the day. Briefly, the security 

of our borders in all its manifestations is very important. The truth 

is that one of the great achievements since September 11, 2001, is 

the extent to which we have secured our borders against those who 

would come in to do us harm. The focus of these hearings, of 

course, has been on a different kind of border security, which is 

border security related to illegal immigration, but also concerns 

about the drug cartel violence in Mexico and the extent to which 

it may come over our border into the United States. And, in this 

regard, too, I want to thank you for all you have done. I think you 

have faced really significant challenges, both in terms of all kinds 

of border security and, of course, natural disasters. And you have 

handled your job with real strength and effectiveness and common 

sense, and I appreciate it. 

Witnesses at the two previous hearings on the topic of border security, particularly the Southern Border, largely agreed that the 

situation along that border has improved significantly over the past 

decade. The best statistics available bear this out. The one that 

seems to be most commonly used is that apprehensions of illegal 

aliens along the border are down 73 percent since 2000, which is 

the lowest level in three decades. 

This is, of course, good news. We have spent a fair amount of 

time in the previous hearings on the metrics, on the statistics, and 

we know that they are just a piece of the picture and can be misleading. At different times, for example, the Border Patrol has cited 

increases in apprehensions as proof of progress, and sometimes decreases in apprehensions, on the theory that the fewer people trying to get over into the United States, the fewer the apprehensions. 

So we believe we have to try our best to figure out how many people actually are attempting to come over the border and compare 

that to the number of those who succeed. I understand the Border 

Patrol has been trying to collect this information through footprints, video footage, and sensors, but that its methods are not 100 

percent up to the challenge. And it is a difficult challenge because 

we are trying to measure the number of people whom we have not 

apprehended. I hope that you will be able to find ways to improve 

the collection of this information and consider making it public so 

we can more accurately assess the extent of the problem and our 

progress on it. 

The second point that has come out of these hearings that has 

struck me is that the focus on the Southern Border has often overshadowed other vulnerabilities that continue elsewhere in our immigration enforcement system. One statistic which reveals such a 

vulnerability that I would guess would be and is very surprising to 

most Americans is that about 40 percent of the illegal immigrants 

in our country—undocumented aliens, people living and working in 

the United States today illegally—came into this country legally 

and then overstayed the terms of their visas. So in terms of the 

problem of illegal immigration, about 40 percent of the problem is 

63 

1The GAO report referenced by Chairman Lieberman appears in the Appendix on page 263. 

not people who come over the border and into our country illegally 

but people who have come in legally and over stayed. And this both 

undercuts the kind of legitimacy of the law that we have about 

temporary visas, for instance, but it also threatens our security. 

The most pressing, the most sort of illustrative number to me 

still is the 9/11 Commission, which reminded us that five of the terrorists who attacked us on September 11, 2001, entered the United 

States legally and then intentionally overstayed their visas. Just 

recently, a couple of years ago, in 2009, Hosam Maher Husein 

Smadi, arrested in Dallas on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks, was in the United States originally on a student visa, a legal 

visa, and then overstayed. 

A new GAO report,1 which just came out, concludes that of the 

roughly 400 people who have been convicted of any terrorism-related crimes since September 11th, 36 had overstayed their visas. 

In other words, almost 10 percent of the people who have been convicted of terrorism-related activities in the decade since September 

11, 2011, were legal immigrants who overstayed their visas and became illegal. 

Despite a lot of congressional effort and DHS effort, we still lack 

an exit system that will effectively identify people who have overstayed their visas in real time. The reality, it seems to me, is that 

the U.S. Visistor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (USVISIT)—the DHS program that is supposed to identify visa 

overstays based on visitor entry and exit information—remains a 

troubled and ineffective program. 

Officials of your Department have told the Committee that USVISIT processes less than half of all potential overstays identified 

by automated matching of entry and exit records, and GAO, in this 

just-released report, found that the program has an overall backlog 

of 1.6 million potential overstay records that have not yet been 

processed. I am sure part of this is that we have not given you the 

support to do that, but it is a real problem. 

Identifying individuals who overstay is a crucial component of securing our borders and making our immigration system credible 

and real to the law. And to me it is just unacceptable that we are 

still unable to systematically identify people who overstay. So I 

hope you will be able to talk about that and what the Department 

is doing about it in your testimony. 

As we began this series of hearings on border security, I at least 

had the goal of both dealing with the current state of border security, how are we doing at keeping our borders secure, particularly 

with regard to illegal immigration. But here was my hope: That if 

we reached the level of finding out what is not working in border 

security and could fix it, that we would not only have achieved that 

good result, but it would be a preface to going back and considering 

reform of our immigration laws, which just about everybody here 

in Congress agrees need to be fixed but have different ideas about 

how to fix them. So the presumption was border security could lead 

not only to better border security, but to building a political consensus to deal with the continuing problem of illegal immigration. 

64 

It seems to me now, as I listen to the testimony, that the inverse 

is also true, that there are forms of what I would call ‘‘smart immigration reform’’ that also can enhance border security, or to put it 

more explicitly, there are kinds of smart immigration reform that 

can significantly reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into America. And to the extent that we have time—and I hope we will—I 

welcome your thoughts on that connection. Thanks very much for 

being here. I look forward to your testimony. 

At this time I am pleased to call on our Ranking Member, Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me join you in 

welcoming the Secretary of DHS back before our Committee today. 

With the welcome news that Osama bin Laden has been killed, I 

want to join the Chairman in thanking everyone involved, particularly those brave Navy SEALs who so flawlessly executed the mission, and the many other members of our military, intelligence, and 

homeland security forces whom we may never know. This was, as 

the Chairman has pointed out, exactly the kind of collaboration of 

our intelligence and operational capabilities that we envisioned 

when we reformed our intelligence community in the wake of the 

attacks on our country on September 11, 2001. 

This successful operation demonstrates once again the importance of sharing intelligence information across the agency silos— 

the very opposite of the disjointed pre-September 11, 2001, experience. 

I appreciate, Madam Secretary, that the Department immediately issued a Situational Awareness Alert to key State and local 

homeland security and law enforcement officials at midnight on 

Sunday sharing intelligence information and including a call for 

heightened vigilance. That system did not even exist prior to the 

attacks on our country. 

Today’s hearing, as the Chairman has pointed out, is a continuation of this Committee’s focus on the challenges facing us regarding border security. Border security is critical not only to prevent 

individuals from entering the United States illegally for whatever 

reason, but also to stop—at the border, at visa-issuing points, or on 

inbound flights—those who are determined to harm us. And, despite the killing of Osama bin Laden, we must never forget that 

the battle against Islamist extremism will continue. 

The first two hearings in this most recent series emphasized the 

challenges along the Southwest Border, while earlier the Committee held a hearing on the Northern Border. When we consider 

the Southwest region, we should all pause to honor and remember 

the sacrifice of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was murdered last December, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

(ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata, who was killed by members of a drug 

cartel in February. 

These fallen heroes and the horrific news reports continuing to 

stream out of Mexico reveal the brutality of the cartels. Recently, 

nearly 300 bodies were discovered in mass graves—some just 90 

miles from Brownsville, Texas. 

65 

Just last month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director 

Robert Mueller observed that ‘‘drug cartels transport kilos of cocaine and marijuana, gangs kidnap and murder innocent civilians; 

traffickers smuggle human cargo; and corrupt public officials line 

their pockets by looking the other way.’’ Director Mueller concluded 

that, taken together, these issues ‘‘constitute a threat not only to 

the safety of our border communities, but to the security of the entire country.’’ 

This backdrop explains why many of us were perplexed to hear 

the Secretary state, in late March, that security on the Southern 

U.S. Border is ‘‘better now than it ever has been’’ and that violence 

from neighboring Mexico has not edged north. 

The National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents, has countered that crime indeed is spilling over 

from Mexico. They point to the murder of three Border Patrol 

agents by the cartels in the last 3 years, the ranchers and other 

citizens who have been gunned down in border communities, and 

the Phoenix area which has risen to become a cartel-related crime 

hot spot. The council concluded, ‘‘The U.S.-Mexico Border is unsafe 

and to say anything else is not true.’’ 

While the Secretary’s data on apprehensions on the border are 

certainly useful, there are contributing factors that should not be 

ignored as we scrutinize the numbers about declining interdictions. 

For instance, are some of the declining numbers simply reflecting 

a slow economy so fewer people are trying to cross over into this 

country? Is the persistent cartel violence deterring others from 

crossing? To put it bluntly, individuals will not be arrested at the 

border, or north of it, if they are too frightened to run a gauntlet 

of terror that may end in a mass grave. 

These and other factors should be considered as we evaluate the 

effectiveness of the Administration’s policies in addressing what is 

a very difficult issue. 

While the Southwest Border is much more likely to make the 

evening news, we must not forget the Northern Border, and the 

Chairman has pointed that out. Senator Tester has also made that 

point on numerous occasions. According to a report released by the 

GAO earlier this year, the Border Patrol was aware of all illegal 

border crossings on only about 25 percent of the 4,000-mile Northern Border. The Border Patrol was able to make an immediate arrest on less than 2 percent, or 69 miles, of that 4,000-mile border. 

This is especially troubling because GAO has observed that the terrorist threat on the Northern Border is higher than the Southern 

Border, given the large expanse of area with limited law enforcement coverage. That is why I believe that the Administration’s proposal to limit Operation Stonegarden to the Southwest Border is 

ill-advised, and I am glad that it has been repeatedly rejected by 

Congress. This program should be used to help secure both the 

northern and the Southern Border. It helps fund joint operations 

between the Border Patrol, State, and local law enforcement that 

act as a force multiplier in areas that otherwise would be left unguarded. 

To cite just one example of the program’s success from my own 

State, Operation Stonegarden funds were instrumental in the arrest and conviction of an individual involved in a bulk cash smugVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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1The prepared statement of Secretary Napolitano appears in the Appendix on page 246. 

gling operation. During an Operation Stonegarden mission, a Fort 

Kent, Maine, police officer caught this criminal attempting to 

smuggle $137,000 across the border. He was patrolling well outside 

his regular community of Fort Kent, and this individual simply 

would not have been caught but for Operation Stonegarden funding. 

Finally, the effort to secure our borders is not limited to the borders themselves, and the Chairman has mentioned a GAO report 

that is of tremendous concern to me. The report indicates that ICE 

is only allocating about 3 percent of its resources to target individuals who are here illegally because they have overstayed their 

visas. They came legally in the first place, but now they are here 

illegally. And it is an enormous number. It is more than a third. 

It is between 33 and 40 percent of the number of people here illegally fall into that category. 

Another report by GAO examined the Visa Security Program 

(VSP), which deploys ICE special agents to foreign visa-issuing 

posts to help identify terrorist and criminal threats. According to 

the GAO, the United States only has VSP offices at 19 of the 57 

high-risk posts. The GAO further found ongoing turf battles between ICE and the State Department, which are simply unacceptable when it comes to dealing with the terrorist threats. 

So I look forward to discussing these issues with the Secretary 

today, and I thank her for appearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

Secretary Napolitano, thank you once again for being here, and 

we welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JANET A. NAPOLITANO,1 SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Chairman Lieberman, 

Senator Collins, and Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to testify today. I have a more complete statement that I ask 

be included in the record. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would like to begin, however, with discussing a topic that is on everyone’s mind before moving on the 

principal topic of the hearing. 

The operation against Osama bin Laden was an extraordinary 

success, not only for the United States but for the entire world. 

And I want to join you in commending the men and women of the 

intelligence community, the armed forces, and our counterterrorism 

professionals who played such an important role in bringing Osama 

bin Laden to justice. 

But this does not end our counterterrorism efforts. We must remain vigilant regrading the threat to the United States posed by 

al-Qaeda affiliates or al-Qaeda-like affiliates such as al-Qaeda in 

the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb 

(AQIM), and al-Shabaab, as well as the threat posed by homegrown 

violent extremists. 

Our security posture, which always includes a number of measures both seen and unseen, will continue to protect the American 

67 

people from the evolving threats that we face. We have taken a 

number of actions specifically in response to Sunday’s events. 

These include issuing advisories to fusion center directors, homeland security advisers, major city chief intelligence commanders, 

private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators, and 

other law enforcement entities. We are and have been reviewing all 

open cases of potential al-Qaeda core, AQAP, and AQIM operatives 

possibly in the United States in conjunction with the FBI. We are 

identifying any new targeting rules that should be instituted based 

on incoming intelligence. We are continuing to strengthen our recurrent vetting for visa asylum and other benefit applicants and recipients in cooperation with the intelligence community. We are deploying additional officers to non-secured areas at our large airports, the so-called Category X airports. And we are providing additional information to all air carriers. 

Now, as you know, we have recently substituted for the old color 

code, which was commonly viewed as obsolete, a new system, 

known as the National Terrorism Advisory System, to more effectively communicate information about terrorist threats. Right now 

we do not have any specific or credible intelligence that would lead 

us to issue an alert under this new system, realizing that under 

the new system the baseline is already elevated. In other words, 

the baseline assumes a continuing and evolving terrorist threat 

against the United States. 

We continue to review on an ongoing basis all material seized 

during the operation as well as new intelligence that may be coming in, and I stand ready to issue an alert should intelligence or 

information emerge that warrants it under the new advisory system. 

Now, to move on to the main topic of today’s hearing, I am glad 

to have the opportunity to speak about the Southwest Border, and 

I gather I will now be speaking also about the Northern Border, 

because unprecedented resources have been dedicated over the past 

21⁄2 years, and that has resulted in significant progress being 

made. And I also want to discuss the metrics that can be used to 

gauge that success. 

Now, as I just said, the Administration has dedicated a historic 

level of resources to securing the Southwest Border in terms of 

manpower, in terms of technology, and in terms of infrastructure. 

We have increased the size of the Border Patrol to more than 

20,700 agents, more than twice the size it was in 2004. ICE now 

has a quarter of all of its personnel in the Southwest Border region, more than ever. 

We have completed all but three miles of the fencing called for 

by Congress, and we have deployed thousands of technology assets 

along the border. And for the first time, DHS unmanned aircraft 

aerial capabilities cover the Southwest Border from California to 

Texas, providing critical aerial surveillance assistance to personnel 

on the ground. 

Furthermore, the actions being taken at the Southwest Border 

are being supplemented by critical security improvements at the 

Northern Border, including additional Border Patrol agents, technology, and infrastructure, as well as strong, serious, and strategic 

68 

enforcement of immigration laws in the interior of the United 

States. 

Now, as someone who has lived most of her life in border States 

and who has worked as a public official dealing with border-related 

issues since 1993, I can say from personal experience that the steps 

that have been taken constitute the most comprehensive and dedicated effort to strengthen border security that our country has ever 

deployed. Over the past 2 years, seizures of contraband have risen 

in all categories: Drugs, illegal weapons, and illegal bulk cash. Illegal immigration attempts, as measured by apprehensions of illegal 

aliens, have decreased by 36 percent in the last 2 years and are 

less than one-third of what they were at their peak. 

In addition, FBI crime statistics demonstrate that the crime 

rates in border communities have remained steady or have dropped 

dramatically in recent years, continuing a decade-long trend. 

In this sense, I am not the only one, Senator Collins, who has 

stated that the border is safer now than it has ever been. The border city mayors themselves have stated that and are concerned 

that the misperception that the border communities on this side of 

the border are unsafe is interfering with their ability to attract jobs 

and economic development to their own regions. 

I am also, I must say, perplexed that the union which represents 

some of our Border Patrol agents does not support the success that 

the Border Patrol has achieved over the past 21⁄2 years, and I can 

only say that I am perplexed. I will not go into that any further. 

Now, the significant improvements would not have been possible 

without the bipartisan support of this Congress, particularly the 

$600 million supplemental appropriations for border security 

passed last summer, and I thank you for your continued support 

in that regard. 

Nonetheless, we still face challenges. This is not a victory lap. 

We must continue to build upon the progress we have made. We 

remain deeply concerned about the drug cartel violence taking 

place in Mexico. We know that these drug organizations are seeking to undermine the rule of law, especially in northern Mexico, 

and we must guard against any spillover effects into the United 

States. And while our efforts over the past 2 years have led to 

progress in every significant metric we currently have, we must 

focus on new ways to comprehensively measure results along the 

border. 

Ultimately, the success of our efforts must be measured in terms 

of overall security and quality of life along the entire border region. 

Accordingly, I have directed the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to develop a new index supported both by CBP, other 

law enforcement, and third-party data to comprehensively measure 

security along the Southwest Border and the quality of life in the 

region. 

As part of this process, CBP is convening a group of independent 

third-party representatives to evaluate and refine any such index. 

In developing these border metrics, it is important to keep in mind 

our ultimate goal, which is to make border cities more secure and 

to provide a basis there for economic prosperity. 

That is why a new border security index will not only take into 

account traditional measures, such as apprehensions and contraVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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band seizures, State and local crime statistics, and overall crime 

index reporting, but we will also incorporate indicators of the impact of illegal cross-border activity on the quality of life in the border region. These can include factors such as traffic accidents involving illegal aliens or narcotics smugglers, rates of vehicle theft 

and numbers of abandoned vehicles, impacts on property values, 

and other measures of economic activity that can be impacted by 

illegal immigration. 

Because defining success at the border is critical to how we move 

forward, our definition of success must meet several guidelines. It 

must be based on reliable, validated numbers and processes, it 

must tell the complete and transparent statistical story, and it 

must draw upon the priorities of border communities themselves. 

The approach currently underway is designed to meet all of these 

criteria, and I look forward to working with this Committee on this 

important issue. 

There are a number of other things I can say, particularly in response to some of the GAO numbers that were cited. I think I will 

reserve that time for the question-and-answer portion of the hearing. Suffice it to say, however, that many of those GAO statistics 

are neither comprehensive nor totally complete with respect to the 

efforts that have been undertaken. I look forward to being able to 

address that a little bit during the question and answer period. 

But with that, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and Members of the Committee, thank you again for the opportunity to testify. Thank you again for the opportunity to present the case for 

border security in the United States. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Madam Secretary. We will do 

7-minute rounds of questioning. 

I appreciate the comments you made about the state of readiness 

of the Department post-bin Laden’s death. I want to ask a few 

questions to, I think, hopefully illustrate the seamlessness of our 

counterterrorism effort now. 

We know that the Navy SEALs took out of that bin Laden compound in Pakistan an enormous amount of data, computer systems, 

and the rest. I assume that as this material is gone over, anything 

related to homeland security will be shared immediately with your 

Department. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. It is being shared. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Great. Second, I want to sort of highlight 

what I believe I heard you say, which is that although you have 

not raised the National Threat Advisory System alert—and you are 

right, it is very important to point out that in one sense the change 

that you put into effect just last week, the new system, has us always at a state of alert. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is correct. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We are always at a state of alert. The 

judgment you make in changing that would be to raise it to an elevated state of alert and then one that is imminent, where there is 

imminent danger? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We have a Counterterrorism Advisory 

Board that is comprised of all of the members of the intelligence 

community that are constantly reviewing the intelligence coming in 

as it relates to the homeland. And then they analyze it for whether 

70 

a threat is either elevated from the norm or it is so specific and 

credible that it actually reveals an imminent threat. 

At that point, an advisory would be issued. It has three parts, 

tells people as many facts as we can. It tells them what they can 

do to protect themselves or their families from the threat. It tells 

them what they can do to help us with regard to the threat. For 

example, we may be looking for certain types of vehicles, certain 

types of other things. And it tells them where they can go to get 

consistently and continually updated information. 

So, rather than the colors, which did not communicate any information, the new system is designed to communicate information. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And just to clarify, the fact that you do 

not have specific and credible evidence and, therefore, have not 

raised the alert level to elevated does not mean that the Department has not taken additional steps in the days since Osama bin 

Laden was killed. And in your testimony today, you indicated that 

there was increased security at ports of entry, including airports. 

And I do not know that you mentioned seaports, but I assume that 

is included. Is that correct? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is correct. We have surged some resources there. In airports in particular, we have also taken additional efforts at our borders, and as I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, 

we are also going back and reviewing all of the pre-existing intelligence with respect to open files against the United States. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. I appreciate that. It is very reassuring to know that some of the materials that were seized at bin 

Laden’s compound are already being shared with the Department 

because it is certainly my impression that bin Laden, himself, continued to be focused on attacks on the United States of America, 

on our homeland. And it may be that the information that was 

gathered by the SEALs from his compound will help us hopefully 

prevent such attacks. 

Let me focus in now on the direct question that we originally 

were going to handle, which was border security. We are operating 

in a political context here, and I mean that in terms of the body 

politic, not partisan politics. We are dealing with how we can form 

a consensus to both improve the security at our borders, but as we 

said, there has been an equation that many people have articulated 

that yes, our immigration system is broken, but we are never going 

to have enough support for immigration reform until we can say 

our border is secured. So I want to deal with that part of it first. 

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required that the Department of 

Homeland Security achieve operational control of the border, which 

that 2006 law defined as ‘‘the prevention of all unlawful entries 

into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.’’ 

Madam Secretary, at a recent colloquium, former DHS Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Thomas Ridge and you all agreed that 

total operational control over our border is effectively an 

unreachable goal, that we are never going to be able to fully seal 

off the border from all illegal activity. 

If that is correct—and I suspect it is correct—I think we have to 

ask ourselves, and I am going to ask you now: What is an achievVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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able goal in terms of securing our border? And I ask that both because we have a responsibility to secure our border, but also be 

hopeful that it will help us determine what the level of border security is we can agree that we need to achieve before we can then 

go on to deal with the problem of immigration reform. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think two things. 

One is that is why we have gone back and said, look, ‘‘operational 

control’’ is an archaic term. I think that was testified to by some 

of the other witnesses you have had in this area. It is a limited 

term of art. It makes for a sound bite, but it does not actually reflect the reality of what is happening at the border. 

But the fact of the matter is that we need a more quantitative 

and qualitative way to reflect what actually is occurring at the border. That is what I have directed CBP to prepare. But also, Mr. 

Chairman, there is a linkage between immigration reform and the 

border. They are interrelated, so the notion of this kind of sequencing does not reflect the reality that with immigration reform on 

some of the underlying laws involving visas, temporary workers, 

those sorts of things, if you deal with the legal immigration system, 

that also has an impact on what is in the illegal immigration system. 

And so this is a Gordian knot that we must untie, looking at all 

of these things together. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So I take it that what you are saying as 

an example is that we may be able to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants by altering immigration law, for instance, to provide for 

temporary work visas, or perhaps to raise the existing cap on visas 

allowed for people coming into the country. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed, and a category example would be, 

for example, agricultural work visas. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Exactly. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. But there are many others as well. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me just as a final word—my time is 

up—thank you for the announcement you have made this morning, 

I think, significant, which is that you have directed Customs and 

Border Protection to come up with a new index, a new metric for 

measuring border security, and in doing so they are going to bring 

in outside experts to consult with them. I think that will really 

help to inform the debate and allow us to set some goals that are 

achievable, that we can meet, and also hopefully create a foundation for moving on to the related question of immigration reform. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we are 

moving as expeditiously as possible on this. It is a bit of an onion 

to peel when you actually look at it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It is. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. One of the things we want to know, for 

example, is how many people have been deterred or prevented from 

crossing illegally by the measures we are taking. And it is very difficult in all areas, but especially here, to measure a deterrence 

number, to get the denominator in that way. And so we have to 

have other factors we look at from which we can reasonably say 

and reasonably extrapolate that we now have a safe and secure 

border region that also facilitates the flow of legal commerce, trade 

and tourism, and the like. 

72 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Thank you very much. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, let me first just start on the border security 

issue because you made a comment that you were expecting to talk 

about the Southwest Border but would talk about the Northern 

Border. Just to clarify, our title of this hearing of ‘‘Securing the 

Border’’ and our witness letter made very clear we were talking 

about all the borders. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. And I am ready to do that. 

Senator COLLINS. So I just do not want those watching this hearing to have a misleading impression. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed. 

Senator COLLINS. Let me just start with a December GAO report 

that looked at a number of border security issues, and I know you 

are familiar with it. It was in this report that GAO quotes DHS 

as reporting that the terrorist threat on the Northern Border is 

higher given the broad, expansive area with limited law enforcement presence. The GAO also went on to say that DHS reports networks of illicit criminal activity in the smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and weapons between the two countries. 

Now, the vast majority of trade and travel between the U.S. and 

Canada obviously is legitimate, and we do not want to impede that 

legitimate travel and trade. But that is one reason I am such a 

supporter of Operation Stonegarden. It allows for joint operations 

that truly are a force multiplier for the Federal Government as 

well as helping State, county, and local law enforcement. 

So I truly do not understand, in light of DHS’s own assessment 

that the terrorist threat is higher from the Northern Border and 

that there is significant criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, 

people, and weapons, why the Administration year after year tries 

to restrict Operation Stonegarden to just the Southern Border. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, if I might discuss some of the measures that are ongoing at the Northern Border that I think are not 

captured in the December GAO report, the Northern Border is different than the Southwest Border in the sense that you have some 

big areas, urban areas, where a lot of traffic goes back and forth, 

and then you have huge expanses of very sparsely populated farmland, to which Senator Tester could testify. 

So our design for the Northern Border is different than the 

Southwest Border, and our Northern Border strategy is different as 

well. It is much more technology dependent, for example. So we are 

adding more systems up there that can detect low-flying aircraft. 

Also, our partnership with Canada has really evolved over the past 

months so that you had Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Obama themselves announcing a joint vision for a perimeter 

involving Canada and the United States, and greater cooperation 

with Canadian law enforcement on both sides of the border. And 

that is going extraordinarily well. For example, we are looking at 

being able to integrate their own sensor and radar feeds into our 

system as well. 

With respect to Operation Stonegarden, there are some Operation Stonegarden monies that have been allocated to the Northern 

Border, but, Senator, in terms of looking at where the need is 

73 

greatest—because I only get so much and we only get so much— 

measured by what the local law enforcement is asked to do, the 

overtime, the maintenance of vehicles, those sorts of things that 

Operation Stonegarden is designed to help pay for, I will acknowledge that the priority has gone to the Southwest Border, and it 

probably will continue to do so. 

Senator COLLINS. Well, I would just suggest—and I understand 

the problems of the Southwest Border are severe, and that is why 

we have so many more border agents there, and we should. But 

this is a program that is not an expensive program that allows you 

to do more than you otherwise could, and it is DHS’s own findings 

that warn about the terrorist threat from the north and the smuggling. 

Let me in my remaining time switch to a different issue, and 

that is the Visa Security Program. I have been watching this program for many years, since 2002, I think, when it was first established, and the fact is we are just not making much progress. ICE 

personnel have only been deployed to 19 of the 57 highest-risk 

State Department posts around the world, and this program is an 

example of one where we can stop people from getting visas in the 

first place. And it is an example of the kind of coordination that 

you have advocated and helped advance across department lines 

and that this Committee has always promoted. So, to me, it is very 

disappointing that the President’s budget request is unchanged 

from last year for this program. 

Are you going to be able to cover more of these high-risk posts 

given a flat budget? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I think in the fiscal environment, one of 

the things we were asked to do was to see if there are current functions we are performing that we could continue to perform or even 

enlarge if we could figure out another way to do them. The Visa 

Security Program, as you acknowledge, requires an agreement with 

the State Department, and I will acknowledge there have been 

some issues there. I think we are working our way through them. 

But the other thing I tasked ICE to do was to figure out a way 

in which we could provide the same sort of double-check service on 

a visa remotely by using now some of the information technology 

systems we have in place. And I believe, Senator, that this year we 

will be able to do that and expand our visa eyes and ears in that 

fashion. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

In order of appearance, the next Senators would be Senators 

Tester, Johnson, Landrieu, and Pryor. Senator Tester. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is always 

good to see you, Madam Secretary. I appreciate the trips to Montana to look at the Northern Border and see the challenges up 

there. I also very much appreciate the statement you made earlier 

today when talking about Osama bin Laden, that this is not a victory lap; this is about getting a job done and moving forward, making sure we are diligent on our security in the war on terror, and 

it is about some very difficult decisions that were made. And you 

74 

were a part of that, and you need to be credited for that, and I 

want to thank you. 

The other thing that I wanted to talk about really quick, because 

the Ranking Member talked about this a lot, was Operation 

Stonegarden, so I am not going to dwell on it a lot, but I do want 

to just simply refresh on what you just said, and that is, there 

would be Operation Stonegarden grants available to the Northern 

Border. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, there are Operation Stonegarden 

monies available, Senator, but they are not in the same amount as 

for the Southern Border. 

Senator TESTER. And I understand that, and when we are talking about Operation Stonegarden and limited amounts of money, 

are you able to take into account, as the head honcho, the potential 

money that the Operation Stonegarden dollars could save in manpower and be able to use some of that money saved from manpower 

to further expand that program? Are you able to do that within 

your budget? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, and that is an analysis we are using 

for all our grant funding. I will say, Senator, that one of the things 

that we have been doing over the past weeks is looking at the fiscal 

year 2011 budget agreement, which cut a lot of the grant funding 

that we have for anti-terrorism grants and looking at, well, how do 

we prioritize, how do we make sure the money is going to where 

it is best used to reduce risk, realizing that we will never totally 

eliminate risk. And we are doing the same with Operation Stonegarden. 

Senator TESTER. At least can I get your reassurance that when 

2012 comes around there will be dollars, whether Operation 

Stonegarden or some other grant, there will be dollars to be able 

to develop partnerships with local law enforcement agencies up on 

the Northern Border? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator, it is fair to say that through Operation Stonegarden or other grants there will be dollars available, 

but the whole universe of grants, when you add them up, is less 

than it was last year. 

Senator TESTER. Yes. We may or may not be able to help with 

that. 

Border interoperability: There is a demonstration program. I was 

pleased that DHS announced a round of grants through that demonstration program on interoperability. I think that it is critically 

important that people are able to communicate, as you well know, 

with what just transpired, how important that is. 

As we move forward, is DHS looking to expand upon this program? And if so, how are they going to expand to help increase 

communication abilities between the very same people we are talking about through Operation Stonegarden? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, we have a whole different set of 

funding streams for interoperability, and the answer is yes. And I 

will also say that this is an area where the Northern Border is a 

particular issue because of the large amount of rural territory that 

has to be covered. And from an interoperability standpoint, that is 

really our most difficult problem in some respects. Urban areas, we 

75 

pretty much have ways to deal with the urban areas of the country, 

but the rural expanses of the country are more difficult. 

Senator TESTER. These overstays—and I am just going to touch 

on it a little bit. The Chairman and Ranking Member also touched 

on it. You had talked about Prime Minister Harper and President 

Obama getting together and having a meeting and a joint vision. 

Is there anything being done to be able to share information on 

visa overstays in that regard? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is something we have discussed. 

There is nothing concrete at this point, but I have met with my 

counterpart several times about this. And let me, if I might, 

though, go to a point that was made about the GAO saying that 

only 3 percent of our resources go to visa overstays. That is an example of only looking at one account which is 100 percent devoted 

for visa overstays. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of our 

programs capture visa overstays. Secure Communities, for example, which picks up those individuals who have been arrested, also 

picks up visa overstays. And so the 3 percent is not really an accurate reflection. 

Senator TESTER. And I understand that. I mean, it is difficult, 

but I will tell you that folks who come in legally and then forget 

to go home, I think it is a huge problem, and I think the Chairman 

brought it up. And anything we can do, whether it is developing 

relationships with Canada, Mexico, or anybody else, to help you in 

that regard to remind them to head back, I think, is critically important. 

Also there are sham universities. Recently I called for an investigation into sham universities that manipulate immigration laws 

to bring people in, totally back-door, thousands of folks. Are you 

aware of these schools? And is the Department taking any steps to 

remedy that? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, we have had a whole initiative out 

of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigratin Services on the sham university issues, and we have actually dealt with several of the 

shams, so absolutely. 

Senator TESTER. Good. Thank you for that. 

First of all, I appreciate Commissioner Alan Bersin’s work with 

that as far as—well, there are some issues about allowing planes 

to land at the Great Falls Airport with fewer passengers. The director of Great Falls Airport is going to be coming here and meeting with, I believe, Commissioner Bersin and other senior folks 

over at the CBP, and I would hope that would be a productive 

meeting. 

I do not ask this as a question, but I just appreciate your efforts 

in working together to solve the problem. I think it is a big problem, quite frankly, from my perspective, and I think it is a problem 

that can be handled at your end giving guidance to folks on the 

ground. So thank you for that. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We will work with the Great Falls Airport Authority. If they want to land more international passengers, 

as I understand it, they need to do some different things at the facility. They are landing 20 to 29 passengers now by flight. They 

want to go to 56. 

76 

Senator TESTER. Yes, well, I think it can be worked out, and I 

think that the bottom line is that—well, I will just put it this 

way—there is no need getting into the specifics. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We will try, yes. 

Senator TESTER. I appreciate that. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Absolutely. 

Senator TESTER. You talked about an elevated state of alert, 

which is what we are on now, correct? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We are always on that, yes. 

Senator TESTER. Was it increased after the events of Sunday? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. No, we did not issue a separate advisory, 

except I think it is important to note that we began immediately 

putting out intelligence products to fusion centers, State and local 

law enforcement, transportation authorities, and the like so that if 

they wanted to take any individual actions, they could do so. 

Senator TESTER. Well, it was interesting. Just as a sidebar, I had 

to fly into Minneapolis Sunday night and flew out Monday morning 

to get here earlier than I could normally out of Montana, and it 

seemed to me that the Transportation Security Administration 

(TSA) was in a more elevated state. I saw people walking around 

in places I had never noticed them before. Lines were much longer. 

I thought maybe the job being done at security was more thorough. 

Did they do that on their own, or did you give them instruction, 

or did somebody give them instruction? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. No. That is correct, Senator. TSA surged 

some resources for a few days until we could see what the intelligence outcome was from what was seized at the compound. 

Senator TESTER. Very good. Well, once again, I just want to 

thank you for your leadership. I very much appreciate it, and it is 

good to have you in front of the Committee. Thank you. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Tester. Senator Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, 

welcome back. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Senator JOHNSON. I would like to pick up a little bit on what 

Senator Tester was just talking about, the increased threat level. 

I just want to understand why we are not increasing the threat 

level. It sounds like we will only increase it under the new system 

if there is a specific threat as opposed to just a generalized threat 

level. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. If there is specific credible intelligence of 

a threat, yes, an advisory would go out. It can be elevated or it can 

be imminent. The idea or the thought behind this—and this was 

the product of a bipartisan commission co-chaired by former FBI 

Director William Webster and Fran Townsend, who was President 

Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor, and then there were a number 

of experts on the commission. The idea is, instead of just putting 

out a color, to actually give people information. An advisory itself, 

if we elevate, might be restricted to, say, a particular transportation sector or it might be restricted to a particular area of the 

country. And they are designed to expire on their own in 2 weeks 

77 

so that we do not continually add advisory on advisory on advisory 

with the effect that nobody really pays attention anymore. 

Senator JOHNSON. But if you increase the threat level, that does 

imply that certain actions are being taken, correct? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. There would be certain actions taken associated with increased threat levels, yes. 

Senator JOHNSON. And if there was ever just a generalized increase in the threat level, it would be in relation to an action, the 

successful capturing and killing of Osama bin Laden, correct? I just 

do not quite understand why we would not be increasing the threat 

level here over a short period of time. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. First of all, this is an ongoing evaluation, 

but at the time of the capture of Osama bin Laden, and as of yesterday, there was no specific credible threat of specific retaliation 

other than generalized there may be something that happens. 

Under that generalized sense, we already lean forward; we already 

ask people to help, if they see something to say something. We already have police departments doing suspicious activity reporting. 

We already have resources deployed at areas that have been of particular interest historically, like aviation. So that already happens. 

The idea behind the advisory system is that if we need to elevate 

a particular area or a particular sector of the country, that goes 

out, and we provide them as many facts as we can, and we provide 

then what we want people to do, how they can help the government, and how they can stay consistently informed. And if you go 

to disasteralerts.gov, there is a template for the advisory system 

and a briefing on how it works. It is new, and that is why I think 

people are still making that adjustment. 

Senator JOHNSON. Well, let us go on to border security. The last 

time you appeared before the Committee, I was trying to determine 

what we needed to do to secure the border, and one of the questions I asked you is: If it is a problem with resources, what would 

it cost to actually secure the border? And your answer was: We 

have enough resources. 

So taking off from that point, do you have in your mind a multiple-step process—I mean, what are your priorities in terms of, 

you say you have the resources, now what steps are you going to 

take to actually get the border secured? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, they will be different between the 

Southern and Northern Borders. As I mentioned to Senator Collins, 

these are very different areas to secure. But it is a combination of 

manpower, technology, and infrastructure. And we are constantly 

looking at a number of measures to adjudicate whether we are getting results for the investments we are making. 

And when you ask me whether we have enough resources, I realize and I think we all realize that we are in an era of depleted resources, and I have to figure this out, recognizing that in all likelihood there is not another $600 million supplemental that is going 

to come my way for the border. 

So how do we make the best use of what we have? Well, we insist on accountability. We insist on producing results. And now I 

am insisting that the CBP develop a better way to measure those 

results. 

78 

Senator JOHNSON. I am a little confused. Do you have enough resources or don’t you? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I believe, Senator, that with the resources we have and the resources that the President has requested, which will sustain the record level of resources at the border—we have never had these kinds of resources at the border. So 

the key is not more. The key is sustainment. So with those, with 

the supplemental we already have and annualizing the supplemental, which is what the President has asked be done in fiscal 

year 2012, we will be able to continue our efforts at securing the 

border. 

The question is and the challenge for the Committee and Senate 

will be making sure we have a fiscal year 2012 budget from which 

to work because if we have to go back to a continuing resolution, 

we will have some problems. 

Senator JOHNSON. I am a numbers guy, so I am liking the idea 

of some overall metric because in preparing for this hearing, there 

is just an awful lot of numbers, there is a lot of data. Turning that 

into real information, I mean, is the concept here that we are going 

to have an overall single number index? And is that going to be by 

region? Is that going to be for the entire country? What is your concept in terms of a threat assessment or securing the border type 

of index? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I am waiting for CBP—they are already 

in this process—to come back to me, but I believe it conceivable 

that we would have two different indices, one for the Northern Border and one for the Southern Border, because they are different. 

But I do not think we have concluded that. And the index may be 

a range, which would reflect overall efforts at the border. 

What I know for sure is looking at apprehensions alone does not 

cut it. Using the anachronistic term ‘‘operational control’’ also does 

not cut it. We need to have something more qualitative and quantitative that you can use in allocating resources and we can use as 

well. 

Senator JOHNSON. Even at the Southern Border, there is a vast 

difference in terms of our level of success, correct? Wouldn’t you 

want to have that index region by region along the different borders? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, we would anticipate using it sector 

by sector. I mean, there is a big difference between, say, the Yuma 

Sector, which is very isolated and in which there is a lot of military 

land, and the Tucson Sector, which is the busiest and is the one 

where we are putting the most resources right now. So even within 

one State—albeit the Yuma Sector crosses a little bit into California—we see a difference. So that is why I think any kind of 

index will probably have to reflect some sort of range. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Johnson. 

Just to come back to the threat level, we are all getting accustomed to the new system, though I think it is an improvement. 

Well, let me put it this way: We are always on alert, and so the 

question is do we raise it to elevated. Right now, after Osama bin 

Laden was killed, you have not raised it to elevated for the reason 

you state. There is not specific and credible evidence of a threat 

79 

against the U.S. homeland. However, you have taken additional 

steps. 

So just for clarification—I do not want to belabor this—when you 

go to elevated, if you did, does it mean that the government is taking additional steps or that you are calling on the citizenry to be 

more alert, or both? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Both. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Both. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. And it also corresponds to additional efforts by State and local responders as well. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. And so in instituting the new system, one 

of the things we did was to work a lot with police departments and 

so forth around the country as to what elevated would mean. 

We are always at a state of alert. We are always calling on the 

citizens to, as we say—and it is a very easy to remember slogan— 

if you see something, say something. And our actions are predicated on the fact that we are always on alert. 

I will also say that the decision to raise or not to raise is based 

on recommendations from the Counterterrorism Advisory Board, 

which is comprised of representatives from all of the intelligence 

community and is constantly reviewing what is coming in. And 

right now, given the material obtained from the compound, they 

are meeting at least once daily to go through everything to advise 

me as to whether, yes, we should raise it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is really important, both the clarification—but, again, I come back to the fact that our system is really working seamlessly now so that you are getting real-time information from the material seized at bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, and you are evaluating it every day to determine whether you 

see anything in that information that would lead you to raise the 

threat level. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. More precisely, Mr. Chairman, the 

Counterterrorism Advisory Board is receiving that, and other information as well. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I mean, it constantly comes in, and they 

are constantly analyzing it. Instead of meeting sporadically, they 

are meeting regularly and really in an ongoing fashion now in relation to what happened on Sunday. And if they provide me with or 

advise me that, Secretary, this is what we have and we think this 

means that you should elevate the alert system that already exists, 

then I will act. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is very good to hear. I think the system is working as we would want it to. 

Let me go to the visa overstay question and the report that was 

issued yesterday by GAO. I know you have taken issue with at 

least one segment of it in terms of, you might say, the accuracy or 

clarity of the information. The report did say—and this is the part 

that was most troubling to me—that the US-VISIT program has a 

backlog of 1.6 million potential overstays that were identified but 

which have yet to be processed. So let me ask you to talk about 

that a little bit. 

80 

To the best of your knowledge, is that accurate? How are the potential overstays identified under the current system? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, let me, if I might, explain what is 

happening and what we are doing to improve the system. Visa 

overstays are another form of illegal immigration. I mean, once you 

have overstayed your visa, you are in the country illegally just as 

if you had come across the border. I mean, you have broken the 

law. 

Just as we do with people who have crossed the border and with 

visa overstays, we are appropriated enough money to remove about 

400,000 people a year from the country, and that is probably a 

small percentage of those who are in the country illegally total. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And that 400,000 is specifically on the 

overstays? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. No. Total. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Total of overstays and illegal entry? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes. If you really cost out what it costs 

to remove somebody who is in the country illegally, we get enough 

money between ourselves and the Justice Department to remove 

about 400,000 people. And so we have set priorities. Who are the 

ones we really want to make sure we get? 

First, we want to make sure we get those who fall within our 

guidelines for being possible national security threats. 

Second, we want to remove those who are violating criminal laws 

in addition to the immigration laws. 

And then we want to, third, deal with those who are fugitives— 

and this is not really so much a removal process as dealing more 

effectively with those who we pick up right at the border who are 

gaming the system and going back and forth. 

Now, when we get a visa overstay—and there are systems set up 

now that tell us or reveal to us that somebody is a possible overstay—the first thing we look at is who of those fall within our 

guidelines for being a possible national security threat. I do not 

want to say in an unclassified setting what those guidelines are, 

but they exist. All of those individuals are sent to another unit 

within ICE to be vetted and found. So we have 100 percent in that 

category. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me stop you there just to ask, what 

is typically the way under the current system—just for the record— 

the Department finds out that somebody has overstayed their visa? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. It can be a number of ways. One is if we 

have no record of exit. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Most logical, right? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. So right now, in the air environment, 

which this all started not because of land crossers but air. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We now can match or no-match about 89 

percent of all travels to an entry and an exit. So 89, 90 percent. 

The question is the remaining 10, and we do not have a match for 

them. And then if they fall within our national security guidelines, 

100 percent of that category would go to an ICE unit to be vetted 

and found and investigated. So we start there. 

The second category are those who have violated criminal laws, 

who are dangerous to the public safety, and we do a similar process 

81 

there. Now, there the institution of Secure Communities is really 

helping us because it is identifying for us those who are in the 

country illegally who are also in jail. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What can you do and what can we do to 

help reduce both the backlog of those who are identified as potential overstays but not processed and also, of course, to more effectively identify people either prior to coming in who seem to be coming in with the intention of overstaying, or to do better at finding 

the people? This is a larger question, a wrap-up question in a way 

on this subject. But if you take the 40-percent number and you 

take the lower number that we hear for estimates of illegal immigrants in the United States, 10 million, that means 4 million people are here because they came in legally and overstayed their visa. 

And as you just said—you are absolutely right—once you overstay 

your visa, you are as illegal as somebody who illegally crossed the 

border. For instance, if somebody hires you, that is illegal. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So how can we better deal with this part 

of the illegal immigration problem? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, it is important to recognize that we have to have priorities because, as I said 

before, we get enough money to remove 400,000, so now we have 

to go from 4 million, and that is just on the visa overstays, plus 

the illegals who cross the border to the 400,000. That is why setting basically prosecution priorities is key. 

The plain fact of the matter is most of the visa overstays, they 

are here illegally, but they are being drawn because they can work 

here. So that is why border security and immigration reform are 

so connected, because the plain fact of the matter is that a number 

of these individuals, if they could get a different kind of visa or a 

longer visa tied to employment, you would not put them in that 4 

million category. So we want to take off the top national security, 

criminals, and fugitives. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is fair, and I think that is the right 

thing to do. I am over my time, but I just want to ask one more 

question while we are on this. I want to ask who are the people, 

do we know, who are more likely to overstay their visas and then 

become illegal immigrants? Are they coming from different parts of 

the world even though their motivations may be similar, which is 

to work here, rejoin family, or the like? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is a question to which I do not know 

the answer. In other words, you are asking are the demographics 

different for the overstays versus the illegal border crossers? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. We assume that most of the illegal 

immigrants are coming in illegally. They are illegal immigrants because they came in illegally. They have come across the Southwest 

Border. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And probably there are a lot of reasons 

for that. The interest in coming over is greater by far than the 

number of legal visas that bring them in. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, and the other thing is recognize 

that the vast majority of people who are coming into our country 

illegally or coming legally and overstaying are coming for purposes 

82 

of employment or they are related to somebody who has come over 

to work. And so all of the systems that are designed to really deal 

with the interior enforcement issue would help. E-Verify helps. Increasing—and this will take legislation, and that is why I say all 

these things get knit together. Increasing the penalties on employers who consistently hire illegal labor and adjusting the elements 

in the burden of proof which makes those cases so unnecessarily 

difficult, that also would be very helpful because then you are dealing with the demand driving illegal immigration as well as the supply. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much. I thank my colleagues 

for their patience. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, I want to return to the issue of the threat 

level because as I listened to my two colleagues question you about 

that—and I thought about the comments of the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) that we can expect attempts to retaliate—I am wondering why we are not increasing the 

threat level. It seems to me that until a further assessment is conducted of the intelligence, including a full exploitation of the materials and data seized at the compound at which Osama bin Laden 

was living, it would be prudent to increase the threat level, not to 

the highest level but you have revamped it in a way that I believe 

makes sense, but to acknowledge that we are in a situation where 

we are at risk. And so I am curious why given Michael Leiter’s 

public comments, given the fact that we have yet to do a full exploitation of the materials from the compound, and given the fact 

that we are still doing an assessment of the reaction to Osama bin 

Laden’s death, we are not taking what to me would be a prudent 

step of increasing the threat level. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Senator, I think we are always asking people to be alert. We are providing additional intelligence 

products into the law enforcement community and to the private 

sector so they could take whatever actions they deem prudent. We 

are constantly evaluating whether we should issue a special advisory, and NCTC is part of that group that makes that recommendation. 

So on an ongoing basis now, it may come to the point where we 

say in this area for this we are going to issue an elevated alert, 

but I think we want to be careful here. We do not want to say because we suspect, and reasonably so, that at some point there may 

be retaliation that we go ahead and put the Nation into an alert 

status without more information than we currently have. That 

could change. It could change tonight. It could change tomorrow. 

But the whole idea behind the new system is to say, look, we are 

always on alert, we are always facing risk. The threat of terrorism 

is always with us, and we are never going to be without it, even 

with the death of Osama bin Laden. We have other members of alQaeda, we have AQAP, we have AQIM, we have al-Shabaab, and 

that does not even count the homegrown terrorists who we are 

quite concerned about just from a lone wolf standpoint in particular. But that does not mean that under the new criteria we 

issue an elevated threat. 

83 

Now, as intelligence comes in, as things are digested—and that 

is happening on a real-time, seamless basis—that may very well be 

adjusted. But I think for the Nation to keep paying attention to 

these alerts, we want to really make sure they are tied to something that is specific. 

Senator COLLINS. I appreciate your explanation of the process. 

From my perspective, it just still seems prudent to temporarily, at 

least, elevate the threat level until the assessment is completed. 

But I understand your point. 

You have mentioned just now and earlier the threat of a lone 

wolf attack, and as you know, this is an issue that this Committee 

has devoted countless hearings over the past few years, and as part 

of our Fort Hood investigation and report, we called upon the Administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of effort among 

Federal departments and agencies and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our country. If you 

look at the plots over the last 2 years, they have largely been domestic plots by people who have been inspired by al-Qaeda, but not 

in most cases directly linked to al-Qaeda. 

I would appreciate this morning an update on the development 

of those Federal strategies to counter domestic radicalization and 

to ensure a coordinated effort. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, we have looked at this from what do 

we do to prevent somebody who has been radicalized from successfully carrying out an act of violence, and we have concluded that 

the best way for us to intervene is to support through grants and 

other programs local police in kind of neighborhood policing strategies that reach out to the community in the same way that we 

dealt with gang violence during the crack epidemic, where we really focused on police on the street who were intimately known by 

the neighborhood. You develop that flow of information because 

there was an underlying foundation of trust. And the Department 

of Justice and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) 

program has also worked on that. 

So out of that conclusion, we said, well, we should have a curriculum that really focuses on what are the behaviors that indicate 

that somebody has become radicalized, and radicalized to the point 

of violence. So working with police across the country, we developed a training curriculum. We have beta-tested it already at the 

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). We are putting people through it now. There is a curriculum at FLETC, and 

then there is a training module that can be used at home so that 

you do not have to travel to FLETC. So that is ongoing as well. 

We continue to look for other ways, but we are really going to 

focus on is how can we empower local law enforcement in particular to prevent a lone wolf from being successful. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Let me just say that I was very 

pleased to hear you mention the ‘‘See something, say something’’ 

campaign. The Chairman and I had to work so hard to get that 

through when it came to the transportation sector, and without the 

Chairman’s willingness to stand up against many on his own side 

of the aisle, we never would have suffered. So I hope your comments mean that you will endorse the broader bill that the Chairman and I have introduced, which would provide immunity from 

84 

civil lawsuits to individuals who in good faith report suspicious activity to the authorities. They would not be protected if it were not 

in good faith because right now the law that we wrote only applies 

to the transportation sector. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would be happy to look at that, Senator. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. And if I see something, I will say something. [Laughter.] 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I only supported Senator Collins’ proposal 

because it happens to be right. [Laughter.] 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Johnson. 

Senator JOHNSON. Well, thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

I do not want to beat a dead horse here, but let me take just one 

more stab at this threat advisory. The purpose of an advisory is to 

signal to the American public that something has changed. I mean, 

if we are always on the same constant level of alert, that just degrades over time. So, again, I am just kind of scratching my head. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, if I might, Senator, that was the 

problem with the color code because we were always at orange and 

nobody paid any attention. The purpose of the advisory, in my 

view, is to communicate facts and information so people know what 

to do. So if we elevate the advisory, it will be accompanied by information. What are the facts that we can disclose? What can people 

do to protect themselves and their families? Where do people go to 

get updated information? How can people help us help them? 

So it is not just to be alert. We are always on alert. That is the 

elevated base. But now we would be providing additional facts 

based on the intelligence we receive that tells people what to do. 

Senator JOHNSON. I get that. Let us move on. 

Let us talk a little bit about where the threat of terrorism sort 

of intersects with border security. I have read some relatively 

alarming statistics about percentage of non-Hispanic apprehensions 

at the border. Can you speak to what are the real facts and what 

are the stats by region? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, we are looking at that right now because one of the things we have seen is an uptick in a category 

called OTMs—it means ‘‘other than Mexicans’’—illegal immigrant 

apprehensions in one of the Texas sectors. It has gone as high as 

one in three recently. Many are from east India, the country of 

India, and we are trying to get to the bottom of what is the trafficking route, what is the demand, what is happening there. And 

in this setting, I would just prefer to say we have seen that trend 

over the last few months. We have devoted some additional resources to that trend, and we are trying to get to the bottom of it. 

Senator JOHNSON. Have we increased our alert level in terms of 

those apprehensions now in light of recent events? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. No. 

Senator JOHNSON. Do you think we should? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator, if I am advised by the Advisory 

Board on the intelligence side that we should, I will do that. 

Senator JOHNSON. I did make a trip down to the Tucson corridor 

there, and went down to the border by Nogales. You talked about 

manpower and infrastructure, and I am a little concerned. You 

know, obviously, we want to protect the border, and so we have put 

85 

a lot of resources into Border Patrol. But I am a little concerned 

about the Customs and Border Protection agents. We are building 

a lot of infrastructure down at Nogales. I think even with the current infrastructure I am concerned about the staffing levels there. 

Can you just speak to the relative staffing between Customs and 

Border Protection versus Border Patrol? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, the supplemental that was passed 

provided for several hundred more port officers to use on those additional lanes and so forth. And so they are in the process of being 

deployed right now. It is another reason why I am concerned about 

our fiscal year 2012 budget request. The President has asked that 

those additional port officers be annualized, that they become part 

of our base. And that is necessary because we need that legal trade 

to move; we need those lines, those wait times to be shortened. We 

have been investing in some major improvements and enlargements on some of these ports, and that means more lanes to cover. 

We want to keep some of them open more hours, and that also 

means more coverage. 

And so right now we are watching that very carefully. We have 

been hiring up on the port officer side, and we want to annualize 

that hiring. 

Senator JOHNSON. I do want to say I was very impressed with 

the professionalism and dedication of the agents down there. I really was. I mean, that was comforting. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is great. It is a hard job. 

Senator JOHNSON. It is. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. It is a very tough setting. 

Senator JOHNSON. It is very hard. You have to remain vigilant. 

I was impressed. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Great. 

Senator JOHNSON. I was intrigued by Senator Lieberman’s comments about smart immigration policy. Can you just speak to what 

your concept of that would be and how that would really affect our 

illegal immigration problem here? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, as I mentioned, one of the big 

draws for illegal immigration is the demand for illegal labor, and 

the current laws on employer sanctions are very minimal. They do 

not give us a great deterrent on the investigation and prosecution 

side, and so I think those need to be looked at as well as the elements of proof that we are forced to demonstrate or that the Justice Department is forced to demonstrate. 

I think we should be looking at the different types of visas that 

are offered and look at streamlining and enlarging the visa categories that we have, particularly on the temporary visa side. And 

then we have to have some way to parse the population that is already in the country illegally given that we are only given the resources to remove about 400,000 people a year, and we want to 

focus on those who are security threats, who are criminals, who are 

fugitives—in other words, those who fit in those kinds of priorities. 

Well, once we fill those priorities there are still millions of people 

left. What are we supposed to do? So that is where really the tough 

part comes in, but I believe the President would support a program 

to get those people out of the shadows, regularized, identified, and 

for those who are there, if they can earn their way to citizenship 

86 

by paying a fine, getting in the back door behind people who are 

attempting to use the system legally, or figure out some way to do 

that. That has been the hardest part of the immigration issue because that has been viewed as amnesty. 

Senator JOHNSON. Let me go back to the step process of securing 

the border. I am assuming from what you have said already that 

the first step is really measuring, getting the metric. Correct? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I think that is an initial step, yes. 

Senator JOHNSON. Once we have that metric, what is the next 

step? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I think then we need to be concurrently 

looking at what is the intersection between interior immigration 

enforcement, what is going on in immigration generally, and what 

is happening at the border. The border is only one part of this entire problem, so we need to be looking at the intersection between 

that and the border metric at the same time. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Johnson. 

Senator McCain has just arrived. I do want to state for the 

record, I know he was very interested in this hearing, and I know 

he was not able to be here until now because Senate Intelligence 

and Armed Services Committees both met with Admiral William 

McRaven today. 

Incidentally, Senator Collins and I are going to ask Admiral 

McRaven if we can have another briefing for those of us who had 

to be here. Admiral McRaven is head of the Special Operations 

Command which oversaw the SEALs that carried out the assault 

on Sunday. 

So, with that, I thank Senator McCain for coming by and call on 

him now. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize, Madam Secretary. I was at this briefing by Director Leon Panetta and Admiral McRaven, and I apologize for being late. 

Madam Secretary, I am interested in your comments about the 

hardest part with the things that we need to do. Again, Senator 

Kyl and I have introduced legislation which we believe would be 

sufficient measures to secure our borders. We have never had on 

your part or the part of the Administration serious sit-down negotiations on this issue. 

Now, I understand the President’s zeal for immigration reform, 

and yours, but as I have said on numerous occasions, I have seen 

this movie before. I saw it in 1986 when we gave amnesty to 2 million people and said we would secure the borders, and we have not. 

When there are still 171,000 people apprehended in one year crossing our Tucson border, in the view of most observers that is not a 

secure border. 

We have a plan that can do that, and sometimes my friends from 

other parts of the country and other people think that maybe Senator Kyl and I and a lot of our constituents, particularly those who 

live in the southern part of Arizona, are a bit intransigent. 

I received a briefing from the High Intensity Drug Trafficing 

Area (HIDTA) program staff—two of them—that there is between 

87 

100 to 200 spotters sitting on mountains in southern Arizona, inside the borders of the United States of America, spotting for drug 

cartels, who then get the drugs up to Phoenix and—in the words 

of HIDTA, not mine—distribute them. Phoenix is the drug distribution center for the Nation with the exception of some parts of the 

State of Texas. 

Now, I do not think that that is an acceptable situation. Perhaps 

you do. It was not my assessment of the situation. It was the assessment that was given to me—100 to 200 spotters sitting on 

mountains inside the State of Arizona guiding the drug cartels as 

they bring the drugs to Phoenix and then distribute them throughout the country. That, at least to the constituents that I talk to of 

mine, is not an acceptable situation. 

Then in an act that I still do not understand, the National Guard 

is withdrawn from the border. I go down to the border, and I ask 

the Border Patrol, the HIDTA people, and I ask the U.S. Attorney: 

How important is the role of the National Guard? ‘‘Indispensable.’’ 

That is the word they use. 

And then we are supposed to believe that the Administration is 

serious about securing our borders. Well, I do not think so. 

So I would hope that we could understand that when any State 

has 100 to 200 spotters, members of drug cartels, inside their borders guiding drug cartels as they bring drugs to Phoenix, Arizona, 

and then distribute them throughout the Nation, with the exception of some parts of Texas, that that is not a situation that I 

should expect my constituents to tolerate. 

So I guess it is more of a statement that I would seek your response. The border is not secure. The Yuma Sector is secure. There 

are many other areas. There have been improvements. I do not 

doubt that. But I was in Douglas, Arizona, a few weeks ago, and 

we saw a film of what had happened about 3 nights before—SUVs 

with flashing lights on the road right next to the fence, take a left 

turn, stop, and let loose a fusillade of bullets killing 5 people and 

wounding 13. That is a serious situation, and some of those bullets 

fly across the border. And these mass graves are obviously something that has shocked the Nation. And all of it has to do with 

drugs that are moving into the United States of America. 

So, again, I would hope that we could have some serious conversations rather than meetings with various interested groups 

and see if we cannot sit down and take the necessary measures 

that are clearly there in our view that could assure our citizens of 

the country that our border has a reasonable level of security and 

maybe move forward in order to achieve that. 

I would be interested in your response. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Senator, and your constituents used to be mine, and I spent a lot of my life on these border-related issues, and so I think we share the same values and the 

same goal. Let me take on four of the points that you have made 

and help provide you with some information. 

First, with respect to the National Guard, they have not been 

withdrawn. They are at the current force level they have always 

been this year, and the Administration has not made a final decision about whether to continue to deploy them. 

88 

One of the issues is who pays for the Guard, and we have asked 

our appropriators twice to allow us to reprogram funds to pay for 

the Guard and to continue to pay for the Guard at the border. And 

that reprogramming has been denied. This Committee may want to 

look at that issue. It would be very helpful for sustaining the presence of the Guard. But, again, like I said, I asked our appropriators, and it was denied last year. We would renew that request. 

On the 10-point plan, Senator, many of those things we are doing 

or are close to doing, there is a fiscal cost to it. I think your own 

numbers show it to be over $4 billion, and the issue, I think, is 

whether some of the items there are the most cost effective way to 

reach the common goal that we share. I want to have that discussion with you and work with you on that. 

On the spotters, now I speak as the former Chair of the Arizona 

HIDTA, and I speak as the former U.S. Attorney and Attorney 

General. I know the Vekol Valley very well. I have asked the Border Patrol because I have been down there myself several times in 

the last few months. ‘‘Where are the spotters that I keep hearing 

about?’’ And the answer I receive is that there are a couple hundred tops from which a spotter could act, but they are not sitting 

there, 200 drug spotters. And we are now deploying technology into 

that area to enable us to pick up more individuals involved in the 

drug trade than we already are. So I would really be interested in 

seeing if we can clarify that particular point. 

And then, last, on the number of illegals coming across the Tucson Sector, I agree with you, I do not like that number either. It 

is dramatically down from what it used to be. It is down 35 percent 

from what it was when I started as the Secretary. But we are going 

to continue to put resources into that sector until we get that and 

drive that number down even further. 

The part of this hearing that you missed—and I will be happy 

to set up a private meeting with you about—is developing a real 

border metric that takes into account apprehensions, typical crime 

statistics, but also other measures that give us a better overall 

sense of what is happening at the border because I think there is 

a general consensus that the apprehension number in and of itself 

is not a complete measurement. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, thank you. I am fascinated by your comment that they could not tell you where these spotters are. They 

probably cannot tell you exactly where they are because otherwise 

they would get them. But the fact is they are absolutely, totally, 

factually correct. They are there, and everybody knows they are 

there. And for you or your staff to deny that they are there is sort 

of symptomatic to me of the lack of really recognition or appreciation of the problems that exist along our border. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator, with respect, there is no one 

who has spent more time working on this Arizona issue than I 

have over the past 2 years, and we will continue to drive the numbers down—— 

Senator MCCAIN. There is no one that has spent more time on 

the issue than I have, Madam Secretary, long before you were governor and long before you were Secretary, and I am told by the law 

enforcement people from the sheriffs up to the U.S. Attorney that 

there are between 100 and 200 spotters sitting on mountains in ArVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:20 Feb 27, 2012 Jkt 067122 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\67122.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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izona. And for you to dispute that is a big problem you have between yourself and them. And it should be clarified. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well—yes, let us clarify it. 

Senator MCCAIN. So if you want to say that it is not true, that 

is fine with me. But it happens to be true, and it happens to be 

a huge problem, and it also happens to be that Phoenix, Arizona, 

in their view, and other experts’ view, is the distribution center for 

drugs around this country. So maybe you want to deny that, but 

the fact is that it is. And so, again, if you want to change the matrix, fine, change the matrix. But on the ground, in Arizona, on the 

border, we see people still living in an environment that they are 

not living secure lives. And we had witnesses before this Committee who testified to exactly that, ranchers and sheriffs of the 

counties along the border—Larry Dever and others. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, if we are going to get into the sheriff discussion again—— 

Senator MCCAIN. See, you may not trust the word of Larry Dever 

and these other sheriffs. That is fine. You may dispute them. We, 

in Arizona, trust them because they are the elected law enforcement officials that are there dealing with these issues every single 

day. And I know the facts on the ground, and I agree that there 

have been improvements, and I am grateful for those improvements. But I would argue they have not kept up with the escalation of violence on the other side of the border. 

And I go back to my original point that I made at the beginning 

of my comments. I think that it would be great if at least once for 

the Administration to come and sit down with us who are in border 

States, not just Arizona but New Mexico, Texas, and California, 

and see if there is some kind of way we could work out a way to 

get our borders secured. And maybe then it would be of some benefit to all of our constituents. Please respond. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Senator, look, the issue is a lot 

more complicated, and what we need to do at the border is exactly 

what we are doing, and more so and sustain it. It is more manpower, it is more technology, it is more infrastructure. It is adding 

air cover, which we now have across Arizona, which we did not 

have before. It is also, though, related to interior enforcement. It 

is having the ability to identify who is in our jails that are also in 

our country illegally and being able to remove those. 

The ability to have consequences for all who cross illegally, that 

is important. I grant you that. Doing the same thing in every sector 

that you do in a small sector like the Yuma Sector may not be the 

best way to achieve that. That is a discussion we ought to be having. 

So I look forward to sitting down with you, and we will go point 

by point through the plan. We have some options I would like you 

to consider. As I mentioned before, your challenge to me at our last 

hearing was: What is a border metric? What is something that we 

can measure that would say we have a secure border? And you 

asked me that question. So I have directed CBP, I said, ‘‘Look, we 

need to create a metric that makes sense, that measures all of 

these things.’’ And we can include, and probably will, all of the 

drug activity and so forth. 

90 

I must say, however, that let us not get into a debate because 

some sheriffs say the situation is better, and some sheriffs say it 

is not. Most mayors say it is better, but there are a few who say 

it is not. We have to look at the entire border and create a safe 

and secure border region that legitimate trade and travel can use 

because Mexico is the second or third largest trading partner for 

22 States of the country. And we do not dispute that is the goal. 

We just have some differences on how we measure and how we get 

there. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I do look forward to sitting down with 

you on this issue before the election season gets too polarizing, but 

I think it is important because I think we are on the right track, 

and I have clearly stated that there have been improvements. But 

I think we have some more to go. 

Would you indulge me one other comment? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Senator MCCAIN. Madam Secretary, this is an entirely different 

subject—I continue to get complaints from people who are subject 

to this physical pat-down. We really ought to try to work on some 

kind of technology that would not be necessary for our inspectors 

to go through. It is just very invasive, and I have heard all the reasons for it, but it seems to me in a country like ours we could develop some kind of technology that would make something like that 

unnecessary. Some people feel it is really embarrassing and 

humiliating, and I certainly understand their complaints. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator, I understand them as well, and 

I receive them as well. Three things: 

One, we are investing in research and technology. The research 

cycle is not an immediate cycle, but we are investing and working 

with national labs and others on better technology. 

Two, I have asked and TSA is moving to a more risk-based approach to how we screen. Part of that will lead to what my third 

point, which is we want to enlarge trusted traveler type programs 

where people have a biometric card, then they can go through similar to what we use for pilots now, anyway, and we are looking for 

ways to scale that up. 

Senator MCCAIN. Well, thank you, Madam Secretary, and I look 

forward to continuing our spirited dialogue. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I enjoy them, too. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And may I say, those of us who are not 

from Arizona enjoy them, too. [Laughter.] 

I actually want to thank both of you for the exchange, and you 

both agree that things are better along the border, and you both 

agree that they are not good enough. And I think your announcement today that you have directed the CBP to develop a new metric, a new index for judging, for reaching a conclusion of whether 

the border is secure and how to make it more secure is very important. 

Beyond your official announcement to an earlier question, in typical Napolitano style you said, and I paraphrase: The existing system of judging border security by the number of apprehensions 

‘‘does not cut it,’’ and the existing definition in law of ‘‘operational 

control’’ of the border does not cut it either. I agree with you, and 

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91 

ard of border security that is much more accurate and effective and 

can be a basis for a meeting of minds between people on different 

perspectives, both on the question of border security and on the related question of immigration reform. And I really urge you forward. I hope you will engage Senator McCain and the other Members of Congress from the Border States, and the governors, whom 

I know you know well. And if you have room in any of those meetings for a guy from Connecticut, I would be honored to be invited. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We will make you an honorary Border 

State Senator. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. 

You both know this better than I do. This is a really important 

question, and it ties directly to the other important question of immigration reform. And Senator McCain is right. I may be quixotic 

in saying this, but we still, in my opinion, have a chance in this 

session to try to achieve some significant improvement in border 

security and in a related way some what I called earlier ‘‘smart immigration reform.’’ And I hope we try every opportunity to do that. 

And the two of you are critical in whether that is possible or not, 

so I thank you both. 

Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. As Joe Biden would say, ‘‘From your lips to 

God’s ears.’’ That would be great. 

Madam Secretary, nice to see you. Thanks for your leadership 

and your commitment and hard work and that of the team you 

lead. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. One of the things I have been focused on is deficit reduction. They look at cutting spending and they look at raising taxes. And I focus more on a third and a fourth idea; and the 

third idea is how do we promote economic growth to help us in our 

efforts and what kind of smart investments can we make in the 

workforce, infrastructure, and research and development (R&D) 

that could be commercialized on the R&D side to create the products and innovations that we can sell around the world. So that is 

a focus of mine. 

My other focus is really on creating what I call a culture of thrift 

in the Federal Government to replace what some might describe as 

a culture of spendthrift. We talked about it a little bit in our caucus luncheon just yesterday. And I like to say that everything I do, 

I know I can do better. I think the same is true of most of us. We 

were just talking about in this exchange you had with Senator 

McCain trying to find ways to do better. I like to say if it is not 

perfect, make it better. 

I think we need to look in every nook and cranny of the Federal 

Government and ask a question of almost all Federal programs, 

whether domestic, discretionary, or entitlements, is there a way to 

get a better result for less money or maybe a better result for not 

much more money? 

And with that, and in the spirit of that thought, I just wanted 

to ask you about the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure 

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92 

ern Border with a variety of high-tech technologies, with physical 

infrastructure, and with border enforcement officers, and we have 

all supported that stuff. The program was, I think, designed to secure some 700 miles of the Southern Border by, I think, the year 

2005 at a cost, I think, close to $900 million. I think this includes 

both the new metal fencing and some of the various surveillance 

technologies. 

What has troubled me the most with respect to this program is 

the technology component, and I am told that of some 700 promised 

miles of various surveillance equipment, we have deployed maybe 

50 or so miles of the anticipated 700, and this at a price of about 

$750 million. At least this is what I have been told. 

I understand you have frozen that program, the Secure Border 

Initiative, to try to identify a smarter and more cost effective way 

forward, and I just want to ask you to take a couple of minutes 

here today to discuss with us, if you would, how we can get a better 

bang out of the taxpayer’s buck in this regard and what you see 

we ought to be doing going forward in this regard. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Senator. The so-called SBInet 

program I did freeze. It was not proving to be cost effective. One 

of the reasons why was because it presumed that you could have 

one fixed sort of technology to use across the border at tremendous 

cost. And so we ended it at one small sector, and what we have 

done is say let us buy off-the-shelf mobile technologies that are 

available now that we can equip our men and women with now. 

And that will differ depending on what sector you are in because 

you will have different types of geography, different populations, 

and so forth. 

So every sector along the border has to develop their technology 

plan for how they will use the funds freed up by not investing in 

the SBInet system. 

I asked for the technology plan first from Arizona because it had 

the greatest need. That is in. We are making those procurements 

now. And then we are moving border wide over the course of the 

year. 

Senator CARPER. And how will you measure success as we go 

down this new path? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, it is the question that has dominated the hearing today, but a number of ways, one of which obviously is apprehensions both of individuals but drugs, drug traffickers, so forth. One is the ability to be a force multiplier so that 

we are able, once we spot somebody, to immediately go out and 

pick them up. Those are the kinds of things that would be added 

to the mix. 

Senator CARPER. Just about every day we see more violence 

along our border with Mexico. I think we are partly to blame for 

that, and part of this is the exchange of drugs for guns. We are 

somewhat complicit in that exchange, unfortunately. I was down 

there about a little over a year ago, and I had a chance to go along 

the border, not in Arizona but over on the California side and talk 

to a number of the folks that are working down there, in some 

cases at real jeopardy to their own safety. My understanding is we 

are having patrol agents that are being shot at more frequently, 

patrolling some of the harshest terrains on our continent. And then 

93 

we have a new trend, and it is a disturbing trend. We have had 

agents actually being killed by drug traffickers and by cartel members. It is also beginning to become less safe for Americans traveling to some of these cities across the border. 

Could you just describe for us your assessment of the escalating 

violence along the border? And is it safe to say that this violence 

has—I am tempted to use the word ‘‘officially’’—officially spilled 

over into the United States? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. The states of northern Mexico have been 

experiencing a serious increase in violent crime, especially homicides, over the last several years related to the determination by 

President Calderon to take on the cartels, a determination with 

which we agree and are supporting in any way that we can, and 

also cartel-on-cartel violence as they fight over ever more limited 

territory. 

In Juarez, for example, I think Juarez must be one of the one 

or two highest homicide rates in the world right now. But it has 

also spread to other states, Tamaulipas, Sonora, and so forth. 

When I say a safe and secure border region that border—on our 

side we have about 7 million people who live along the entire border. There is a much higher number who live in Mexico along the 

border. So we are really working with Mexico—in fact, we met with 

their leadership last Friday on a number of cross-border strategies 

to increase safety. 

Our men and women in the Border Patrol have very dangerous 

work, and any way we are supporting them, making sure they are 

well equipped, well trained, and have support, you have given us 

the resources to help do that. That is very important. 

I would say, however, that while we have had isolated instances 

of violence that have come into the United States from northern 

Mexico, if you take a step back and look at everything, the police 

reports, the arrest reports, the numbers, etc., they do not indicate 

that officially we have a plague of spillover violence. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. Could I just ask for one 

more minute? 

I have been at another hearing, as some of my other colleagues 

have, so I missed your testimony. Would you just take a minute, 

give me some good take-aways from what you had to say in your 

testimony, just maybe one or two points that I ought to just walk 

out of the room—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You are back as U.S. Attorney or Attorney General, and the Judge is giving you—— 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I am giving a summation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. A summation of your argument, right. 

Senator CARPER. You have both been Attorneys General, haven’t 

you? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes. They were both great jobs. 

Senator CARPER. Would you say it is the greatest job you have 

had so far? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would say I have always had great jobs. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. I would say you have, too. And so have the rest 

of us. 

94 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would say that we talked about Osama 

bin Laden and that we have current and seamless exchange of intelligence right now, and if I am so advised, I will raise the advisory level. But I have not been so advised. 

On immigration, that we have more resources at the border than 

ever before, at both borders, and different strategies at both borders, but they continue to be works in progress. We cannot deal 

with border security without dealing also with interior enforcement 

and immigration reform. They are related. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks so much. Good to see you. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. You bet. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Carper. 

Madam Secretary, thanks for your testimony. You have been responsive to our questions. You have been informative and very 

helpful. My confidence in you continues to rise. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We will keep the record of the hearing 

open for 15 days for additional statements and questions. 

And with that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:07 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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Æ 


67122.178