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98–048 PDF 2005

VISA REVOCATIONS II: STILL POROUS, SLOW TO

FIX

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 13, 2004

Serial No. 108–253

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

DIANE E. WATSON, California

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

THOMAS COSTA, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 13, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. General

Accounting Office; Tony Edson, Managing Director, Office of Visa Services, U.S. Department of State; Donna A. Bucella, Director, Terrorist

Screening Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department

of Justice; Robert M. Jacksta, Executive Director, Border Security and

Facilitation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department

of Homeland Security; and Robert Schoch, Deputy Assistant Director,

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of

Homeland Security ....................................................................................... 12

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

Bucella, Donna A., Director, Terrorist Screening Center, Federal Bureau

of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of ...... 35

Edson, Tony, Managing Director, Office of Visa Services, U.S. Department of State, followp question and response ............................................ 93

Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. General

Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................... 15

Jacksta, Robert M., Executive Director, Border Security and Facilitation,

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security, prepared statement of .................................................................. 45

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 6

Schoch, Robert, Deputy Assistant Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

Letters dated July 12, 2004 ...................................................................... 79

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 54

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

(1)

VISA REVOCATIONS II: STILL POROUS, SLOW

TO FIX

TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Duncan, Schrock, Kucinich,

Ruppersberger, and Watson.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel;

Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A. Briggs, clerk;

Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Andrew Su, minority professional staff member.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations

hearing entitled Visa Revocations II: Still Porous, Slow to Fix, is

called to order.

Entry by a non-citizen into the United States is a privilege, not

a right. For a variety of reasons, a request for a visa may be denied. If those reasons arise only after a visa is issued, it can be revoked. The discretionary process of visa revocation is an important

tool used by the Departments of State and Homeland Security,

DHS, to protect our borders.

But when a visa is revoked after the alien has arrived here, what

happens? Thirteen months ago, at a hearing on visa revocation as

a counter-terrorism tool, the General Accounting office, GAO, described a process riddled with flawed communications within and

between agencies. Poor coordination and haphazard followup meant

suspected terrorists who entered the United States were not being

tracked or removed. Parallel inconsistent data systems treated visa

revocation actions differently, creating confusion about the number,

as well as the status of aliens no longer welcome here.

We were assured the problems would be fixed. We were told new

procedures were being implemented to share visa revocation information quickly and effectively. We were assured the language of

the visa revocation instrument would be reviewed to close the apparent loophole making the revocation effective only after the alien

left the United States.

We asked GAO to audit compliance with those commitments.

More than a year later, GAO reports some progress in strengthenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:21 Feb 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98048.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing revocation processes, but finds continual delays and disconnects

plaguing the system. Information about visa revocations based on

terrorism concerns can still take weeks or months to appear on

watch lists used at the border.

DHS may not investigate some aliens who enter or remain in the

United States on a revoked visa. Additionally, discussions of a regulatory change to permit removal of an alien holding a revoked

visa seem stuck in a legalistic and bureaucratic quagmire.

Border security against terrorists depends on multiple layers of

protection. One of those layers, the visa revocation process, remains

partially blind and needlessly porous to incursions by individuals

who might pose a grave risk to our security. We continue to look

for a far sharper use of the visa revocation tool to turn away, or

if necessary, remove anyone intent on abusing the privilege of visiting our shores.

We know all our witnesses share that goal, don’t have any doubt

about that, and we look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Kucinich

and ask if he has a statement.

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And

thank you to the witnesses.

It’s disappointing that are holding another hearing on this matter. Last June when the subcommittee held a hearing on visa revocation problems, we were told by GAO that anywhere from 100 to

200 U.S. aliens, who we suspected terrorists, could be freely entering and moving around inside our country. Yet in many instances,

we could not take any actions to investigate or even locate these

individuals.

How could this be the case? Once again, agencies in the U.S. intelligence community did not talk to one another or even share information about suspected terrorists with each other. There were

different lists of suspected terrorists, different lists of immigrants

who had their visas revoked, even different lists on which all of

these people were still in the country.

The subcommittee was told that the problem would be fixed, that

better communication between the State, Homeland Security and

the FBI would resolve these problems. We also expected that a regulatory solution could be worked out by those agencies so that suspected terrorists could be immediately deported from the United

States, even if the terms of their entry visa had not been violated.

Over a year has passed now, and the GAO tell us that many

problems remain with our visa revocation process. While an informal process has been established now to notify intelligence screeners of individuals on a terrorist watch list, delays and communication problems persist. By the time a border inspector or immigration investigator begins to look for a suspect, weeks may have gone

by.

I understand that GAO even found instances where it took 6

months or longer for State and DHS personnel to simply match the

names of terrorists or suspected terrorists with individuals whose

visas had been revoked. This is simply unacceptable. I don’t know

if any of these individuals are terrorists or not, but what I do know

is it should not take 6 months or more to locate these persons.

So I would just like to submit the rest of the record for the

record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, the Chair would recognize John Duncan, the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this important hearing. I know just a week and a half ago, the

Washington Times had a major story that said suspected terrorists

are not kicked out of the United States after their visas are revoked, even though Congress last year asked the Department of

Homeland Security to fix a legal loophole that has allowed more

than 100 people with links to terrorism to skip deportation.

One of our first witnesses sums up this situation and says that

we have backlogs and long delays in screening names of terrorists

against the State Department’s data base. Current visa holders

and delays and backlogs in transmitting recommendations to revoke individual visas, delays and backlogs in revoking individual

visas after receiving a recommendation to do so, delays in requesting that field offices investigate individuals with visas revoked on

terrorism grounds who may be in the country. This is a very serious matter, and it’s not a problem, a situation of money. Because

we’re giving all of these departments and agencies all kinds of

money and big increases in appropriations to handle these types of

problems.

I remember, the INS is not here with us today, but I remember

after it was pointed out that 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the

September 11 incidents were here illegally that one of our colleagues, Congressman Gallegly from California, was on 60 Minutes.

The INS had claimed that it was underfunded and he pointed out

that we had given INS a 250 percent increase in funding over the

previous 8 years, which was about 10 times the rate of inflation.

So there’s plenty of money around, but apparently, there are still

some problems that need to be worked on. So I look forward to

hearing these witnesses, and I appreciate your calling this hearing.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. At this time, the Chair will

recognize Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. First thing, I want to thank you for bringing this issue back to the table. We know that GAO is going to be

releasing a report today about where we need to go with respect

to visa revocation process. I think it’s about time we all stopped the

blame game. We need to identify the issues that are there and then

move forward.

I’m interested today in hearing where we need to go in the future

and what we need to do to fix the problem to address the issue.

Hopefully that’s what the testimony will show today, so that we

can start implementing. Because we all want the same thing, and

that’s our national security. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, the Chair would recognize the distinguished gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. SCHROCK. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to thank

you for holding this hearing and my friend, Mr. Duncan, said it all,

and he said it very well.

I read the notes last night from the meetings we’ve had in the

past, and it seems like we’re asking the same old questions. You

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heard Mr. Ruppersberger say a report’s coming out today on where

we ought to go. There ought to be a report coming out today on

where we’ve been and how this thing has been fixed. I think we’re

getting tired of waiting. This terrorism thing isn’t going to get any

better, and I’m hoping the witnesses today will come up with some

concrete answers that will get us an idea of where we are, because

it’s clearly gone on entirely too long.

I guess if the chairman has to have these hearings every 2 or 3

months, he’ll have to have them every 2 or 3 months. But this

thing’s got to get resolved and it’s got to get answered. I appreciate

you all coming today and certainly look forward to hearing what

you have to say.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time I’d ask unanimous consent that all members of the

subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the

record, and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record and without objection, so ordered.

At this time, we will announce our one panel, our only panel. I

appreciate all of them coming and allowing us to crunch you into

one table here. Mr. Jess T. Ford, Director of International Affairs

and Trade Division, U.S. General Accounting Office; Mr. Tony

Edson, who is the Managing Director, Office of Visa Services, U.S.

Department of State; Ms. Donna A. Bucella, Director, Terrorist

Screening Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice; Mr. Robert M. Jacksta, Executive Director, Border

Security and Facilitation, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and Mr. Robert A.

Schoch, Deputy Assistant Director, National Security Investigations, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

At this time, I would ask our witnesses to stand so I may administer the oath. Please raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all our witnesses have responded in the affirmative.

I think we’ll go down the list as I called you. So I’ll ask you, Mr.

Ford, to put that mic in front of you, speak nice and loud.

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STATEMENTS OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE;

TONY EDSON, MANAGING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF VISA SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; DONNA A. BUCELLA, DIRECTOR, TERRORIST SCREENING CENTER, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;

ROBERT M. JACKSTA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BORDER SECURITY AND FACILITATION, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER

PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY;

AND ROBERT SCHOCH, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, U.S.

IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I’m

pleased to be here today to discuss the report that we are issuing

today on the visa revocation process and the steps that the Department of State and Homeland Security and other Federal agencies

have taken to improve the use of this process as an anti-terrorism

tool.

In June 2003, we reported that agencies lacked written procedures to ensure that appropriate personnel are notified and take

specific actions when the Department of State revokes visas on terrorism grounds. As a result, lookouts were not always posted.

Other agencies were not always notified of visa revocations and

there were potential investigative gaps on individuals with visas

revoked based on terrorism concerns who were in the United

States.

We recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in

conjunction with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General,

develop specific policies and procedures for interagency visa revocation process to ensure that information is transmitted to the appropriate immigration and law enforcement agencies in a timely manner. We also recommended that they develop a specific policy on actions that immigration and law enforcement agencies should take

to investigate and locate individuals who remain in the United

States after their visas have been revoked.

At your request, we examined whether the weaknesses in the

visa revocation process identified in June 2003 were being addressed. The Departments of State and Homeland Security took

some actions in the summer of 2003 to address the weaknesses

identified in our June 2003 report. State and the U.S. Customs and

Border Protection Office, a component of DHS, developed procedures outlining their respective processes for handling visa revocations.

However, our analysis of visas revoked based on terrorism concerns from October through December 2003 revealed that weaknesses remained in the implementation of the visa revocation process, especially related to timely transmission of information among

the Federal agencies. For instance, we found delays sometimes occurred in screening names of suspected terrorists against State Department data base for current visa holders.

We found delays in transmission of recommendations to revoke

individual visas. We found some delays in the revoking of individual visas after receiving a recommendation to do so from the terrorist tracking center. We found delays in posting appropriate lookVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:21 Feb 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98048.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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outs used to alert border inspectors of the revocation. Also in notifying DHS of visa revocations.

And finally, we found that there were delays in investigating individuals with visas revoked on suspected terrorism grounds who

may be in the country. For example, based on our sample, we found

that it took over 2 months for immigration officials to initiate investigations on individuals identified. We also found that agencies

involved in the visa revocation process had conflicting records on

how many visas were revoked for terrorism concerns, and whether

individuals who held these visas may be in the country.

Our review of visa revocations showed that DHS has located individuals in the country whose visas were revoked because they

may be suspected or actual terrorists. DHS officials told us that

some are still being investigated, three have been arrested on immigration charges and others have been cleared.

With respect to an alien already present in the United States,

the Department of State’s current visa revocation certificate makes

the revocation effective only upon the alien’s departure. Therefore,

according to DH officials, if U.S. Immigration special agents locate

an alien for whom State has issued a revoke certificate that states

that the revocation is effective upon his departure, they would be

unable to place the alien in removal proceedings based solely on

the visa revocation.

State, DHS and Justice have been discussing how to resolve this

issue for the past year. And State and DHS officials recently told

us that they have reached informal agreements to take necessary

actions on a case by case basis. Since we initiated our inquiry,

State and DHS have taken additional actions to address the weaknesses we identified from our analysis. State and DHS believe

these actions will avoid the delays that were experienced in the

past. In April and May, State made significant revisions to its procedures and formalized its tracking system for visa revocation

cases. Between January and May, DHS took steps to develop additional written procedures, improve the sharing of information on

visa revocation cases, and ensure that immigration investigators

were aware of individuals whose visas were revoked who may still

be in the country.

Finally, State and DHS began discussing how to address the

legal and policy issues regarding the removal of individuals with

revoked visas. In addition, the terrorist screening center and interagency organization established under the FBI in December 2003

recently took steps to improve the visa revocation process, including developing written standard operating procedures related to

the screening of intelligence information and training additional

staff to perform this function.

Nevertheless, additional measures are needed to further improve

the process. The written policies and procedures often neither contain performance standards such as timeframes for completing individual steps in the process, nor do they reflect a fully coordinated

approach in the process. As a consequence, we are recommending

that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the

Department of State, work jointly with other appropriate agencies

to develop a written, Government-wide policy that clearly defines

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the roles and responsibilities and sets performance standards for

the agencies involved in the visa revocation process.

We also recommend that DHS and State address the outstanding

legal and policy issues related to removing individuals with revoked visas from the country, and by October 1st of this year, provide Congress with a list of actions that they intend to take.

This concludes my opening statement and I would be happy to

answer any questions you may have to ask.

[NOTE.—The General Accounting Office report entitled, ‘‘Border

Security, Additional Actions Needed to Eliminate Weaknesses in

the Visa Revocation Process,’’ may be found in subcommittee files.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Ford.

Mr. Edson.

Mr. EDSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the , subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the subject of visa revocations, where they fit into the overall strategy of

strengthening the visa process as an anti-terrorism tool, and the

improvements we’ve made in the revocation process.

The use of the revocation authority is one element in a multi-layered, interlocking system of border security measures. We act when

relevant derogatory information becomes available after a visa has

been issued to an applicant, who at the time of visa issuance appeared eligible for the visa. Since the attacks of September 11, we

have used this authority to revoke more than 1,250 visa based on

information suggesting possible terrorist activities or links.

When the terrorist screening center receives derogatory information about an alien, the subject’s name is immediately entered into

the Department of State’s consular lookout and support system

CLASS, or name check system, into that data base and into the Department of Homeland Security’s IBIS data base, prior to determining whether the subject has been issued a visa. This safeguard prevents further visa issuance or admission into the United States.

The consolidated consular data base of more than 70 million visa

records is then checked to determine if a visa has ever been issued

to the individual in question.

If it appears that a visa has been issued to a terrorist suspect,

the TSC forwards the derogatory information to the visa office at

the Department of State, which reviews the information to ensure

that it pertains to the individual who was issued a visa. When we

determine there is sufficient evidence that links the visa holder to

the derogatory information, the visa is formally revoked.

In most cases, the revocation has been prudential, rather than

based on a definitive finding that the alien is inadmissible. This is

in part because at the time of revocation, we’re often unable to conclude with certainty that the visa holder is the same as the subject

of the derogatory information.

Nevertheless, given the seriousness, given the terrorism related

nature of the information that may relate to the visa holder, we

deem it prudent to revoke the visa promptly after the information

becomes available and to rely on the visa application process to resolve identity and other questions at a later time, in case the visa

holder reapplies.

We work closely with our partners in the revocation process to

make sure that the fact that a visa has been revoked is disseminated to those in other agencies who need to carry out followup action. However, it is important to note that long before this communication and coordination takes place, safeguards have been put in

place to prevent the traveler from entering the United States. Visa

revocation usually takes effect upon the departure of the visa holder from the United States. This approach was agreed to a number

of years ago among the Department of Justice, the Immigration

and Naturalization Service and State to minimize the likelihood

that persons in the United States would be permitted to block the

revocation process in our courts.

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Since September 11, we have worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate when and under what circumstances it might be appropriate and helpful to DHS for the Department of State to make its revocations effective immediately or

even retroactively for persons physically present in the United

States.

We have agreed that revoking visas effective immediately when

an alien is at a port of entry allows DHS to deny entry on the

grounds that the alien does not have a valid visa. We have also

agreed that revoking a visa retroactively to the time of issuance

could be helpful to DHS in the case of an alien in the United States

by allowing it to place the alien in removal proceedings on the

grounds that he entered without a valid visa.

Because these scenarios raise a number of legal issues, however,

we have agreed that States should revoke in this way only on a

case by case basis, at the request of DHS. DHS will make such requests when it has confirmed that the presence of the alien in the

United States may pose a significant security risk. We are also

working with DHS on its efforts to draft a regulation that would

facilitate DHS in appropriate cases removing from the United State

an alien who has been admitted by whose visa has been revoked.

Visa revocations are an important tool in maintaining the security of our borders and our Nation. We and our colleagues in the

Department of Homeland Security are committed to furthering our

mutual efforts to keep persons who would do us harm out of the

country and to taking every step in our power to safeguard our borders.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Bucella.

Ms. BUCELLA. Good morning, Chairman Shays, members of the

subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the missions and objectives of the Terrorist Screening Center as they relate to the visa revocation process.

First, I’d like to say a few words about our overall mission.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 ordered the creation of

the TSC, and our operations began on December 1, 2003. Our mission is to consolidate the U.S. Government’s approach to screening

for known and suspected terrorists, and to provide for the appropriate and lawful use of terrorist information in the screening process.

A year ago, this subcommittee held a hearing on visa revocation.

Chairman Shays noted that the Departments of State, Homeland

Security and Justice bring disparate practices, informal customs,

and clashing cultures to what should be a seamless process. Since

our inception, the Terrorist Screening Center has facilitated communications and coordination among these agencies through both

physical and automated processes.

The TSC is a dynamic, multi-agency center, including participants from the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, State,

and Treasury. Our consolidated data base, the Terrorist Screening

Data Base, contains information on known or suspected terrorists,

complied by the intelligence community, the FBI, DHS and the

State Department. Names and identifying information from our

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data base are accessed daily by 18,000 agencies with National

Crime Information Center, NCIC, terminals and by State Department consular officials.

Because our data can be accessed by any police officer in real

time, we have dramatically improved one aspect of the visa revocation process: locating the subject. If a police officer stops a vehicle

for speeding, he will run the name of the driver and often the passengers through an NCIC check. If one of the vehicle’s occupants

is shown to have a terrorist related revoked visa, the TSC assists

in the identification process and transfers the officer to the FBI’s

counter-terrorism watch for an operational response from the Joint

Terrorism Task Force.

How is this different from a year ago? Last year, the officers simply issued a speeding ticket without knowing that the driver or

passengers might be known or suspected terrorists with revoked

visas. In fact, the encounter would have neither been communicated to the intelligence community nor coordinated with Federal

law enforcement.

Another aspect of visa revocations is the coordination among

agencies. State Department assignees now screen visa applications

and revocations at our center, a function that was earlier performed at the State Department. They have daily interaction with

DHS and DOJ personnel. This interaction has paid off recently

when a suspected terrorist arrived on an international flight and

went through routine screening. His name was shown in our data

base and the TSC was contacted for further identifying information.

This particular case was coordinated by DHS and the State Department personnel in real time, physically located at our center,

allowing the visa to be immediately revoked and for the individuals

to be denied entry into the United States. At our center, the TSC

State Department assignees alert their consular affairs counterparts to review specific cases for visa revocation.

The TSC, an inter-agency entity, is well positioned to assist communications between agencies. In May, we chaired a meeting of the

U.S. Government agencies involved in the visa revocation process

to discuss ways to better coordinate the Government’s response

after the State revokes a visa. Although we began our operations

in December, by March we had consolidated 10 of the 12 data bases

listed in the April 2003 GAO report. That data base, through the

NCIC, is available to appropriate screeners, including local law enforcement, border inspectors, consular officials and others with appropriate access.

We participate in the visa revocation process by facilitating communications and coordination among agencies and consolidating

terrorist screening information into a single, accessible data base.

I appreciate the subcommittee’s interest in our activities, and I

look forward to answering any questions that you may have regarding TSC’s operations.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bucella follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK [assuming Chair]. Thank you, Ms. Bucella. We appreciate your being here, too.

Mr. Jacksta.

Mr. JACKSTA. Good morning, members of the subcommittee.

Thank you for this opportunity to appear today before you to update you on our efforts to formalize and reinforce the role of Customs and Border Protection in the visa revocation process. I am

also pleased to be here with my colleagues.

CBP firmly believes that the visa revocation process is the key

component of the layered defense that we deploy in conducting our

primary anti-terror mission. For CBP, a great deal of progress has

been made on a number of fronts since June of last year. I would

like to provide a brief status update on our efforts in this area before turning to our response to the General Accounting Office’s recommendations.

Prior to the arrival of international travel at air and seaports,

CBP screens these travelers using electronic manifests provided by

the carriers. CBP checks the names of passengers and crew members in the Interagency Border Inspection System, a name driven

data base that includes lookouts from the Department of Homeland

Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of State.

CBP’s National Targeting Center also reviews manifests for potential items of interest and can highlight passengers for additional

screening, or in certain cases identify passengers who CBP officers

will meet plane-side.

Beginning June 2003, CBP began training inspectors with Customs and Immigration background to function as members of joint

rover and analytical units. These teams cover terrorism, immigration and narcotics enforcement concerns in the passenger environment. Additionally, these joint teams have received counter-terrorism training since September 2003.

CBP has now delivered counter-terrorism response training to

over 1,700 CBP officers. This training provides procedures to follow

when a terrorist referral is made from an inspector, an advanced

lookout or a cold stop by a CBP inspector. We have highly trained

officers and we are working aggressively to provide them with the

additional specialized training they need to meet our constantly

evolving anti-terrorism missions.

Since we testified on the topic of visa revocations in June 2003,

CBP has addressed the operational concerns identify by GAO.

CBP’s role int eh revocation process is to prevent holders of revoked visas from gaining entry into the United States. To this end,

we have taken steps to formalize internal procedures for processing

visa revocations, enhanced the automation tools that support the

process and ensure that information sharing is timely is consistent.

The CBP verifies that visa revocations issued by the Department

of State are properly posted in our IBIS system, and that any lead

information is promptly provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for investigation. CBP recognizes that ICE is independently vetting visa revocations for lead information; however, CBP

suggest that our efforts, rather than being redundant, offer an additional source of information against which ICE can validate its

findings.

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CBP personnel now follow a written work flow outline for visa

revocations which includes specifications instructions for verifying

that the revocation has been posted in IBIS, conducting the proper

checks to determine if the subject may be in the United States, consistently recording results of the visa revocation process, and ensuring that ICE is notified where CBP feels that the subject of the

revocation is in the United States.

It should be noted that the presence of ICE, FBI, TSA, and CBP’s

National Targeting Center has greatly streamlined the sharing of

information. In order to improve and strengthen our procedures for

interdicting travelers who may be traveling on revoked visas, CBP

has identified visa revocation in our automated targeting system

and assigned them the highest risk. This places passengers suspected of traveling on revoked visas on our start page, where they

are identified as high risk passengers prior to arrival. This enhancement to ATS allows CBP personnel to easily identify these

travelers.

Additionally, our National Targeting Center closely monitors

these high risk passengers and works directly with local ports of

entry to respond to exactly matches and to resolve close matches.

Finally, CBP has developed a pilot program, the Immigration Security Initiative, to further improve our effectiveness in identifying

terrorists, criminals and other inadmissible passengers prior to

boarding. In June 2004, CBP deployed four officers to the Netherlands, a visa waiver country, for a 90 day ISI pilot program. Not

only will CBP now have an opportunity to examine passengers

prior to boarding, but airlines will have the opportunity to consult

with trained CBP officers during the check-in and boarding process.

Identifying and preventing the entry of persons, be they using

fraudulent documents to conceal their true intentions about the

purpose of their visit, or because they have had their visa revoked

is a key responsibility of CBP. Applying GAO’s recommendation to

our process helps CBP to better fulfill its mission at the ports of

entry. The procedures work. A review of the National Targeting

Center activity log for the last 12 months shows that they have

stopped 72 people and refused them entry into the United States

based on revocation hits.

In conclusion, CBP is dedicated to enforcing the visa revocation

program cooperatively with our colleagues. And I thank you today

for having the opportunity to testify and I will address questions

at the end.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jacksta follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Jacksta.

Mr. Schoch.

Mr. SCHOCH. Good morning, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity today to update you on

the improvements made to the visa revocation process by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.

Identifying and investigating individuals who pose potential

threats to the security of the United States is a critical task in fulfilling ICE’s mission of preventing terrorists and other criminal activity by targeting the people, money and materials that support

terrorists and criminal organizations. Strengthening the visa revocation process and utilizing all of ICE’s unique authorities to investigate, prosecute and remove individuals with revoked visas

from the United States is an important tool in the war against terrorism.

Central to the ICE national security mission is the National Security Investigations Division within the Office of Investigations.

The National Security Division is comprised of investigative units

that apply traditional customs and immigration authorities needed

to effectively combat the threat of terrorism and to enhance our national security.

As you are aware, the visa revocation process involves a coordinated effort by many members of the Federal law enforcement community. In June 2003, the Government Accountability Office identified weaknesses in that process, including difficulties in receiving

the visa revocation cables and a lack of specific derogatory information behind those cables. ICE addressed these weaknesses. However, a followup report by GAO released today identified the need

for additional coordination between DHS and the State Department

and for the implementation of performance standards, such as specific timeframes for completing each step of the process.

I am pleased to describe the actions that ICE has taken to address the concerns raised by GAO. ICE has thoroughly reviewed

our role in the visa revocation process and has implemented a

number of aggressive changes to increase the efficiency and coordination of visa revocation investigations. The following are key

changes that have been made since June 2003: The State Department now transmits daily visa revocation notifications to ICE electronically via e-mail as they are issued, allowing for ICE to initiate

more timely investigations; The State Department now provides a

terror screening center [TSC], reference number for every national

security revocation based on a TSC record that allows ICE to retrieve the specific derogatory behind the revocation with certainty;

The State Department, the TSC and ICE now reconcile visa revocation lists to ensure that all visa revocation cases have been received by the investigating agencies; All national security visa revocation cases identified by State Department are prioritized by

ICE. Those identified by the TSC as having a nexus to terrorism

are given the absolute highest priority and are jointly investigated

by ICE and the FBI through the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Over the last year, ICE has investigated hundreds of visa revocation cases. Just last month, ICE agents in Atlanta arrested the

subject of a visa revocation referral on an overstay violation. The

subject, an Afghani national, is listed in the TIPOFF data base,

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was identified by the TSC as a person of interest. This case was

initiated by ICE, coordinated through the JTTF, all within approximately a 30 day time period.

While some cases have led to arrests, many of the referred cases

are ultimately closed through the determination that the subject of

the revocation has either never entered the United States, has departed from the United States or has been cleared as not in fact

being a national security threat. In cases where the investigation

concludes that the subject is not in the United States, ICE ensures

and coordinates with CBP and State to ensure the proper looks are

placed on these individuals.

As you are aware, neither existing regulations nor statutes expressly provide for the removal of aliens based solely on visa revocations. Revocation of a visa is not explicitly a stated ground of

removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act. State Department’s visa revocation certificate generally states that the revocation shall become effectively immediately on the date that the certificate is signed unless the alien is already in the United States,

in which case the revocation will become effective immediately

upon the alien’s departure from the United States.

Therefore, if an ICE special agent locates an alien in the United

States for whom State has issued a visa revocation certificate, ICE

would be unable to place the admitted alien in removal proceedings

solely based on the visa revocation that had not yet taken place.

However, State Department and DHS have recently agreed that on

a case by case basis, the Department of State will consider issuing

a superseding revocation certificate to make the revocation effective

retroactively to the date of issuance of the visa. Such a change in

the language of the certificate may make it possible for DHS to

place an alien in removal proceedings.

DHS and the Department of State have also exchanged letters to

ensure that the two agencies are aware of operational steps that

each are taking when a visa revocation occurs. These letters essentially define the roles and responsibilities of each agency involved

in the visa revocation process. DHS and State are also considering

formalizing letters into a memorandum of understanding.

In summary, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE

have worked diligently to strengthen our Nation’s security by implementing new procedures and refining old procedures. We continue to work closely with our partners in a mission to assure that

any and all threats are addressed and challenged by our agency’s

full authority. We appreciate the extensive work and cooperation

by GAO in the review of the visa revocation process. I thank you

for the opportunity to be here toady and speak to you and look forward to any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schoch follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Schoch.

I have a couple of real long questions, but I want to ask Mr.

Ford, I guess my key question is why does it take so long, why does

it take so long. Your testimony on page three says, Immigration

and Customs enforcement would be unable to place an alien in removal proceedings based solely on a visa revocation that has not

yet taken place. Help me understand that, and why that is the

case.

Mr. FORD. Our understanding of the process is that the revocation itself, based on the State Department’s certificate, does not

really take effect until an individual actually leaves the country,

that they in effect—somebody that’s here illegally, their visa status

doesn’t change until they actually leave. Therefore, the concern——

Mr. SCHROCK. Why?

Mr. FORD. Why?

Mr. SCHROCK. Doesn’t the status change until they leave? Why

isn’t it instant?

Mr. FORD. My understanding is, the interpretation of their legal

staff is that they——

Mr. SCHROCK. The legal status or legal staff?

Mr. FORD. The legal staff at the State Department, it is my understanding their interpretation of the law is that they can’t or

won’t change the certificate to make it either retroactive or to make

it the day that they actually do the revocation. Actually, I would

prefer to have the State Department comment on that, because this

is, in my view, a policy issue that probably needs to be discussed

in terms of whether or not that’s the right kind of policy.

Mr. SCHROCK. Does anybody else want to comment on that? Mr.

Edson.

Mr. EDSON. I think one of the issues is the distinction between

the visa, which is the travel document that allows them to apply

for entry at the border, and the admission by DHS. We’re revoking

only the visa. So for an individual who’s in the United States, unless it were to be retroactive to the date of issuance, it has no legal

effect, since they’re already here and they’re not using the visa at

that point until they travel internationally. But we are now in

agreement with DHS on steps that can be taken to reword that

revocation certificate when it’s appropriate and when DHS feels it’s

useful.

Mr. SCHROCK. Is that something that a legislative fix will solve?

Mr. EDSON. I think we have the fix now. The DHS is looking at

other changes on the regulatory-legislative side. But we have a way

to work together when DHS sees it to be in their——

Mr. SCHROCK. As I heard Mr. Ford say, some people interpret or

fail to do such and so, and does it need to be so specific that they’ll

know what it is exactly and they don’t have to go in there and interpret it for themselves?

Mr. EDSON. Our preference, if I could, the revocation process is

a very blunt tool. We use a very low standard of evidence when we

revoke visas. We revoke most of them prudentially just because we

feel it’s prudent and not because we’ve actually proven a thing.

We are concerned that we not tie the hands of the Secretary and

DHS in using this tool bluntly and broadly. We’d like to be able to

continue to do that, and we are a little concerned about things that

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would open it up to further judicial review or more specifically, if

we always had to revoke in a particular way, i.e., retroactive back

to the date of issuance, we’re concerned that we might find ourselves using or being forced to use a higher standard of evidence

in these cases.

For example, we recently revoked five people’s visas based on a

single piece of derogatory information that clearly referred to only

a single person. We had no way to know which of those five it was,

so we went ahead and revoked them all because we were able to

do that. If we had to use a higher standard of evidence we’d have

to spend more time trying to figure out which of the five with those

matching names was the appropriate person.

And that’s the sort of concern we’re facing.

Mr. SCHROCK. This is probably along the same lines, and it’s a

long, convoluted question, so bear with me. I understand we face

serious legal ramifications and obstacles in removing an alien

who’s already in country and has his visa revoked. And I recognize

that the Immigration and Nationality Act calls for a judge to conduct proceedings to determine if the alien has been removable, and

that the alien has rights to question witnesses, which I think is ridiculous, see evidence and so forth.

I further recognize that intelligence and law enforcement organizations will be reluctant to disclose such potentially classified information due to releasing sources and methods. Where or how can

we meet in the middle to get a better grip on this situation and

frankly, expel potential terrorists and aliens who are here for whatever reasons, criminals, suspected terror connections, whatever,

and have come to meet the criteria for having their visas revoked

after they enter our borders? It seems like we’re being a little too

lenient on some of these people.

When I had cancer, they cut out a whole bunch of stuff around

the cancer, just to make sure we got it all. If they had taken out

just the cancer part, they might have missed some of it. Thank God

they didn’t. Maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here. I don’t

know. Tell me.

Mr. EDSON. I’d like to comment briefly, and then maybe if I

could, defer to my colleague from ICE. But the situation you describe is precisely why we think the working arrangement we’ve

come to at DHS is the best way to go. So on a case by case basis,

if it looks as if the evidence is clear and the risk to the United

States warrants revocation retroactively, on balance against the

down sides that you just mentioned, then DHS would request that

of us and that’s what we would do.

Mr. SCHROCK. Does anybody else want to comment?

Mr. SCHOCH. I can comment. On any situation where we had a

person we identified, our agents are out working, we identify this

individual as being in the United States, I think first we would

look at the status. We currently do this in all of our cases, whether

or not this person is still conforming to the status they were admitted for. That’s first and foremost.

If they are in status and there is a national security concern that

remains, then we can also, and working with the intelligence and

law enforcement community, we can get certain information that

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can be declassified, and we can go in and work with national security removable grounds that exist today. That would be second.

We have recently, as was pointed out by the State Department,

we recently have this agreement that I think also is a stop-gap

measure that helps us tremendously in that on a case by case basis

we can now go back retroactively and now we have somebody who

is presently in the United States who has not been admitted with

a valid visa, gives us the grounds to put that person in proceedings.

We have three different ways to handle that situation.

Mr. SCHROCK. Being basically an inpatient, does it take this long,

this long, this long? And if it takes this long, why? Because a lot

of bad things can happen when it takes this long.

Mr. SCHOCH. I think the system we have in place now is immediate, it’s immediate.

Mr. SCHROCK. Good.

Mr. SCHOCH. We have BTS level that would talk to the State Department, these actions would be taken immediately.

Mr. SCHROCK. Great. Thank you.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Let me get to the issue that the GAO report stated that the State and DHS, this is for Mr. Edson and Mr.

Schoch, that the procedures regarding the visa revocation are not

coordinated and lack performance standards, such as specific timeframes and process. Do you agree with that statement, and if not,

where do you think we are right now as it relates to performance

standards?

Mr. SCHOCH. Let me speak to, in March of this year we put in

place several different procedures, basically to audit and make sure

that we are meeting the timeframes that were acceptable for these

types of cases. We now, as ICE use the TECS–II system, it’s a

tracking system that allows us to put all of our cases in it. That

was new to ICE that recently has come into the fold. So we have

put measures in place that within receipt of the revocation from

State, within 7 days our headquarters has to get that.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. How recently has that been in effect?

Mr. SCHOCH. I’d say within the last couple of months that has

been in place. We have also, the field, having now, as lead is sent

out to our TECS system, they have 7 days to also respond back to

us. We have very tight, measurable timeframes that are put in

place specifically to ensure that the field is responsive, that we are

responsive. And not to mention another layer is every week we reconcile with the State Department to ensure that what they’re sending us is what we actually got. And there’s this weekly reconciliation to ensure that we are getting what they are pushing to our

agency as a referral.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Let me ask you this, and again, Mr. Edson

or Mr. Schoch. It seems the information sharing notification of visa

revocation among agencies, especially your two agencies, has been

done internally or on an informal basis. Do you believe that a Government-wide policy should be created and be in effect to deal with

this issue? And there are advantages and disadvantages for that,

too.

Mr. EDSON. We’ve gotten to the point, I think particularly with

the creation of TSC, when TSC was stood up in December, there

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are pretty consistent policies being followed now for information

sharing. We actually appreciate very much the opportunity to work

with GAO on reviewing our processes, because they bring an auditor’s eye to the process that we don’t always use.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And they bring accountability, which is extremely important.

Mr. EDSON. Yes. And they give us the opportunity to look at

things like the performance standards. We had over-used the word

‘‘immediately,’’ or ‘‘as soon as possible’’ in our standard operating

procedures, and now have very specifically indicated when things

have to happen by the end of the same working day.

We have very specifically worked out with ICE, CBP, the National Targeting Center and TSC the methods, and we have redundant, overlapping methods of communication for all of these cases,

so that we’re, with those overlapping methods of communication

and the weekly reconciliations with different agencies involved, and

other things we’ve got in the works, a consolidated, we developed

a module for our own data base that all of the agencies involved

in this process will use for reporting and accountability, so that we

can track cases together through the same module. It won’t be multiple data bases.

I think those things together are going to enable us not only to

share the information effectively, which we’re probably already

doing, but to verify that it’s being shared effectively, to get at the

core of the GAO report, and that’s our inability to actually have

full, 100 percent assurance and an audit trail.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. A question for Ms. Bucella. I know in the

past that the intelligence community felt that the visa revocation

process was a vulnerability to the United States. Since the last

GAO report up until now, and what you’re aware of with the testimony we’ve heard today and the process and procedures that have

been in place, do you still feel, based on your position, that the visa

revocation process is still a vulnerability to the United States as it

relates to terrorism and national security?

Ms. BUCELLA. Yes, sir. Initially, when we stood up, we are looking at the Government’s processes and procedures with a totally

fresh look. The Terrorist Screening Center, as I mentioned to you

before, is a multi-agency organization. The one advantage that we

really have is that we have representatives from all the different

agencies co-located where we are.

So every time we would have an encounter, that is, someone

stopped on the road for a routine traffic stop, we would have somebody there from State, somebody from CBP, ICE, DHS, and the

FBI. When the officer would pull the person over, we would find

out who this person is, and if there was a visa that had been revoked, we’d say when was it revoked, and DHS, ICE and CBP,

when did they come into the country, where did they come into the

country and how.

And then what we require to do, that’s when we found out that

there was in fact some vulnerabilities. We realized that there was

not a written process of how we had agreed on sending information

back and forth, and what we would do once we found the individual. So we started a series of meetings back in, I guess April we

saw this vulnerability, in May, and we started to talk on a pretty

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routine basis and came up with a written business process which

we shared, I believe with GAO, on what we would do when we had

information about a revoked visa.

When the State Department would revoke a visa, real time right

at our center, we would enter it through our CBP and ICE people,

right into IBIS and right into the CLASS system. So for the first

time, every Government agency had the information real time. All

they had to do was access NCIC.

And this was a hole that we decided we needed to work together

on. And we’re endeavoring to do that. That is one of the challenges

that I believe we all have. But for once we are all sitting at the

same table, working a written business process together.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Yes. We have a lot of challenges out there.

And we have a lot of people working on a lot of issues. It takes a

lot of coordination. Unfortunately sometimes we get caught up in

our own little world, in our own projects, and we forget about the

integration of all information we need to get to the people that can

react. And the Terrorist Screening Center, the purpose is to very

quickly identify someone that can be a threat to the United States.

Now, what do you feel needs to be done, from your perspective,

working with the Terrorist Screening Center, to make things even

more effective than they are now, and maybe relate to Homeland

Security and State? Because it seems to me that’s where we really

have to bring that coordination together and that integration.

Ms. BUCELLA. We as the Terrorist Screening Center have only

been in existence for about 8 months. And so what we are, as we

see an issue, we deal with it right then and there.

Fortunately, because of the structure of the Terrorist Screening

Center, I’m a DHS employee. That’s who pays my paycheck. But

I am, the Terrorist Screening Center is administered by the FBI.

So I immediately report to Bob Mueller, the Director of the FBI.

So I don’t have that bureaucratic delay.

Because we have representatives, one of my deputies, my principal deputy is from DHS, he was former CBP. My other deputy is

from the FBI. My other deputy is from the State Department.

They’re all at levels that they can literally penetrate into those organizations without dealing with the bureaucracy and waiting for

the delay time in receiving information and getting information.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the wisdom and maturity of experience. That could be a good thing, and it could be a bad thing. What

we are doing now, though, is as we see an issue, we’re trying to

fix it. But I believe that we are on the right road. I will tell you,

we don’t have cables that come into the Terrorist Screening Center.

We have e-mail. E-mail comes in a lot faster. We can just literally

pick up the phone when there’s a visa that’s been revoked and contract and coordinate, which we do with the National Targeting

Center, which is the Department of Homeland Security’s operations

center. We are in constant communication with them on a daily

basis.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. It seems to me that what you’re focusing on

is where we need to be. Are we there from a technology point of

view?

Ms. BUCELLA. I don’t believe we’re there from a technology

standpoint.

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Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Explain why you think that.

Ms. BUCELLA. When we stood up, we were announced in September. My staff, probably about 10 of us were there in October. But

we had to be fully operational 24/7, call center by December 1st,

which we were. And we had to borrow and take everyone’s data

bases so we had accessibility and the ability to communicate real

time with the different agencies, to include the intelligence community.

We are now developing a data base which will be accessible by

other Government agencies as well as the intel community. But

that is under current development and probably will not be done

until the beginning part of next year.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. The thing that worries us all, and we look

at September 11 and we look at the mistakes we’ve made so we can

hopefully correct those mistakes, but what really I’m hearing today

is that we still have a way to go as far as stopping maybe a terrorist out on the road somewhere, getting that individual, that police

officer on the street, getting it to the agencies that need to react

on it.

Ms. BUCELLA. Let me clarify. I’m not waiting for us to have the

super-duper communications system. We’re doing go-arounds. So if

I could, I’d like to explain to you how an encounter works on the

street and what we do as far as communicating with not only everybody at this table, but the intelligence community.

A law enforcement officer stops someone for speeding, for example, going 100 miles an hour down the road. Right now, that law

enforcement officer either, on his vehicle if he has the NCIC, or if

he contacts his dispatcher, will put the person’s name into the data

base, into the NCIC. There will be an indication that will come up,

please contact the Terrorist Screening Center, with the telephone

number. They will contact us. Our staff, as a 24/7 call center, has

representatives from each of the different agencies and quite frankly, at our center, I have CBP people accessing FBI data bases, and

I have FBI agents that are accessing CBP data bases. It truly is

a partnership.

That will——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Are you working with JTTF also?

Ms. BUCELLA. Yes, and I’ll explain how they are the operational

arm. The law enforcement officer and/or the dispatcher will call in

and give us a name. We’ll ask for the date of birth and the passport

number, country of origin. Right now, those are the four sources of

information that are not classified that we can have in our data

base.

However, because law enforcement is not involved necessarily in

the intel community, any information they solicit from the individual we can add into our data base. For example, height, weight,

any kind of distinguishing marks, sex, those types of things.

We then facilitate and help that law enforcement officer to be

able to identify that person is in fact the person that is in our data

base as a known or suspected terrorist. Name alone is not enough.

And just because they get the monitor to say, please contact us,

doesn’t mean they have a terrorist. So we listen to the information

that they are sharing with us.

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We also have accessibility to classified information. So for example, if we have information from the former State Department TIPOFF system, which has classified information, for example, had

distinguishing marks like, the individual has only one right arm,

we may say to the officer, please describe what he looks like,

height, weight, anything else. Well, he doesn’t have an arm.

We do not tell that officer, bingo, you’ve got somebody, nor do we

tell him the individual only has one arm, because we are very cautious about not sharing classified information. If it appears that

person that the law enforcement officer is encountering is in fact

the same person that we have in our data base, we then forward

the phone call to CT Watch, Counter-Terrorist Watch, at the FBI.

They then give instruction or advise that law enforcement

officer——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And give us the time period that all this is

occurring.

Ms. BUCELLA. This happens probably on average within 10 minutes. And by the way, the only reason why they would get the Terrorist Screening Center is that there has to be information that

this individual is related to terrorism. We do not have the absconders or murderers, only if it relates to terrorism.

So the law enforcement officer then gets forwarded, we just touch

a button, they’re conferenced in with the CT Watch, CT Watch

then gives them instructions, either arrest the individual because

there is an indictment, there is a charge document, ask questions,

and the questions that they can ask them will be those routine

questions in law enforcement, or there could actually be questions

that the case agent, and that could either be from the intel community or from the law enforcement community, would ask. If you encounter this individual, what do you want to know. Well, I’d like

to know where he’s been, I’d like to know, does he attend the university of whatever. Those questions are then given to the law enforcement officer. And the law enforcement officer solicits that information.

The other category is detain the individual. If for example, in the

first example I gave, people driving 100 miles an hour, fortunately

they’ve violated, and this in fact did happen in the United States,

they violated a State law. And the law enforcement officers could

in fact arrest the individual. If it appears that is in fact a person,

the CT Watch dispatches out the JTTFs at the local communities.

There’s probably about 86 of them around the country. And the

JTTFs go out and assist the law enforcement officer.

The law enforcement officer may not ever know who had the

original case, may not know that DIA or the CIA is looking at this

individual.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. One other thing I want to ask you, and I

ask you, Mr. Chairman, for a little more time. There are two

issues. First thing, if someone’s going 100 miles an hour and you

catch them, and that’s fine, that’s reactive. How about the issue of

being proactive as it relates to your organization, the Terrorist

Screening Center? Someone that’s not going 100 miles an hour, are

you investigating those individuals whose visas have been revoked

and that we also are attempting to find? How are you doing that?

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And the second question, because I know my time, would be volume. I know one of the problems we have is volume. NSA, look at

the volume they deal with. How, based on the program from your

perspective, working both in Homeland Security and in FBI, how

are we dealing with the volume as it relates to this issue. Maybe

Mr. Ford might want to come in on that. That’s the end of my

questions. Thank you.

Ms. BUCELLA. I’m going to answer the first question first, sir, because that deals with those individuals that haven’t violated a

State law. Those individuals that haven’t violated State law, the

law enforcement officer gathers that information from the individual. If that person, if there’s a revoked visa, what we do is then,

through the JTTF, I need to clarify that the Terrorism Screening

Center is, think of us as a clearinghouse or pointer system. We do

not investigate.

We have the operational arm, which is the JTTF, which could in

fact be someone from CBP, ICE or the FBI. They then send out

leads, because we want to make sure, for example, if that person

whose visa has been revoked, who now is in the United States,

what are they doing, where are they. The JTTF will send out a

lead to either do a threat assessment on that individual or to start

an investigation. That coordination is done between ICE and the

FBI on a daily basis. First.

Second, volume. As far as volume, right now since we have been

in existence since December 1st, we have responded to approximately close to 6,000 calls in total. Of the 6,000 phone calls that

we have——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Are those 6,000 calls from police officers

stopping somebody or what?

Ms. BUCELLA. Could be. Could be police officers stopping somebody, could be somebody applying for a State job, could be somebody that’s putting bond up for an individual, it could be——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Every citizen?

Ms. BUCELLA. Excuse me?

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Just John Q. Public?

Ms. BUCELLA. No, no. We only deal, our interface is only with

law enforcement.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK.

Ms. BUCELLA. So that is the volume that we have right now. We

are increasing that volume based on the amount of data that we

have in our system. But we do not, in our data base, have the derogatory information. That is the reason why they’re there. That

stays with the different agencies, whether it be the intelligence

community, State Department, or CBP or ICE or FBI. But we do

have accessibility to that.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK, Mr. Ford, you’re batting cleanup.

You’ve heard the testimony here today. The purpose of this hearing

is to make the issue that we’re dealing with better. We’re trying

to learn from past mistakes. Moving forward, we need to implement now. Based on the testimony we’ve heard today, where are

we as it relates to GAO?

Mr. FORD. I guess I want to put this in a little context, since I

testified on this issue a year ago. I think that since we’ve pretty

much been looking at this issue now for almost 2 years, clearly the

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level of response on the part of the executive branch on this issue

has deeply increased from where we were, say, 2 years ago. When

we conducted the work last year, many of the handoffs, the communication between the agencies, the problems in notifying people on

a timely basis was more egregious than we believe it is today.

The analysis that’s in our report was based on a sample we took

from October to December 2003. The TSC was stood up in December 2003. So prior to that time, there wasn’t this coordinating

mechanism in place. Many of the actions taken by the agencies

since we’ve done our analysis in our view are steps in the right direction.

I think the one area that we still believe needs more transparency is the, a clearer statement, and we think it should come

from DHS as the lead agency, to ensure that all of these improvements in the visa revocation process are properly codified, and in

fact, we think they need to have performance standards that lay

out how long it should take to properly notify one agency or another in the process. And we shouldn’t have to run into the same

problems we did——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And would those performance standards be

for both Department of Homeland Security and also State?

Mr. FORD. Absolutely. We think everyone involved in the process

needs to step to the plate in terms of taking action on a timely

basis. The reality of it is that what we are trying to prevent here

is a suspected terrorist that may enter the country legally, may be

here, from doing something harmful. And the best way to deal with

it, to counteract that, is to alert the appropriate officials on a timely basis. So we think those kinds of metrics should be included in

the policies and procedures.

So we think a lot of things we’re doing are the right kinds of

things. We haven’t seen the metrics yet, but if they are in fact putting those in place, those are in our view steps in the right direction.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Given that visa revocation that is occurring

while the applicant is overseas are not subject to judicial review,

our Chairman Shays has a bill that he’s introduced that would also

use that process in individuals in the United States, that if they

are revoked, they would not be subject to judicial review. What is

your opinion of his bill as it relates to this process?

Mr. FORD. Well, the GAO has not, we don’t have a view on that

institutionally. We’ve heard some discussion from the executive

branch witnesses here about, I guess you could say, the pros and

cons of statutorily trying to fix this problem. I guess we’re going

to have to bow out on that. We don’t have a view on whether that’s

the right way to go. We just know that it’s an issue that law enforcement was concerned about. In our view, that needs to be addressed, and a policy needs to be established whether——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. It seems to me it’s a good process, and it’s

a good idea, because it’s going to make something happen. Thank

you.

Mr. SCHROCK. Before I yield to Chairman Shays, let me ask one

thing. Ms. Bucella, I thought I heard you say, not having a right

arm is classified. Did I misunderstand you?

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Ms. BUCELLA. No. There is some information that is gathered

from our intelligence community that is source protected. For example, if there was an individual that was only dealt with by someone who was a source, but the bad guy didn’t know about it, and

the only way they would have known about it is if they had seen

the person and this person has spent much of his entire career not

being seen out in the public, then not having an arm may actually

be source protected and classified.

Mr. SCHROCK. Chairman Shays.

Mr. SHAYS [resuming Chair]. I thank the chairman, and I thank

the committee for their good questions, and our participants here.

Basically, I have two parts to try and sort out. The issue of the

granting of visas, and then when we’ve made a mistake, how we

revoke them. I want to know, first, have we made a lot of progress

or a modest amount of progress in getting information to the right

people in such a timely basis we never even issue the visa? And

then, when we’ve issued the visa and we determine it shouldn’t be

granted, then I want to talk about that. So maybe Mr. Ford, you

could jump in.

Mr. FORD. OK. I want to make sure I understand your first question. Before a visa is issued?

Mr. SHAYS. Right, and the information we get to the right people,

so they can make an intelligent decision. It seems to me when a

visa is granted and it shouldn’t be, that should only occur when information, when we didn’t have information. But when we grant

them a visa, when we had information but we simply failed to get

it to the right people in time, then that’s something that obviously

I want to correct first. let’s not even give them the visa.

So can I get an assessment of how we’re doing there?

Mr. FORD. Well, let me comment first of all on the process that

the State Department employs for approving visas itself. An applicant must meet the standards in the Immigration and Nationality

Act. A consular official oversees, makes a judgment whether that

person is eligible to receive a visa.

Now, if the State Department has some information regarding an

individual, or if the consular official has some suspicious that this

individual may be a person of concern, in that case they would go

back to the headquarters and basically have that person screened

by a security official here in Washington. They may or may not

grant the visa on that process. They have a technology system that

allows them to send electronically information back and forth.

That’s real time, they can make a decision at that time whether a

person should get a visa or not.

If a person does have a visa, is granted a visa, then the process

changes, because at that point in time, the person is legally entitled to enter the United States, or at least come to our border. And

the visa revocation process, if the State Department gets information subsequent to the issuance of the visa that indicates, hey,

maybe we’d better not let this person in here, we’d better revoke

the visa, then what they want to do is immediately get that information to the port of entry so that the DHS-Customs officials can

stop them from entering.

If on the other hand, if the individual is already in the United

States, then the problem becomes law enforcement following up

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and finding out whether that individual in fact is a person of concern. And that’s what needs to be, that information needs to be

timely presented.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m seeing three steps. I’m seeing one, what can we

know first, to not even grant the visa. The second is, we’ve granted

them the visa, they haven’t yet entered the country, and then the

third is, they’re in the country, go find them. Then what do you do?

We don’t have a legalistic issue in the first two stages, is that correct? That individual has no legal rights. If they came to the border

of the United States, they flew in and they were not granted visa,

they can be shipped out right away, no lawyers get to—I’m seeing

nodding of heads. Is that correct?

Mr. FORD. That’s my understanding.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody disagree with that? OK.

Ms. BUCELLA. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, are you in a position to be able to assess the

first two parts of that stage before I get to the whole issue of revoking a visa once they’re here? Are you comfortable in assessing how

well they’re doing or not doing?

Mr. FORD. Well, we haven’t looked at the approval process for

visas, we haven’t looked at that recently. We have done some work

a couple of years ago where we looked at the process prior to September 11.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, so the approval process, how about once it was

granted up to the border? Because we had interesting dialog in our

last hearing about that.

Mr. FORD. Again, in the course of conducting this work, we took

a limited sample. We tried to find out the extent to which persons

may have been stopped at the border. Based on information from

our sample, we found that DHS had done a good job of stopping

people when they came to the border when they had the information.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody want to comment on this issue?

Ms. BUCELLA. Right now, if there’s information on an individual,

the CLASS system, which is entered into when they’re approving

a visa, or even reviewing the person’s name, the CLASS system

and IBIS——

Mr. SHAYS. Is that State Department?

Ms. BUCELLA. State Department is CLASS, IBIS is DHS. They

are updated now on a daily basis, where previously they were updated, I’m not quite sure, either on a weekly basis or biweekly

basis. But they’re updated right from the Terrorist Screening Center on a daily basis now.

So as to your first example, should you even give them a visa,

at least the information as to what they need to look at in determining whether or not this person is or is not a known or suspected terrorist is available right then and there.

Mr. SHAYS. So in theory, as soon as they realize they’ve made a

mistake, granted a visa, that’s State, they are going to put that in

the system immediately. And in theory then, it is available at our

border.

Ms. BUCELLA. Yes, real time.

Mr. JACKSTA. That’s correct, sir, and if I can just add a little bit

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mation is real time, the connectivity between the Department of

State data base and the data base that’s used by our officers at the

port of entry. With advanced information on the international air

travelers and the commercial vessel operators, we get that information, we do the query before they actually arrive at the port of

entry, and that allows us to take appropriate action where necessary to meet the flight at the plane side. And if we have someone

who’s identified as a possible high risk terrorist that we can actually grab them right at the plane side and do our inspection in the

Federal inspection areas.

So there is a process in place. If the name is in the system, we

will respond and we’ll stop that person at the border and take the

appropriate action.

Mr. SHAYS. I just would make a point, that in theory, this should

work pretty well. Steps in the right direction, though, Senator

Nunn pointed out that a deer running from a hungry cougar is taking steps to get away, and so it really demands that there be some

speed in this process of steps in the right direction.

How much time do I have left? [Laughter.]

I’d rather do a second round, but you haven’t gone. You know

what I want to do? I’ll defer, but I want to get into the whole issue

of the chart on page 14. I want to make sure, do you all have this

chart? I’m going to be asking each of you to respond to the whole

issue of, the State has lists of revoked visas, 338. DHS, ICE has

347, and DHS Customs and Border Protection has 336. But what’s

interesting is, they are different. The list would be bigger if we

added them all up collectively. In other words, I need to have that

sorted out and explained to me, if we’re moving in the right direction, why that would be a different list.

But I’d like to defer to my colleague.

Ms. WATSON. Yes, I had a couple of questions. In reading the

analysis of the GAO report, it says that communication problems

across systems persist. I was listening very closely, probably you’ve

answered most of this. But you report that there are still no written procedures for sharing visa revocation information among agencies. So I’d like Mr. Ford to respond to that.

And in some cases, the revocation of visas takes 6 months or

more. That’s the second comment I’d like to hear. And then why

shouldn’t the revocation be grounds for removal and why should

not, when we locate a person whose visa has expired, or we have

some suspicion that person is connected to terrorism, why should

they not be immediately removed from U.S. soil? Mr. Ford, can you

lead off, please?

Mr. FORD. OK. I believe your first question had to do with the

policies and procedures and place. Actually, I want to put this in

some context.

Ms. WATSON. If I may just interject, I notice it was in your report

of 2003.

Mr. FORD. Yes, that’s correct. That’s where I was going to begin.

We’ve found from our work from last year that each of the agencies, they did have policies and procedures, but they weren’t very

clear. There wasn’t much of a linkage between each of them in

terms of how they were supposed to work together. We made a recVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:21 Feb 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98048.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ommendation in 2003 that they develop such policies and procedures.

Subsequent to that, the Department of State in fact did develop

standard operating procedures for visa revocations, soon after that

report was done. DHS, some components of DHS developed some

policies and procedures after that. But most of the recent changes

that are designed to tighten this process up have occurred after the

first of this year, generally from the spring of this year.

So you have to kind of track this from last year up to where we

are now. There are many more policies and procedures in place

that we were advocating a year ago that are now in place with the

agencies.

Your second question had to do with, I believe it was why it took

6 months for the Department of State, I’ll just tell you that was

based on the sample that we conduced from October to November,

excuse me, from October to December and I guess I’ll defer to the

State Department on why it took them that long, in one case it

took that long.

Ms. WATSON. All right, somebody from State can address that.

Mr. EDSON. Actually, if I could, on the written standard operating procedures, one thing that we have started working on, actually

almost finished working on, taking our cue from this latest GAO

report, is coordinating the SOPs of the three agencies involved here

at the table, putting them in a consolidated flow chart, so that we

all are fully aware in writing of what the other players are doing

in this process. That was a good recommendation and we’re working on it.

Ms. WATSON. Great.

Mr. EDSON. On the revocation, in the report there were a couple

of cases mentioned. It was a small sample that the GAO reviewed.

There were reasons for the delays. In one case, the individual,

when the case was sent over from TSC originally, TIPOFF originally, it was reviewed and it was determined that it would not be

revoked. Six months later, additional derogatory information was

made available. At that point, the visa was revoked. But the gap

between the original referral and the revocation was 6 months.

In another case, the visa was actually revoked in the field by our

officers for non-terrorism grounds. Six months later, terrorism information came up. We felt that it was the safe thing to do to revoke it again, just to create a paper trail that was explicitly linked

to terrorism. So there was a 6-month gap in there as well.

But those cases, I’m not saying that all cases are that clear. But

in those cases, in any event, there were clear explanations, it was

an accounting gap rather than a gap in action. There was nothing

waiting for 6 months.

Ms. WATSON. Ms. Bucella, I heard you say that you can identify

in a rapid fashion. I am just thinking that we need to be able to

have information, and now we have the technology at our fingertips, because these people have been here a while. And they are

planning probably as we speak. We need to move as quickly as possible, so I would hope that these long gaps would some way be

eliminated and we can move very quickly.

Can you comment on that again, Ms. Bucella, on the time it

takes you to get the information from your agency to the others?

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Ms. BUCELLA. Because of the unique position that we have, we

have State Department representatives at our agency as well as

Homeland Security, and a multitude of, whether it’s Coast Guard,

CBP, ICE, Secret Service, we have FBI there. Because we have the

accessibility to everybody else’s data bases, we are able to update

and upload the information real time, right from our center.

So we don’t have to wait for cables to go back and forth between

the different agencies and maybe they don’t get to where they need

to get to. But we do it right from the same data base that’s going

to be accessed by those inspectors at our border, if we put the individual’s information in because we found out from the State Department the person’s visa was revoked, we put it into the IBIS

system. They access the IBIS system right at the port and so the

inspector will see right there that this person’s visa has been revoked and they can deny entry right then and there. So there’s not

that lag time.

And quite frankly, I can’t comment on how long it took for the

information to get to the original agencies. I can only speak to how

long it’s taking now, since the TSC has been in operation.

Ms. WATSON. I argued loud and long when we were developing

the Department of Homeland Security and where the visa investigations and where the visa granting authority ought to be. I

opted for the State Department because of the training and the experience. I know we depended greatly in my embassy on the consul

that took care of visas. These people develop another sense to be

able to detect that.

Can you then instantly approach and get information from their

data base, say in an embassy 10,000 miles away and there’s a decision made, can you put your hands on that same information, Ms.

Bucella?

Ms. BUCELLA. If they put that information into the CLASS system.

Ms. WATSON. Are they doing that now, State Department?

Mr. EDSON. We use a consolidated global data base of all our visa

transactions, all of our posts, immediately reflected in a corporate

data base back here in Washington, a consolidated data base.

That’s accessible from the TSC.

Ms. WATSON. Very good. The other question I have, do we have

any idea how many visitors with possible links to terrorism are

here in the United States, and do we have any numbers to demonstrate improvement in the system? Are we catching them? And

are we deporting them or whatever?

Ms. BUCELLA. I can tell, since the Terrorist Screening Center, the

way we operate is there has to be a routine law enforcement encounter, or there has to be some sort of a screening process, whether somebody’s applied for a job, or some type of clearance. But I

could not give you how many people are here. I can say that since

we’ve been in existence, just on the known or suspected international terrorists we have encountered here in the United States

in excess of 500 since December 1st.

Ms. WATSON. We are hearing about cells that possibly have been

here in the United States for decades. I know I got a call from

someone who said that men in robes and wraps around their head,

and this is 10 years ago, would come and meet in the apartment

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next to me late at night. She said she was always wondering why

they were meeting so late at night. So I gave that information as

I heard it on to the authorities. And I do believe, from the way she

described what was going on that there could be a connection.

I know it’s almost impossible for you, because you don’t do the

investigative work. But in other agencies, they are, I’m sure they

are operating on tips of this kind. Does anyone else want to comment about what you think?

Mr. SCHOCH. If I can just comment first on the visa revocations

themselves. Any referral that we get from the State Department is

aggressively pursued to its end. Be it we take an administrative action, there might even be a criminal action possibly that result, or

we clear the person. So that in this whole process, and there are

many departments involved and agencies within, on any referral

which basically starts with the State Department, where they notify us that there’s been a visa revocation, we exhaustively look at

every and all of those leads. And we’re confident that we’re looking

at those and investigating those to the end, to where we can take

an action or no action if necessary.

Ms. WATSON. That information then is shared across the agencies, and we talked about procedures. But is it your feeling, Mr.

Ford, that those procedures need to be strengthened?

Mr. FORD. I think our view is that we want to see, the comment

was made that currently, the procedures of the three agencies are

now talking to each other, and they’re going to share them. I think

we want to see that and make sure that everybody is fully aware

of what everybody else is doing, and that the next time there’s a

hearing on this issue, everybody, we won’t find the same kinds of

problems we found in the current report.

Ms. WATSON. I thank you, and let me give my time back to the

Chair.

Mr. SCHROCK. Well, the artificial Chair would like to make a

comment. [Laughter.]

Kind of a followup on what the Ambassador was asking. Can we

ask for the following documents for the record, letters between

State Department and DHS, agreeing on rewording the revocation

in specific cases, and the flow chart that details the steps of all involved agencies? Thank you.

Let me ask one——

Mr. SHAYS. Just to clarify, so we’re aware, who is going to give

us which of that? State and——

Ms. BUCELLA. We’ll give you the business process that we’ve documented now.

Mr. SHAYS. And the letters?

Mr. SCHOCH. Both DHS and State.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. One of you was comment earlier about information

such that if somebody lands in an airplane, you can yank them

right off the plane. What about ports, shipping ports? Mr.

Ruppersberger represents the Port of Baltimore, I represent the

Port of Hampton Roads. It’s been a problem where I live. People

have jumped ship. Fortunately they’ve been able to find them. Is

the same process in place for that?

Mr. JACKSTA. Yes, sir, the same process takes place whether at

the airports, the land border locations or seaports. In the seaports,

we work very closely with the Coast Guard.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK. Port security is my No. 1 issue and has been

for a long, long time, continues to be and will probably continue to

be, because that’s, the massive military presence in Norfolk and of

course the commercial port is of great concern to me.

I understand the difficulties of pursuing, questioning and apprehending these aliens who have had their visas revoked, especially

since the agencies charged with doing so have limited resources

and frankly are still underinformed as to the reasoning for the revocation, whether it’s terror related, criminal or simply administrative.

In any event, what programs are being utilized to engage the

public in helping Government agencies with these identifications

and ultimately removals? For example, have we considered utilizing the Federal air waves to broadcast the top 10 aliens wanted,

similar to a John Walsh type show or anything along those lines,

photographs on milk cartons have played a significant role in finding lost and apprehended children. I frankly think an informed

American public would respond favorably and effectively to such

programs that are in the interest of national security. Any comments? I know you don’t want to get into the milk carton business.

Mr. JACKSTA. I can make a quick comment that, at a number of

our ports of entry, we do have various posters up in place of individuals that have been identified not only for terrorist related activities, but other types of criminal activities that may come across

specific locations on a regular basis. In addition to that, we also

have Web pages we can go to where there are pictures of individuals and it allows the general public to pull up information if necessary.

Mr. SCHROCK. I don’t know about any of you here in this room,

but I get things in my mail at least once a week about this big having two children’s names or adult’s names. You know what, I read

those things now. I never did before. But I do now, and I’m just

wondering if you had something like this for the terrorist element

if people might be more inclined to look at that, and that might

help as well. I mentioned we have the ports of entries also, it’s not

unusual for us to receive letters from the general public about

issues or concerns or people they’ve identified. And we work very

closely with the JTTFs and ICE to followup on those. So if the public does get something to us, there is a procedure in place.

Mr. SCHROCK. This is for State and DHS. In what types of cases

will the State Department agree to change the wording of the revocation certificate? It’s loaded, isn’t it?

Mr. EDSON. The answer is, when we’re asked by DHS. That’s the

agreement we reached, is when DHS feels it’s appropriate, that the

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risk to national security is such that it counterbalances the down

sides of a request, and we’ve identified in our exchange of letters

formal channels of communication, the people who should be doing

this.

Mr. SCHROCK. Well, let’s turn that around. When will DHS ask

the State Department to agree to wording of the revocation process?

Mr. SCHOCH. I think initially, as we start out this, we will look

at very limited, in the most egregious of situations, where we can’t

take any action administratively based on the removable grounds

that exist presently. Possibly we cannot declassify national security

information because of sources, compromising sources and so forth.

I believe in the most egregious situations we would exercise this

option now, to go back retroactively and use this.

Mr. SCHROCK. OK, for the State Department. Does the State Department support the DHS draft regulation regarding removing individuals from the country based on a visa revocation?

Mr. EDSON. I haven’t seen that draft in many months. I wasn’t

working that issue particularly, so I can’t comment on that.

Mr. SCHROCK. All right. You just killed the rest of my questions.

[Laughter.]

Mr. SHAYS. That’s why he’s the witness, because he hasn’t seen

it. [Laughter.]

But you know what, the answer is very serious. We do need an

answer. And we should be prepared to give an answer to that question.

Mr. EDSON. We’ll take it and respond for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Yes. I think what we want is a response in the next

week as to what the position is, so someone looks at it and tells

us their position.

Mr. EDSON. Essentially from the beginning our position on this

has been that this is a DHS function, and is not directly related

to the visa function at all. DHS manages removal from the country.

That’s the short answer. But we’ll get you something more formal.

Mr. SHAYS. But we’re all from the same country.

Mr. SCHROCK. Let me just ask one final question of State and

DHS. Is a legislative change required to allow immigration officials

to remove aliens with revoked visas from the country? Do we need

to do it legislatively?

Mr. SCHOCH. I think at this point, as you know, DHS in earnest

is looking at a regulatory fix. As you pointed out, myself personally

and speaking on behalf of DHS and ICE, I think it’s an option that

we should explore. I think there’s probably a lot of complex issues

and policies associated with the regulation. I don’t think we should

lose this opportunity to at least look at it and entertain it.

Mr. SCHROCK. Exploring says to me, studies which take forever

and ever to get done.

Mr. SCHOCH. Yes, again, I would really have to seek more of

their opinion from our Office of General Counsel as to the specifics

in more detail on just what we would have to look into. But I think

in general, it’s something that we should probably look into.

Mr. SCHROCK. Is there any sort of statutory authority that you

could recommend?

Mr. SCHOCH. I don’t think anything comes to mind.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to pursue the question on the GAO report entitled, ‘‘Border Security: Additional Actions Needed to Eliminate

Weakness in the Visa Revocation Process.’’ Turning to page 14, basically State has one list of the revocation number of 338, you have

DHS at 347, Immigration and Customs which are basically the

cops in this program, the Border folks have 336. GAO did an interesting way with the circles. All of you have 320. State has two that

are not listed in the other two. DHS has, ICE has three not listed

with either. And Border has zero not listed with either.

You look at it and you find that DHS has 12 that are with State,

but not with Border, ICE has 12 with Border that aren’t with

State. It sounds a little confusing, but the bottom line is we have

different numbers. Why wouldn’t this number be the same? And

what are your agencies doing to reconcile these different numbers?

Mr. EDSON. This was one more aspect of the GAO report that we

found helpful, and we have, as was mentioned earlier, created a

unified, a single reporting and recording mechanism for us to use

and regular audits will cross-check the numbers.

The way that these cases are listed, there are overlapping watch

listings for all these individuals that are generated by the TSC or

by the State Department or by DHS. So we believe that the security of the system is sound. An auditable, a verifiable audit trail,

though, would give us all more assurance. That’s why we’d like to

have these numbers matching.

Mr. SHAYS. I’d like to have, I guess what I’m having a hard time,

liking it to happen and why it isn’t happening is my problem.

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Mr. EDSON. In this case, GAO took a sample that was time constrained and began on a date, ended on a particular date. Our

interaction with those, matter of fact, State started the process

with two disparate lists. We ran a report of the number of cases

in the watch list system with a revocation code and subsequently

ran a report of the number of cases that were revoked with the formal signature on the revocation certificate during that time period.

The entry into the watch list system happens immediately. Deliberation occurs before the revocation certificate is generated and

signed. So there were some cases that fell outside of the timeframe

on those two lists, and the numbers did not agree on the two lists.

It would only have agreed when both the watch listing and the revocation took place during the time period.

We feel that is probably the bulk of this.

Mr. SHAYS. But even that, why would it have to take more time?

Is it kind of like cars when they’re at a red light, the first car goes

and the second waits until the first one has left, and it’s like this

slinky? Why wouldn’t they all move at the same time?

Mr. EDSON. We enter the watch list entry, the visa revocation

watch list entry immediately just to indicate that we are reviewing

a case for possible revocation to provide an alert to DHS. The revocation itself is a deliberative process, involves getting access to the

classified derogatory that underlies the lookout from TSC or the referral froM TSC. Sometimes it involves further research and review

of legal issues. We don’t always revoke the cases that are referred

to us by TSC. Almost always, but not always. So there’s a period

of a couple of days, a couple of weeks, where the deliberation is

going on before the revocation certificate is signed.

In that interim period, however, the cases have already been

watch listed by TSC as possible terrorist cases. We have already

watch listed it as a revocation case under review. So it’s that gap

that I think is responsible for some of the difference in numbers.

Mr. SHAYS. And it needs to take a couple of weeks?

Mr. EDSON. It needs to take several days, a couple of days. We’re

getting access to classified material, it doesn’t come over—sometimes there’s a lag in there in getting access to the material and

reviewing it. Again, the case has already been watch listed. The individual cannot enter the United States. And the derogatory that

we get for revocation is also getting passed to DHS, in the event

that it’s extremely serious and specific derogatory information, so

that they’re able to act on it.

Mr. SHAYS. Wy did it take State at least 6 months, and as much

as 17 months to revoke visas in at least three cases? I would like

to know the cases, but is that something you can speak to?

Mr. EDSON. These are the three cases out of the GAO report that

we checked on. I don’t want this to sound like an excuse, but there

actually are reasons in these three cases. In one case, the case was

referred to us originally, we declined to revoke, 6 months later got

additional derogatory information and then did revoke, so the gap

between referral and revocation.

The other two were cases that were revoked overseas first, for

non-terrorist grounds and then subsequently revoked for terrorist

grounds. So there’s that gap.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody else want to respond to these?

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Mr. JACKSTA. Yes, sir, I do. First of all, I want to say from DHS’

perspective at CBP, we’re also concerned about the numbers. Obviously we’re going to go back and take a look at this, work with

GAO to find out exactly what the problems were. Because I think

we all agree that we can’t have people being missed and can’t be

on separate lists. So we’ll take that back and work on it.

But there are a couple of things that we’ve already institutionalized to get going on it. The first one is that because of this concern

and the initial observation we’ve established a mechanism now between Department of State, DHS and the two agencies, CBP and

ICE, to verify on a weekly basis how many new revocation records

have been established by Department of State, so there’s no confusion on the exact number every week that’s added to the system.

So that’s one of the first thing.

The other thing I think is important to note, although the person

may not be in the system as a revocation, the fact is that the derogatory information will probably be in the IBIS system. So the

person would be stopped. The question is whether you would be

able to do, at the border, if you can revoke the person’s visa and

send them back. That’s what we’re working with Department of

State, to have that capability that if we discover someone at the

port of entry through another mechanism, through another data

base or through the inspector’s questioning that might be identified

as someone who’s related to terrorism, that we can work with Department of State to have the visa revoked right then and there,

and have the person returned.

So I want to get on record to say that even though the record

may not show a revocation, the system, the data bases available,

will allow us to hopefully identify the individual and still stop them

at the border.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Schoch, do you have——

Mr. SCHOCH. Yes, to add to this that again, just expounding on

what Mr. Jacksta said, we every week reconcile the list now, to

make sure that whatever we’ve received is exactly what State Department has. We also have a full time person at the NTC——

Mr. SHAYS. You’re not doing it like a checkbook, where you can’t

figure out why it doesn’t balance, you just accept it? [Laughter.]

Mr. SCHOCH. No, what we do is we have actually a spreadsheet,

and we go through and——

Mr. SHAYS. And you try to figure out where the difference is?

Mr. SCHOCH. If there are differences, exactly, we work through

the discrepancies, so that we don’t get to this point where we have

these numbers reflected as they are today in this report.

Mr. SHAYS. When I think of the challenge we have here, I’m

thinking I accept it logically and then another part of me says, this

is crazy, it’s a no-brainer. If you can revoke, if you can decide not

to give someone a visa, they don’t have a hearing, correct? You

make an administrative decision.

If someone at Border Patrol can decide to not allow someone to

enter, even though they have a visa, it’s decided in a sense administratively, it’s decided by that individual, based on the documents

they have, without a so-called legal process, why does a legal process occur once someone’s in the United States? What triggers that

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legal process in the minds of all of you that suggests that somehow

we have to handle this differently?

Mr. SCHOCH. If I can just comment, if somebody is picked up

based on that revocation, and let’s say we have now employed this

new——

Mr. SHAYS. They’re in the United States of America.

Mr. SCHOCH. They’re in the United States.

Mr. SHAYS. As our guests, as a privilege.

Mr. SCHOCH. Correct. And we’ve gone now retroactively. They are

entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge. They have a

hearing.

Mr. SHAYS. And that is based on statutory law again, or on regulation?

Mr. SCHOCH. On statutory law.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And it is outside the typical, it’s not part of our

civil or criminal justice, it’s part of DHS immigration process?

Mr. SCHOCH. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And just fairly quickly tell me what that means.

What are they entitled to?

Mr. SCHOCH. They are entitled to go before an immigration

judge.

Mr. SHAYS. With counsel?

Mr. SCHOCH. Right, with counsel, not appointed, but counsel that

they have to acquire themselves.

Mr. SHAYS. Are they incarcerated during that time?

Mr. SCHOCH. We basically make a determination of detention,

whether or not they meet the criteria of being detained. It is possible that they will be detained. They have a right to a review of

that before the immigration——

Mr. SHAYS. Do we have the delays like we’ve had where people

literally, in some instances, they ask for political asylum and

they’re given a hearing a year later and they’re just allowed to go

into the countryside? Is this process at least quick? Or could it take

months or longer?

Mr. SCHOCH. I think it can take months sometimes.

Mr. SHAYS. See, I don’t understand that at all. I mean, we don’t

have that many where we might have to revoke. So for me, it

would strike me that, you can’t kick them out without this process,

and maybe I can accept the fact that somehow they got through the

system, so we blew it. But so now, they’re entitled to privileges

that they didn’t encounter when they were requesting or when they

came. So I understand that. And I also understand the reality that

they may be living with an American and the American’s making

plain that, it can be a family member and all that.

But what I don’t understand is why it would take so long. So

someone explain to me, if we’ve identified this as a concern, why

the heck is this part of the process taking so long? Anybody able

to answer?

Mr. SCHOCH. I would just add that they’re entitled to go before

the immigration judge. They may have petitions pending. They

may seek asylum. There are various things that trigger throughout

that proceeding that could delay this, not from day, but could turn

into months. I don’t know specifically, I can’t give you a hard and

fast on how long it does take.

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I can just tell you from my experience with our cases, once you

go through the immigration administrative system there, it could

take months.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And we could put legislation in that would basically just say once it’s been denied, they go home without that process, and it wouldn’t take any time. There would be some civil liberty issues, I gather, from some. Anyone else who wants to comment?

Let me just end with this. How many of these individuals may

still be in the country, those who have revoked visas? I’d like an

answer from all three.

Mr. SCHOCH. I will start. ICE has investigated, thoroughly investigated every, thoroughly investigated, either we have continued to

investigate or have investigated every referral that we get from the

Department of State. I don’t have an exact number, but I assure

you that every case where we cannot take either an administrative

action based no a removable ground that’s available to us, we

would seek some assistance from State, using some type of

retroactive——

Mr. SHAYS. Why would I feel comfortable with you not knowing

the answer to that question? Why should that make me feel like

that’s acceptable? I mean, we’re having a hearing on revocations.

I would think that would be one of the basic answers.

Mr. SCHOCH. Sure. Most of the cases that we do get that are referred to us that have visa revocations are found not to be in the

United States, a vast majority of those cases. Those cases that end

up going to the field are later determined to have departed or they

are later determined not to be the person or a person of national

security——

Mr. SHAYS. OK, that doesn’t really answer the question. Are you

saying there’s nobody?

Mr. SCHOCH. I’m saying the cases we have looked at now that

we don’t have any persons that we would deem a national security

threat.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s not what I asked. The question is, how many

people are here under revoked visas?

Mr. SCHOCH. I wouldn’t have that number available to me.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you know, Mr. Jacksta?

Mr. JACKSTA. No, I don’t, sir. I can tell you that when we get the

name of a visa revocation from the Department of State, we go

through our systems and determine if anybody possibly entered the

United States. We use our data bases and our systems and that information is passed over to ICE for investigation.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Bucella, do you have that number?

Ms. BUCELLA. We’ve only looked at it since the 6 months, so I

don’t have the cases that GAO looked at. But in the 6 months,

we’ve looked at 332; 118 have expired visas. Revoked visas are 147.

Mr. SHAYS. Hold on a second. Put the mic a little closer.

Ms. BUCELLA. I’m sorry. During the 6-month period from December 1st to June 9th, we looked at 332 cases which included expired

visas, revoked visas and pending revoked visas. There were 118 expired visas, revoked visas there were——

Mr. SHAYS. So the 118 means they didn’t even attempt to come

into the country?

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Ms. BUCELLA. Yes. Expired visas?

Mr. SHAYS. I need to understand. We don’t want bad information.

Ms. BUCELLA. Right. We believe that there are 44 in country.

That’s the bottom line. From the numbers that we looked at.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, so it’s your numbers, you think you have 44.

Ms. BUCELLA. But that’s, we are not looking at the total number

of visas. We’re only looking at those visas that we looked at from

December 1st through June 9th of this year.

Mr. SHAYS. Just walk me through why I should feel, I mean, I’m

getting uneasy. I was feeling better, I was feeling like maybe the

deer was running away from the cheetah faster than cheetah. But

it seems almost like this is a basic question and I’m not getting,

I don’t feel a sense of concern or urgency or anything here. I just

feel like—well.

Ms. BUCELLA. One of the processes is trying to determine where

these individuals are. One of the challenges that we believe happened was that while these people were, the question was whether

or not they were in country or not. ICE then had to first determine

who was looking at the individual, who had the derogatory information. Right now, based on the FBI’s relationship with ICE, FBI

is turning over their files to ICE real time so that they can first

figure out if it is in fact an FBI matter. Or we are sharing our information with ICE as to whether or not the underlying derogatory

information is with another agency and which agency that is.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you define the 118 number again? I’m unclear

as to what that means. You have 118 that are——

Ms. BUCELLA. Expired visas.

Mr. SHAYS. Elaborate. What does that mean, that they came to

the United States and they——

Ms. BUCELLA. They could either, they were in the United States

and left, or they never came into the United States, the time period

for the visa had expired.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, and those are revoked visas?

Ms. BUCELLA. No——

Mr. SHAYS. They were revoked beforehand?

Ms. BUCELLA. No, no. That’s a different number. There are three

different kinds. There are expired visas, there are revoked visas,

and then there are those visas that are pending revocation. That

means that they’re gathering up the derogatory information.

Mr. SHAYS. I was really asking about the revoked and the pending. I just didn’t understand why expired related to my question.

That’s why I was confused. Why does it relate to the question I

asked? The question I asked is, how many revoked visas do we still

have, that are still in the country? In other words, individuals who

have revoked visas that are still in the country. I don’t have an answer to that question.

Ms. BUCELLA. Forty-four.

Mr. SHAYS. Forty-four. OK, now, you’re saying 44, and Mr.

Schoch is saying basically zero. Walk me through the difference,

Mr. Schoch.

Mr. SCHOCH. Well, if I can add, it’s definitely not zero. The number is constantly updated. If I was to throw out a number to you

today, I would not want to be telling you the wrong number than

what it’s updated.

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Mr. SHAYS. So if you were to make a phone call right now, there

is someone who could answer the question of how many you have?

Mr. SCHOCH. I know today based on the investigations that we

have conducted, we know exactly how many people have revoked

visas who may be in the United States——

Mr. SHAYS. OK, hold on 1 second. Ambassador, do you have any

more questions? Because if you do, I’ll give him time to call up

somebody here.

Ms. WATSON. No, I was following your line.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, let me do this. Would somebody on your staff

make that call right now and we’ll adjourn as soon as we get that

number. So will someone pursue that?

Mr. SCHOCH. We’re going to pursue it right away.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Congressman Moran has an office over here, you

can just make a call.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, I was getting ready to leave, because I understand we’re going to have two or three votes.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Ms. WATSON. That can be given to us.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m willing to wait. I’m not going to adjourn until we

get the number. But if you have some questions, I’d be glad to fill

in.

Ms. WATSON. No, I was following yours. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Well, what else do we talk about here while

we’re waiting? Mr. Ford, what do you have? How are you acting?

What’s important about this dialog and what isn’t? I want the chaff

from the wheat in this dialog.

Mr. FORD. Well, it seems to me that if in fact they’re tracing the

visa revocations, they ought to be able to tell you how many they

suspect are still in the country. I also think that they ought to be

able to tell you the disposition of their investigations in terms of

how many people were cleared, how many people were judged to

be people of concern. And it seems to me that they ought to keep

that record in a way that on a daily basis they would know that

kind of information.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask, Mr. Jacksta and Mr. Schoch, why

wouldn’t that, it seems logical to me, so why wouldn’t that be true?

How would you disagree with what Mr. Ford said? Mr. Jacksta.

Mr. JACKSTA. I would begin, sir, by indicating that we clearly

want to identify the individual at the port of entry when they arrive, and we want to stop them right there. If they get into the

United States and they didn’t have a revoked visa but later on, information is obtained and the visa is revoked and they’re in the

United States, we need to find them and identify who they are.

The process is that when a visa is revoked and we receive it, we

go through our data base systems to see, based on the information

that we have, did the person arrive at our port of entry. Then what

we quickly do is we look to see if there’s information that indicates

that the person left. Those people that have not left, are still in the

United States, are referred to ICE and then at that point they take

over the investigative side of the house.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you. Mr. Schoch, do you have some comments on that?

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Mr. SCHOCH. Just to let you know, I have some preliminary numbers, and I can followup with these. We have 37 that were referred

to the field, 37 cases presently in the field and we’re reviewing 20

currently. And I will say that a large number of the 20 reviewing

do not get out to the field, because most of these people have either

found, most of them have been found to have not entered or to have

departed.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Of the particularly egregious cases, do we then,

even if they have left, do we try to track who they have been interacting with?

Mr. SCHOCH. That’s correct. That’s why these cases are handled

by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, so we’re not just looking at that

individual, but anybody that they may have touched, their footprints, and absolutely exhausting any type of a lead that may come

out of that, on associates or——

Mr. SHAYS. So just relate now the 44 versus 37. I can understand

the difference between 20 and 37, but what’s the difference between 44 and 37?

Mr. SCHOCH. Well, the 37 could jump up to 44.

Mr. SHAYS. But you don’t mean 20 in addition to the 37?

Mr. SCHOCH. That’s right, they’re at headquarters.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m sorry, I thought that was 20 out of the 37.

Mr. SCHOCH. No.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Do you have any questions?

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Schoch, the 37 that are in the field now, are

we constantly following and monitoring their actions and do we

have geographical locations that we could trace their whereabouts?

How do we track them in the field?

Mr. SCHOCH. We first of all have a lead tracking system here at

headquarters that gives us specific timeframes when to call up,

when to be looking again at what field action has taken place on

those, as well as we use a TECS system, TECS–II that actually is

a case management system. It provides for a refresher every 30

days from the field. The field has basically 7 days when they receive the lead to act on it. Then they have every 30 days thereafter,

they have to update us with additional information.

So we have a very tight control over exactly what’s ongoing. We

have an agent at headquarters devoted just to this, that they are

looking at exactly what investigation has been done, almost a quality control, if you will, to look at exactly what measures have been

taken, investigative measures that have been taken.

Ms. WATSON. Are there any clustering of these 37 around New

York and Boston?

Mr. SCHOCH. I would have to look into that. I don’t know that

to be a fact.

Ms. WATSON. What keeps coming back to haunt me, and I’m sure

the rest of us, is that those involved in September 11, particularly

those who went to flight school, I think it was down in Florida, 6

months after September 11, their visas were approved for them to

take flying lessons.

So time is of the essence. If we have 37 people in the field, we

need to be tracking them very closely. We’ve heard rumors, and

we’ve seen a heightened alert that we might be attacked around

the November election or around our conventions. Though I would

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think that actions need to be speeded up and we need to do our

due diligence and make it a top priority.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there anything, Mr. Ford, or anyone else, that you

need to put on the record? Is there any information that we’ve

asked that would not be, the answers would not be accurate and

we could come to some false assumptions? Is there any correcting

of the record that needs to be put on? Is there anything you are

prepared to answer that we should have had the good sense to ask

but didn’t that needs to be part of the record? Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. I don’t really have any comments, Mr. Chairman. I believe at least from GAO’s perspective, you’ve asked a lot of questions that are germane to the issue. I don’t really have anything

more to add to that.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Edson.

Mr. EDSON. In the discussion on numbers, a visa can be revoked

for any grounds under the law. We’ve been discussing terrorism

here, but that, I think it is important to bear in mind that revocations cover the whole spectrum of immigration law. Sometimes that

can cloud the numbers.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Bucella.

Ms. BUCELLA. Nothing.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Jacksta.

Mr. JACKSTA. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Schoch.

Mr. SCHOCH. No, sir, thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I believe all of you have a very difficult job. I think

you are working night and day to deal with this issue. I realize

that we have a policy issue as it relates to the rights of people once

they appear to be here. And that is something that Congress has

to decide. And given we’ve overstepped our bounds in terms, in my

judgment, calling people enemy combatants and some other challenges, I’m sure this will become even a more sensitive issue.

But I am struck with the fact that it’s difficult to reconcile that

we can say no at the beginning, we can say no at the border, but

once they’re here we can’t. If we’re the ones who screwed up and

we think it’s a problem, I just don’t know why we can’t act more

quickly. It does strike me that if we think someone is here on, basically and shouldn’t be here, that we should be acting quickly to

deal with at least that part of the question.

But I have a lot of respect for what each of you do and I thank

you very much for your participation. Thank you.

At this time, the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

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