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DRUGS AND SECURITY IN A POST–SEPTEMBER 11

WORLD: COORDINATING THE COUNTERNARCOTICS MISSION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF

HOMELAND SECURITY

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE

AND BORDER SECURITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 22, 2004

Serial No. 108–285

Committee on Government Reform

Serial No. 108–54

Committee on Homeland Security

Printed for the use of the Committees on Government Reform and Homeland

Security

(

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 CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

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

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

NICHOLAS COLEMAN, Professional Staff Member and Counsel

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(III)

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

Christopher Cox, California, Chairman

Jennifer Dunn, Washington

C.W. Bill Young, Florida

Don Young, Alaska

F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Wisconsin

W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, Louisiana

David Dreier, California

Duncan Hunter, California

Harold Rogers, Kentucky

Sherwood Boehlert, New York

Lamar S. Smith, Texas

Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania

Christopher Shays, Connecticut

Porter J. Goss, Florida

Dave Camp, Michigan

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida

Bob Goodlatte, Virginia

Ernest J. Istook, Jr., Oklahoma

Peter T. King, New York

John Linder, Georgia

John B. Shadegg, Arizona

Mark E. Souder, Indiana

Mac Thornberry, Texas

Jim Gibbons, Nevada

Kay Granger, Texas

Pete Sessions, Texas

John E. Sweeney, New York

Jim Turner, Texas, Ranking Member

Bennie G. Thompson, MississPpi

Loretta Sanchez, California

Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts

Norman D. Dicks, Washington

Barney Frank, Massachusetts

Jane Harman, California

Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland

Louise McIntosh Slaughter, New York

Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon

Nita M. Lowey, New York

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia

Zoe Lofgren, California

Karen McCarthy, Missouri

Sheila Jackson–Lee, Texas

Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey

Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin Islands

Bob Etheridge, North Carolina

Ken Lucas, Kentucky

James R. Langevin, Rhode Island

Kendrick B. Meek, Florida

VACANCY

JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff

STEPHEN DEVINE, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel

THOMASDILENGE, Chief Counsel and Policy Director

DAVID H. SCHANZER, Democrat Staff Director

MARK T. MAGEE, Democrat Deputy Staff Director

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 22, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bonner, Robert, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security; Admiral Thomas H. Collins, Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security; Michael J. Garcia, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; and Roger Mackin,

Counternarcotics Officer, Department of Homeland Security ................... 15

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

Barton, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 99

Bonner, Robert, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of ........................... 18

Camp, Hon. Dave, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 13

Collins, Admiral Thomas H., Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of .................................. 28

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 10

Garcia, Michael J., Assistant Secretary, U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 38

Jackson-Lee, Hon. Sheila, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Texas, prepared statement of .................................................................. 82

Mackin, Roger, Counternarcotics Officer, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 51

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 4

Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 97

(1)

DRUGS AND SECURITY IN A POST–SEPTEMBER 11 WORLD: COORDINATING THE COUNTERNARCOTICS MISSION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, JOINT WITH THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND BORDER SECURITY, SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and

Human Resources) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Dunn, Cummings, Sanchez,

Norton, Camp, Christensen, and Jackson-Lee.

Staff present from the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug

Policy and Human Resources: J. Marc Wheat, staff director and

chief counsel; Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member and

counsel; David Thomasson, congressional fellow; Malia Hotst, clerk;

Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and Teresa Coufal, minority assistant clerk.

Staff present from the Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security: Mandy Bowers, policy coordinator; Patricia DeMarco,

counsel; Winsome Packer and Chau Donovan, professional staff

members; Joseph Windrem, deputy clerk; Allen Thompson, minority professional staff member; and Sue Ramanathan, minority professional staff member and counsel.

Mr. SOUDER. Good afternoon. Today’s hearing addresses a vitally

important topic for Congress and the Nation, the counternarcotics

mission at the Department of Homeland Security. Specifically, we

are here to discuss how well the Department is fulfilling its counternarcotics mission, what level of material and personnel support

it is providing to anti-drug operations, and what steps it is taking

to improve coordination and cooperation between its own counternarcotics agencies. I would first like to thank Chairman Dave

Camp, of the Select Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security, for agreeing to

hold this as a joint hearing between our two subcommittees. I sit

on Chairman Camp’s subcommittee, and I have appreciated the

strong leadership he has provided on border security and drug

interdiction issues.

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In the aftermath of September 11, we have focused special attention on preventing and responding terrorists attacks on our country, and rightly so. We should never forget the terrible toll that

drug abuse continues to take on America as well. According to the

Centers for Disease Control, every year about 20,000 American

lives are lost as a direct consequence of illegal drug use. The Office

of National Drug Control Policy estimates that the annual economic cost of drug abuse to the United States—in lost productivity,

health care costs, and wasted lives—is now well over the $150 billion mark.

The Department of Homeland Security is an absolutely crucial

player in our efforts to reduce this terrible scourge. When Congress

created the Department in 2002, it combined some of the most important anti-drug trafficking agencies in the Federal Government,

including the U.S. Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, and the former

Customs Service. Although there are certainly other Federal agencies with a vital role in our fight against drug trafficking, DHS is

largely responsible for manning the ‘‘front lines’’ in this mission.

The Customs inspectors and Border Patrol agents at U.S. Customs

and Border Protection [CBP]; the special agent investigators and

the Air and Marine personnel at U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement [ICE], and the Coast Guard personnel patrolling the

waters, represent our Nation’s first line of defense against the drug

traffickers.

To ensure that these agencies would not neglect their counternarcotics role in the new Department, Congress specifically provided that the primary mission of DHS included the responsibility

to ‘‘monitor connections between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism, coordinate efforts to sever such connections, and otherwise

contribute to efforts to interdict illegal drug trafficking.’’ In accordance with this congressional mandate, the men and women of these

agencies have worked hard to fulfill their counternarcotics roles.

And there is clear evidence that the Bush administration’s overall

anti-drug strategy, including rigorous interdiction and enforcement,

as well as treatment and prevention strategies, is working. Drug

use, particularly among young people, is on the decline again after

rising significantly during the 1990’s.

Several issues have arisen, however, that need to be addressed

to ensure that DHS remains on track in the struggle against drug

trafficking. In particular, Congress and the administration need to

work together to ensure that the structures and procedures at the

new Department reflect the importance of counternarcotics. No one

doubts that the individuals currently serving at the Department

have a strong personnel commitment to stopping drug trafficking.

Indeed, two of its top officials, Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson

and Commissioner Robert Bonner, who is testifying here today, are

both former Administrators of DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. But we need to make sure that, over the long term, the

Department is institutionally committed to drug interdiction. There

are at least three major problems that I believe need to be resolved.

First, the status and responsibilities of the Counternarcotics Officer at DHS need to be better defined. Congress created this position in 2002, directing the Counternarcotics Officer to assist the

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Secretary to coordinate policy and operations within the Department with respect to drug interdiction; to track and sever connections between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism; and to ensure

the adequacy of resources within the Department for drug interdiction. Regrettably, the current statutory provision does not clearly

define how this Officer is to fulfill those duties, nor does it give him

adequate status or resources to fulfill them. Raising the profile of

the Counternarcotics Officer, and assigning specific responsibilities

and permanent staff to him, would go a long way toward rectifying

this problem.

Second, the new personnel management systems being developed

by the Department may not be giving sufficient attention to key

missions, including stopping drug trafficking. In February 2004,

DHS and the Office of Personnel Management issued draft regulations for a new personnel management system for most of the Department employees. The regulations, which would govern employee performance review as well as pay scales, are quite extensive and detailed, occupying nearly forty pages of the Federal Register. A computer word search, however, revealed that the words,

‘‘drugs,’’ ‘‘narcotics,’’ and ‘‘interdiction’’ were not even mentioned

once, even in the discussion of the DHS mission. The Department’s

personnel management system must, of course, be flexible and take

into account not only differences in agency cultures, but also differences in locations and roles. At a minimum, however, DHS

should include criteria related to counternarcotics activity in its

employee appraisal system for relevant enforcement personnel.

Finally, it is clear that more work needs to be done improving

the level of communication, coordination, and cooperation between

the various agencies within DHS on counternarcotics work. For example, at present there are three entities within DHS that have

substantial air and/or marine operations—the Coast Guard, the Office of Air and Marine Operations [AMO] at ICE, and the Border

Patrol. These three entities, however, do not communicate with

each other on a systematic basis about their flights or marine operations, even when they overlap with respect to mission and to geographic area. This has created a significant problem of duplication

of effort and a safety issue for the pilots and the boat operators involved. Additional issues of intelligence sharing, coordinated investigations, and operation deconfliction must also be addressed if

DHS is to maximize its effectiveness against the drug cartels.

This hearing will give us an opportunity to examine these problems and their potential solutions. Again, I thank Chairman Camp

for agreeing to co-host this hearing, and for the assistance that he

and his staff provided us in preparing for it. I would also like to

thank our four witnesses, who are responsible for implementing

DHS counternarcotics policies, for taking the time out of their busy

schedules to join us here today. We welcome Commissioner Robert

Bonner, head of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol; Admiral Thomas

Collins, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Assistant Secretary

Michael Garcia, head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and Mr. Roger Mackin, the Counternarcotics Officer at

DHS. I thank everyone for coming, and I look forward to your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I now yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I am

certainly pleased to join you and our colleagues from the Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and

Human Resources and the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Protection in welcoming our distinguished

panel of witnesses from the Department of Homeland Security.

I thank all of you gentlemen for what you do everyday to make

our Nation a safer place to live, and to help us fulfill our vision of

what this Nation ought to be, as a matter of fact, what the world

ought to be like, and the employees that you oversee who work diligently every day to protect Americans from a multitude of safety

and security threats. We appreciate their service to our Nation and

I know we all welcome this opportunity to hear their perspectives

on how DHS agencies are succeeding in fighting a coordinated, effective war on drugs and what can be done to build on the successes that have been achieved in this area.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, had a profound impact on all Americans. The harm inflicted on America that dreadful

day cannot be quantified by the death toll from the World Trade

Center and the Pentagon or by any other narrow, numerical measure. America was changed that day and we continue to this day to

struggle in our efforts to adapt to a post-September 11 world in

which Americans are constantly reminded of the threat of future

terrorist attacks.

Less visible, less dramatic, and less shocking to the national conscience, but equally profound, however, is the toll inflicted everyday upon American cities and towns by the consumption of harmful

illegal drugs and by the collateral social and economic consequences of the drug trade. I have often said about the neighborhood that I live in in the inner-city of Baltimore that we have terrorists standing on our corners and they are fueled by drugs.

As Chairman Souder has stated, illegal drug consumption claims

20,000 American lives each year. Thousands more Americans go to

jail or prison for drug-related crimes, or become a victim of drugrelated violence or property crime. In my own city of Baltimore, it

is not unusual for us to have upwards near 300 deaths by gun, and

there would be even more if we did not have one of the greatest

shock trauma units in the world. And so I am very familiar with

what the chairman is talking about. And by the way, most of those

deaths that I talked about and those injuries that ended up being

taken care of at our shock trauma unit are drug-related, somewhere between 80 and 85 percent. An estimated $150 billion in economic productivity is lost annually due to drugs. And yet these statistics do not begin to capture the concentrated, cumulative impact

on the quality of life, and the quality of life prospects for Americans trapped in neighborhoods crippled by addiction, poverty, and

the range of related social ills.

Our response to September 11 was to take the fight to the terrorists militarily and to take steps to insulate our people and infrastructure from threats to our national security at home. The latter

involved creating a new cabinet-level department out of existing

agencies with wide-ranging functions. Three key border agencies

whose functions and assets were transferred to the Department of

9

Homeland Security had long supplied the majority of our front-line

soldiers in the war on drugs. This was only natural given that

drugs and various means of inflicting terror enter by the same

means—across our borders and through ports of entry around this

country.

At the same time, the September 11 attacks gave rise to a

heightened recognition of the extent to which drug proceeds are the

lifeblood of criminal and terrorist organizations that threaten U.S.

security. This recognition is reflected in the Homeland Security Department’s mission statement, codified in the authorizing statute,

which directs the Secretary to explore links between terrorists and

drug trafficking organizations and other pursue drug interdiction.

The drugs and terror nexus is a compelling reason to address the

drug threat, but as I have noted, drugs represent a substantial and

constant threat to the Nation’s security on their own. Chairman

Souder and I have shared this view that we must be wary of allowing the threat of singular catastrophic events to detract from efforts to stop the daily onslaught of illegal drugs that gradually and

quietly turn lives to waste and communities into war zones.

That is why I was happy in joining Chairman Souder in sponsoring a provision in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 that created

within the Department of Homeland Security the position of Counternarcotics Officer, or CNO. It is was our purpose in proposing the

CNO provision to create a high level position within DHS that

would maintain a high profile and priority for counternarcotics missions and ensure that DHS drug interdiction, investigation, and enforcement efforts would definitely be coordinated with each other

and with those of other Federal agencies so as to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the combined effort.

Two years later, the Homeland Security Department is up and

running. Today provides us with a valuable opportunity to evaluate

how the Department’s drug mission is being coordinated. The subcommittees have questions related to the effectiveness of the Counternarcotics Officer position and whether it ought to be augmented

to achieve the effect we intended, whether DHS assets that contribute to interdiction missions are allocated optimally within the Department, and whether the emphasis on preventing catastrophic

acts of terrorism is preventing DHS from obtaining intelligence

that could make drug interdiction efforts more effective.

Finally, Commissioner Bonner, Assistant Secretary Garcia, Admiral Collins, and Mr. Mackin are well positioned to provide an informed perspective on these particular issues, and more generally

on what more can and should be done to ensure that the war on

drugs and the war on terrorism both can be fought with maximum

vigor, efficiency, and effectiveness.

I look forward to your testimony, and I want to thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for your vigilance in trying to constantly make sure that

we have a balance as we fight the war on terror but making sure

that we take care of home too.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I would now like to yield to Chairman

Camp, and I again thank him for his leadership in these areas.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. We have a distinguished panel. And in an

effort to move things along, I will just give a brief statement and

put my full statement in the record.

Obviously, the purpose of today’s joint hearing is to examine the

level of cooperation and coordination with the Department of

Homeland Security as it relates to the counternarcotics mission.

The Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security has held

eight hearings looking into the ability of the various agencies within DHS to conduct effective border security, with the focus being

preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the

United States. And while terrorism will remain one of the most significant threats to the United States for the foreseeable future,

drug trafficking and the use of illicit drugs continues to plague

American society.

This hearing is an important opportunity for Congress to stress

that while striving to protect the United States from terrorists,

DHS must maintain the ability of the legacy agencies to accomplish

traditional missions. The counter-drug mission is especially important as the assets and tools used by DHS personnel for counter-terrorism are generally the same as those used for counternarcotics.

The allocation of resources, the policy direction, and the training

cannot sacrifice one mission for another. When Inspectors at a

point of entry search a container, or Border Patrol agents track

smugglers, or a Coast Guard cutter intercepts a fast boat, they generally do not know if they are going to find illegal aliens, drugs,

weapons of mass destruction, or some other type of contraband. All

DHS personnel with inspection, enforcement, and investigative responsibilities must have the skills, resources, and support necessary to effectively meet all of their responsibilities.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how DHS is accomplishing these crucial challenges, any recommendations for improvement, and, most importantly, how the counternarcotics mission is, and will continue to be, a priority for the Department. I

want to thank you for being here today, and look forward to your

testimony. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dave Camp follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Ms. Sanchez, do you have any opening

statement?

Ms. SANCHEZ. I do, and I will try to make my opening statement

brief as well. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for calling this important hearing today. Too many of our communities in the United States are plagued with drugs and the social ills that come with narcotics use. Drug trafficking in our country continues to take a terrible toll in America. According to the

Centers for Disease Control, every year about 200,000 American

lives are lost as a direct consequence of illegal drugs.

I am very much looking forward to hearing from the witnesses

who will hopefully shed some light on how effectively counternarcotics goals are being pursued under the new Homeland Security Bureau. I am particularly interested in knowing what has been

the impact of the reorganization on the counternarcotics mission as

measured by drug seizures and arrests; to what extent do DHS

agencies perceive or approach the counter-drug and counter-terrorism missions as competing or complimentary; and how well do all

of the DHS components communicate and coordinate activities

within agencies. This is especially important to me because I keep

hearing that coordination and communication problems in some instances are keeping DHS personnel from doing their jobs effectively

and efficiently.

Last, I would just like to point out to Commissioner Bonner that

there are several outstanding meeting requests from Members of

Congress on a number of DHS issues, and my colleagues and I

want to bring your immediate attention to those requests. I am

hopeful that in the future you will take the time to make yourself

more accessible to Members of Congress.

Again, I look forward to the testimony, and I thank the chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the distinguished Member both of this subcommittee and as ranking member of the Border Subcommittee for

her active participation in both.

We are also joined by the Vice-Chairman of the full committee.

Congresswoman Dunn, do you have any opening statement?

Ms. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have no opening statement. I want to thank you gentlemen for appearing before

us today and I am hopeful that you can create a perspective that

will let us know whether we are doing enough for you, if we should

shift our emphasis, just how we can be more useful in solving some

of these problems. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Ms. Norton, do you have any opening

statement?

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this hearing, the

joint hearing because what it does is to emphasize a fact that perhaps was not as much the case before September 11, and that is

that the narcotics trade and national security are now indelibly

linked. There is no way to think about one without the other when

you consider what we have learned in our own committee hearings

in this subcommittee on the increasing funding of terrorism from

narcotics. If anything, this gives an escalated reason to attack the

drug trade. We have already had lots of reasons when you consider

the domestic implications and extraordinary damage of the drug

15

trade here on individual lives. Now, the drug trade is involved with

the life of the Nation with security itself.

The emphasis for me in this hearing, which is why the joint

hearing interests me, is, of course, on whether or not, this by-word

that we always use, ‘‘coordination’’ is, in fact, occurring and whether we can make it occur someplace in Government as vital as this.

And for me, coordination really means focus. It means somehow everybody is looking at the same thing even though their missions

may differ in some material respects.

So I want to know, at the bottom line, whether what should be

an increased attack on the narcotics trade is being felt because of

this new national security interest that we now have in the narcotics trade. I, like the chairman and the ranking member, I am absolutely fascinated to see what has happened to the CNO position,

Counternarcotics Officer position. When you create a new position

like this it is difficult enough to find your way. But I do not see

how there is any hope of coordination if that position is not, in fact,

central to it. We have to look at that position first and then go from

there, scatter out from there.

So I appreciate, again, your work, Mr. Chairman, in focusing us

today on this very important new position and this very important

new mission of those who have been in the work of attacking the

narcotics trade and the damage it does to our country. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Before proceeding, I would first like to go over a couple of procedural matters. I first ask unanimous consent that all Members

have 5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions

for the hearing record, and that any answers to written questions

provided by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without

objection, so ordered.

Second, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present be

permitted to participate in the hearing.

Now as the witnesses know, the standard procedure of the Government Reform Oversight is to ask our witnesses to testify under

oath. So if you would each stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record that each of the witnesses responded

in the affirmative.

Thank you again for your patience in getting started, and for

your many years of leadership in all your different posts throughout the Government.

We will start with Mr. Bonner.

STATEMENTS OF ROBERT BONNER, COMMISSIONER, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; ADMIRAL THOMAS H. COLLINS, COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND

SECURITY; MICHAEL J. GARCIA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, U.S.

IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT

OF HOMELAND SECURITY; AND ROGER MACKIN, COUNTERNARCOTICS OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Mr. BONNER. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Chairman Camp,

and other distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am very

16

pleased to join with my colleagues here from the Department of

Homeland Security to discuss, in particular, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s role in our Nation’s drug interdiction and drug enforcement efforts.

It was over 16 months ago, Mr. Chairman, in fact, March 1,

2003, that all U.S. Government agencies with significant border responsibilities were unified into one frontline border agency to create U.S. Customs and Border Protect within the Department of

Homeland Security.

This merger I think, as the members of the committee know, essentially was a merger of a large part of Customs, in fact, all of

Customs with the exception of our Office of Investigation, which

were the U.S. Customs Special Agents, and the air and marine

interdiction assets, but with the exception of that, all of Customs

essentially was merged with the Border Patrol, all of the frontline

Immigration inspectors, as well as all of the Agriculture inspectors

to form what Secretary Ridge has called ‘‘One Face at the Border,’’

or one agency to manage, secure, and control our borders.

With that merger, by the way, which is the largest actual merger

of people and functions taking place within the Department of

Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection became the

single unified agency charged with managing, securing, and controlling our borders, all the ports of entry, and the points in between. This reorganization of our border agencies into one agency,

by the way, in my judgment makes us better prepared and better

able to protect our Nation from all external threats, not just terrorists and terrorist weapons, but also illegal drugs and from those

who attempt to smuggle illegal drugs across our borders.

I want to just assure every member of both committees that Customs and Border Protection is totally committed to its drug interdiction and drug enforcement role at and near our Nation’s borders.

While Custom and Border Protection’s priority mission is to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United

States, we retain the traditional enforcement and interdiction missions of our predecessor agencies, and that includes most certainly

preventing the entry of illegal drugs across our borders and apprehending those who would attempt to smuggle them into the United

States.

Let me also say that our missions against terrorism and our mission against drug smuggling are complementary. They are not mutually exclusive missions. One does not come at the expense of the

other. Rather, Customs and Border Protection’s initiatives to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United

States have actually enabled us to be more effective in seizing illegal drugs and those who attempt to smuggle them across our borders.

There is no better testament to the fact that we have not lost our

focus, we have not slackened our efforts than looking at the drug

seizures and the arrest rates at our borders over the last year to

16 months. Last year alone, Customs and Border Protection seized

2.3 million pounds of illegal drugs, that is over 1 million kilograms,

at and near our borders. That is an average of 6,300 pounds, a little over 3,000 kilograms, each and every day of the year that are

being seized by Customs and Border Protection. Of that total, alVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:12 Apr 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\99655.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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most 1 million pounds of those illegal drugs were seized by CBP

at our ports of entry, mainly at our land border with Mexico, but

also including JFK and Miami Airports and other ports of entry

into our country, and 1.3 million pounds of that total was seized

between the ports of entry by the Border Patrol, which, as you

noted, Chairman Souder, is now part of Customs and Border Protection.

While last year was a record-breaking year for seizures, we are

keeping pace this year and when annualized out I believe that our

total seizures may well exceed last year’s total, at least marginally.

Let me just say, with respect to drug arrests, that last year Customs and Border Protection, this is both Border Patrol Agents and

CBP Officers at the ports of entry, arrested 14,000 people for smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. And we are on pace to

at least meet or exceed that this year.

Today, Customs and Border Protection has 30,000 uniformed personnel to protect our borders. That is, about 19,000 inspectors or

Customs and Border Protection Officers at the ports of entry, and

approximately 11,000 Border Patrol Agents. And since September

11, by the way, we have added more detection technology at our

borders and we are getting far more advanced information about

people and cargo shipments that are arriving in our country or to

our country significantly before they arrive. That is improving our

ability to target for all threats—terrorists threat, drug threat, and

any other threat. We have tripled the number of large-scale, whole

container, whole truck x-ray scanning machines. Before September

11 we had 45 of those machines. We now have 151. We have doubled the number of drug seizures using large-scale Non-Intrusive

Inspection [NII] x-ray machines from about 225,000 pounds to over

442,000 pounds of illegal drugs.

This sustained border enforcement presence, supported by Border Patrol interior checkpoints—and we have checkpoints interior

of the border literally from California, from the Pacific Ocean at

San Clemente, all the way to Texas—allow us to add a level of

interdiction capability. In fact, by the way, about half of the Border

Patrol’s drug seizures take place at or near the interior checkpoints

of the Border Patrol.

So nearly everything Customs and Border Protection has done,

and continues to do, to make our country more secure from terrorists also helps us make the country more secure from drug smuggling and illegal drugs. And our strategies against terrorism and

drug trafficking work together hand-in-glove.

So, with that brief statement, let me thank both the Chairs here

and the committee for this opportunity to make a brief statement,

and I will be happy to answer any questions the committee members may have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bonner follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Admiral Collins.

Admiral COLLINS. Good afternoon, Chairmen, both chairmen, and

distinguished members. I add my comments to Rob Bonner’s, I am

very, very pleased to be here in this panel to discuss this incredibly

important issue. And as my colleagues do, the Coast Guard takes

extremely seriously Congress’ charge to the Department of Homeland Security to protect America’s borders against illegal activity,

including drugs.

Our maritime strategy combatting illegal drugs is based on flexible, intelligence-driven operations, a focus on international engagement, leveraging technology, and very, very strong strategic partnerships. We have deployed significant resources and have committed tremendous organizational energy to this strategy, and we are

getting results.

So far this fiscal year, the Coast Guard has seized over 148,000

pounds, or 68 metric tons, of cocaine in the maritime, valued at almost $5 billion. And we have set a record for the number of arrests

at sea, we have set a record for the number of interdiction events,

and we have set a record for the number of arrests at sea. All of

these are annual records this year with 2 months to go.

We have effectively doubled the productivity per aircraft and cutter hour allocated, productivity in terms of seizures. That success

is a direct result of a number of focused efforts. We have effectively

doubled the number of our armed aviation assets through a change

in tactical deployment and doctrine. We have aggressively employed forward operating locations for our maritime patrol aircraft.

We have maintained robust force structure to Joint Interagency

Task Force-South, headquartered in Key West. And we have successfully leveraged technology, intelligence, and international coalitions.

Our success is also made possible by the many strategic partnerships within the new Department. We attained a high level of performance, from my view, by improved coordination through planning, intelligence sharing, and joint operations, No. 1, with our

DoD partners through joint monitoring and detection operations,

and with our international partners through the development of,

and we are very proud of this, 26 very strong, active bilateral and

regional maritime and law enforcement agreements throughout the

Caribbean and South America.

Mr. Mackin, in his joint role as the Narcotics Officer and USIC,

has been a great catalyst for these partnering efforts, in invigorating our CD intelligence focus, sharpening our collective strategic

emphasis. And as noted in his written statement, our efforts in the

counter-drugs fight offer other important benefits to the Nation.

The counter-terrorism and counter-drug missions are mutually supportive and reinforcing regarding the ability to detect, monitor, and

interdict.

We are also actively involved in interdepartment, interagency

planning and operational processes. In addition to our operational

assets, that is our ships and our planes, the Coast Guard has over

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in interagency efforts to combat illegal drugs. Coast Guard personnel serve on many teams, including the DHS operations and planVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:12 Apr 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\99655.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ning staffs, Joint Interagency Task Force-South and West, we have

over 20 people in JIATF-South, DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center,

the Panama Express initiative, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Fusion Center, and in ICE’s Air and Marine Operations Center, and at ICE’s headquarters, just to name a few. I

am particularly proud of these partnering efforts and how they are

yielding impressive results.

But there is more to be done operationally. From my perspective,

although we are focused on coordination here today, the key to further success in the maritime part of this interdiction is not only effective partnering, but it is more importantly about capability and

and capacity. For the Coast Guard this includes, for example, additional surveillance packages for our six new C–130J maritime patrol aircraft, they do not have them now; augmenting the number

of flight hours on our existing C–130’s, we can get more flight

hours if we augment them; equipping all our helicopters with airborne Use of Force, which is a key enabler for go-fast; and funding

our overall modernization program, it is the centerpiece of our efforts to get more effective at sea. Collectively, from my perspective,

these are the clear performance enablers. The President addresses

capacity and capability improvements in the fiscal year 2005 budget request, for which I ask for your continued support, and particularly our modernization efforts, which will deliver the capability

and the capacity for us to get, continue, and build on these impressive record-breaking results that we have had this year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be glad to answer any questions you might have later in the day.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Collins follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Garcia.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Chairman Souder, Chairman Camp,

members of the committees. It is a pleasure to be with you here

today to discuss how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

or ICE as we call it, is working with our partner agencies within

DHS in the fight against narcotics smuggling. My testimony today

will focus on the counternarcotics mission of ICE, the authorities

and assets we bring to this effort, and how we are working with

other agencies to coordinate this mission, a mission that is tied directly to our homeland security. And I think that was a theme that

was hit on in many of the statements here today.

The mission of homeland security is to address vulnerabilities

that expose our borders to infiltration, our financial systems to exploitation and that weaken our national security. And smuggling is

a direct threat to our border security. Organizations that exploit

our borders to bring in narcotics could, for the right amount of

money, employ those methods to bring in components for weapons

of mass destruction. Smugglers that prey on individuals seeking to

come to America for economic opportunity could use the same

routes and methods and exploit those border vulnerabilities to

bring terrorists into our country.

ICE seeks to use its extensive resources and authorities, working

with our partners within DHS and other Federal, State, and local

law enforcement agencies, to close those vulnerabilities and protect

our homeland. Let me give you one example.

Last November, ICE agents, building upon truly terrific work

done by Customs and Border Protection inspectors at JFK Airport

in New York, targeted 19 airport workers—baggage and cargo handlers and their supervisors—with unrestricted access to international cargo and passenger flights. Working closely with CBP

and other Federal and local agencies, this investigation alone netted 400 kilograms of cocaine and hundreds of pounds of marijuana,

mostly from Guyana and Jamaica. Twenty-five defendants were

charged, including 21 airport employees. This case illustrates how

a conspiracy among airport employees to smuggle drugs into the

United States compromised our border security. It is apparent how

a similar criminal conspiracy could create a vulnerability that

could potentially be exploited by terrorists.

With the creation of ICE, we have built upon the U.S. Customs

Service counternarcotics program with its extensive border authority, smuggling, and financial crimes expertise, and the Air and Marine assets, and merged them with the Immigration Enforcement

authorities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Immigration enforcement authorities are a powerful tool that our agents

use to attack and dismantle smuggling organizations, whether they

smuggle people or drugs, and to bring additional Federal charges

against targets or potential informants in ongoing drug smuggling

investigations. In fact, in this fiscal year, ICE has effectively used

our Title 8, our immigration authority in more than 138 of its narcotics investigations.

Another key component of ICE’s approach to counternarcotics is

the use of our extensive financial crimes expertise. ICE targets

money service businesses, bulk cash smuggling, and trade based

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money laundering, such as the black market peso exchange, which

are used to launder narcotics proceeds. Since July 2003, ICE and

CBP have collectively seized more than $40 million before it could

be illegally exported, and ICE has arrested more than 133 individuals.

Our Office of Intelligence maintains an effective and powerful

focus on drug interdiction as part of the larger counter-smuggling

effort. ICE’s Tactical Intelligence Center [TIC] is a center that produces the kind of intelligence that has put interdiction assets right

on top of smugglers with multi-ton loads of drugs. In fiscal year

2004 to date, the TIC has provided intelligence that has resulted

in the interdiction of 50 tons of cocaine, 34 tons seized and 16 tons

sunk, burned, or otherwise destroyed.

One of the key responders to TIC information is ICE’s Air and

Marine Operations unit, or AMO. AMO assets allow us to cover a

much wider range of territory, extending our borders to include

source, transit, and arrival zones for narcotics smugglers, and in

many cases stop the smugglers before they can even get to the

United States. In Operation HALCON, for example, our AMO pilots are working in close partnership with Mexican law enforcement officials to interdict smuggling operations that attempt to

penetrate the U.S. border. This initiative in the arrival zone, along

with operations in Bahamas and in transit zones, and Air Bridge

Denial in the source zone, follow a successful defense in depth

strategy.

A recent Operation Bahamas interdiction led to the seizure of

1,000 kilograms of cocaine. Acting on information provided by the

DEA to AMO and the Coast Guard, AMO was able to pursue two

go-fast vessels off the coast of the Bahamas, eventually using disabling fire to stop them. This operation led to the arrest of six individuals, the seizure of both vessels, and the cargo of cocaine.

Interagency cooperation and coordination is key to the counternarcotics mission. One recent example of how we are working together happened just a few weeks ago. CBP officers assigned to the

Port of Entry in San Ysidro, California, discovered a false compartment in an SUV containing 61 kilograms of cocaine. ICE special

agents, with the assistance of airborne surveillance provided by

AMO, and in coordination with the DEA, initiated a controlled delivery to a residence in California where ICE agents arrested the

recipient of the drugs, seized an additional 44 kilograms of cocaine,

as well as two more vehicles outfitted with false compartments.

Following successful completion of this delivery, ICE and DEA actively shared information in a joint effort to determine any further

investigative action.

In sum, narcotics smuggling poses a threat to our Nation, both

as a direct result of the horrific effects on our society of the drug

trade and as a national security issue. At ICE we approach it as

a traditional law enforcement mission, one by law we are required

to continue, and as a homeland security mission, a border integrity

issue.

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I would like to thank you, Chairman Souder, Chairman Camp,

and the members of these committees for the opportunity to testify

before you today. I look forward to answering any of your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Mackin.

Mr. MACKIN. Chairman Souder, Chairman Camp, distinguished

members of the Government Reform and the Homeland Security

Subcommittees, it is a distinct privilege to appear before you today

and testify as the Counternarcotics Officer of the Department of

Homeland Security and as the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator, a position I have held since March of last year.

Chairman Souder, the importance of the position you created for

a senior level official within the Department of Homeland Security

to coordinate counternarcotics matters cannot be overstated. In the

face of very real terrorist threats and the Department’s responsibility to secure our Nation from them, the position has helped keep

the Department dedicated to what I call its other mission, which

is to interdict the entry of illegal drugs into the United States and

to track and sever connections between illegal drug trafficking and

terrorism. The President, Secretary Ridge, and I are grateful for

your continuing efforts and steadfast leadership in the prosecution

of this critical mission. Thank you for you unwavering support to

the Department of Homeland Security, its mission, and personnel.

While simultaneously addressing the increased terrorist threat,

the Department remains strong in its commitment to improve and

expand its counter-drug interdiction capabilities and those of our

allies against the drug threat. Enhancement to our border security

and increased intelligence in the transit zone are yielding greater

results for the counter-drug mission. For example, drug seizure

rates for this year are significantly higher than for the same period

last year and are on pace for a record year. The Department continues to assess the current drug threat carefully and to adjust its

plans for the optimal application of interdiction resources.

I would like to note, as my colleagues have already said several

times, countering terrorism and drug interdiction are synergistic.

The Department is aware of linkages and potential linkages between terrorist organizations, narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling, and alien smuggling networks. Fortunately, countering terrorism and countering narcotics are synergistic rather than competing. An action or capability focused on one of the threats simultaneously strengthens our security against the other. The strong

posture that the Department of Homeland Security maintains

against drugs directly strengthens our Nation’s security against all

border threats, especially since terrorists can readily piggyback already established drug smuggling pathways and systems to threaten our homeland. As President Bush has stated, ‘‘If these methods

are good enough for hunting criminals, they’re even more important for hunting terrorists.’’

No one, not this Congress, the American public, nor drug traffickers should misinterpret the Department of Homeland Security’s

focus on terrorism as a weakening of its resolve against illegal

drugs. We have strengthened our commitment as we have intensified our overall presence along America’s border, in the transit

zone, and abroad.

My office, working with the Secretary and DHS components, is

focused on improving the preparedness of DHS organizations on

the border, its ships at sea, and forward deployed maritime patrol

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aircraft. These multipurpose resources greatly enhance the ability

of our Nation to engage a terrorist cell or a drug trafficking organization attempting to smuggle people and contraband into the

United States. The best example of the value of our counter-drug

posture is the highly successful Joint Interagency Task ForceSouth, which is directed by a Coast Guard officer and vectors a

huge amount of DHS resources on a daily basis against smuggling

threats. This element, the JIATF-South, was created well before

September 11 to manage the detection and monitoring of suspect

drug related maritime and air smuggling efforts. After September

11, it became a potent resource to defend against approaches from

the south by aggressive terrorist organizations. Hence, our Nation

is now more secure because of our earlier development of a joint

counter-drug law enforcement and military interdiction structure to

secure our southern approaches first against the narcotics threat

and now against the terrorist threat.

I can assure you that Secretary Ridge, the Deputy Secretary, the

Under Secretaries, and the rest of the DHS leadership team fully

appreciate the dimension of the illicit drug threat and its impact

on the U.S. populace. To demonstrate this, let me mention just

three of a list of DHS’ aggressive counter-drug activities. More are

in my written testimony.

We have expanded the counter-drug use of maritime patrol aircraft. Responding to JIATF-South’s request for increased counterdrug P–3 flight hours from DHS, I immediately recommended, with

Secretary Ridge’s support, that DHS seek to triple the number of

P–3 hours provided to JIATF-South each month for counter-drug

use in fiscal year 2005.

Now regarding the important Tethered Aerostat Radar System,

in my role as the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator, and with a special

focus on DHS, my office spent considerable time working to ensure

the continued operation of the TARS. And at our urging, DoD has

recommended rebuilding the system to full operational capability.

And last year at the October USIC Summit Conference, I urged

the interdiction community to look for ways to raise the number of

interdiction successes per month. As a result, cocaine interdiction

in the transit zone is higher for the first half of 2004. We now have

achieved 152 metric tons of cocaine seizures. This is higher than

ever before achieved in any 6 month period.

In conclusion, these achievements, which are just a few of a long

list, demonstrate the commitment of the Department of Homeland

Security since its creation in March 2003 and when I was honored

with the opportunity to serve. I would like to thank the chairmen

and the members of the subcommittees for this opportunity to report to you, and for the support you have provided the Department.

Like you and all the distinguished members of these subcommittees, the Department of Homeland Security recognizes both the direct and indirect threats that illicit drug trafficking poses to our

national security and our Nation. The Department remains committed to using our skills, resources, capabilities, and superb personnel to continue to disrupt, deter, and destroy the organizations

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that attempt to steal the lives of our children with the lure of illicit

drugs.

I thank you for your continued support, and will be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mackin follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Chairman Camp is going to start the

questioning.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for your testimony. I have a question that I would like each of you to take a shot

at answering, and that is, how has the coordination and sharing of

counter-drug intelligence between the various agencies improved

since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security? Mr.

Bonner, if you want to go first, since you are on the left.

Mr. BONNER. I probably have the easiest job here, I think, in answering that question because, first of all, as a border interdiction

agency, the coordination, if you think about it, is essentially

transacting seizures of illegal drugs and seeing that there is appropriate followup investigations from those seizures. We have a very

close cooperative relationship with ICE in terms of seizures that

take place at the ports of entry along the Mexican border. These

are the former Customs Special Agents, essentially. That relationship has existed for years and it is a very effective relationship that

gets the followup investigations where that can be done in the form

of controlled deliveries, and, by the way, Assistant Secretary Garcia

illustrated a quintessential type of controlled delivery, the kind of

partnership—CBP makes the seizure, hidden compartment, SUV,

San Ysidro, we contact the ICE Special Agents. There is a followup

controlled delivery up to Los Angeles which leads to more arrests,

more drug seizures, which leads to more intelligence to make us do

a better job of interdicting at the border.

And on the other hand, this is outside the Department but certainly with the assistance of Mr. Mackin, we have a historic relationship between the Border Patrol, which seizes a vast quantity

of illegal drugs at and near the border, and the DEA. Essentially,

it is a very similar relationship. They also seize a vast quantity of

illegal drugs coming across our border. They make apprehensions,

for investigative purposes, those cases are turned over to the Drug

Enforcement Administration. That relationship, by the way, continues. It is not broken. It is working very well, in my judgment, from

everything I know.

So in that sense, in terms of our interaction, it is primarily our

interaction. Customs and Border Protection is a border agency,

with our two prime investigative agencies for followup investigative

work, and that is ICE and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mr. CAMP. And obviously a large part of that is finding patterns

and linking those individual cases to potential larger smuggling

rings. Is that being done, and who handles that?

Mr. BONNER. That is being done, and certainly we are always

looking at the trends in terms of the patterns of drug smuggling,

how drugs are being smuggled in. A lot of that information, by the

way, is self-generated because we are the border agency, we know

how heroin is being smuggled into JFK and Miami. I could talk to

you and give you chapter and verse. So, we are using that kind of

information to improve our success rate in terms of interdictions

and seizures at the border. At the same time, we get the investigative feedback loop, and that is to get information from both DEA

and ICE as to things that we need to be looking for as a result of

intelligence or information that has resulted from the arrest and

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information that is developed from interrogation of drug trafficking

organizations and people that belong to them.

So I actually think, if anything, it has been improved under the

Department of Homeland Security. I certainly would say I do not

see in any way at this juncture that there has been any degradation of the kinds of cooperative relationships we need to have to

function. Having that said, I would like to have more information,

more intelligence, both tactical and specifically, about who, what,

and when is going to cross the border in terms of illegal drugs. We

have a voracious appetite for that. That is an area, by the way, I

know, working with Mr. Mackin and my colleagues here, we are

looking at some ways we might actually improve our interdiction

rates and our interdiction successes beyond some pretty impressive

statistics or figures that have been occurring in the last year or

two, both from Customs and Border Protection, Coast Guard, and

the other agencies.

Mr. CAMP. Admiral Collins.

Admiral COLLINS. I would have to say a very positive response

to your question. I think the information flow, the coordination——

Mr. CAMP. I know we are running out of time on my time, so if

each of you could just answer quickly, then the chairman will not

have to use his gavel.

Admiral COLLINS. I think it has improved. There are many,

many integrating mechanisms that move information back and

forth. We have liaison officers in respective staffs that move this

information. I think it is a very positive development.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Quickly, on a theme that goes to the heart of your

question I think, Mr. Chairman, looking at combining intelligence

against drug smuggling organizations and now looking at alien

smuggling organizations, and the money that fuel both, I think we

can do a more effective job now that we are combined.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you.

Mr. MACKIN. Mr. Camp, intelligence is my middle name. I had

a career in the CIA as an operations officer and I brought this to

this task. We are attacking the outbound flow of currency through

what is called the black market pesos exchange attack, it is headed

by ICE, I have organized it, bringing the Department of Justice,

Treasury, and DHS together to do that. We are instrumental in the

planning of the OCDETF Drug Fusion Center, planning and structuring it. We are helping, as Mr. Bonner said, we are helping to

create a border interdiction support center for the whole southwest

border, to aggregate together all the intelligence, make more sense

out of it, and feed it back to the operators. We have been supporting the Panama Express Operation with both people, technical support, and money. And finally, I spend a lot of my time working

with our Mexican colleagues to get them to share, to respond more

to our direction and to share information back with us. I am just

back from a Lateral Interdiction Working Group that I chaired yesterday in Key West on this subject.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Mackin, you have two titles, is that right?

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Mr. MACKIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You are the DHS Counternarcotics Officer and

the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator. And as the Counternarcotics Officer, you have no staff, is that right?

Mr. MACKIN. I have aggregated a staff. I started with nothing

and spent quite a bit of time doing that, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Say that again.

Mr. MACKIN. Initially, I was a singleton, and I walked around

and shook hands and got contributions and so forth and I got some

FTE. And yes, I have a staff now.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. How many people on your staff?

Mr. MACKIN. I have nine FTEs and about eleven detailees to my

staff, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And do you receive a salary from DHS?

Mr. MACKIN. Sir, I am detailed from the Drug Czar’s office.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So then the Drug Czar pays your salary?

Mr. MACKIN. He pays my salary, yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now how does that affect your ability to carry

out your statutory duties as the CNO?

Mr. MACKIN. The ONDCP relationship?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MACKIN. It gives me access—I am the Intelligence Officer for

the Drug Czar, and so I have a tremendous flow of counter-drug

intelligence that I access daily as a result. And so I carry that to

DHS. So there is a definite advantage to it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. When you came into this office, first of all, you

had a pretty good idea what your role would be.

Mr. MACKIN. I could envision it from my perspective. But as I

watched DHS become DHS, it was, OK, I had to learn who the

players were and had to convince them by virtue of personality and

background that I was worth dealing with. I mean, you can understand that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I can understand.

Mr. MACKIN. They were very busy doing their jobs and I had to

knock on their door and say, ‘‘I am here to help.’’

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand. How do you feel that you have

been treated? I just want to go where you just were leading me,

maybe you were not leading me, but I am going down there anyway. So you were sort of like an outsider kind of guy?

Mr. MACKIN. Well, these gentlemen have great corporate enterprises to manage, and I come along and I am the Counternarcotics

Officer and they are looking at it and saying this guy is going to

tell me how to do my business. So, naturally, there is some trepidation on their part as I knock on their door. But I have been received very, very well, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Good. Now you said you had a vision of what you

thought your job should be. First of all, the reason I am asking you

these questions is because Congressman Souder and I spent a lot

of time creating your position.

Mr. MACKIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I am curious as to how it is working out.

That is where I am going. You got me?

Mr. MACKIN. Yes, sir.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Because I do not want you to think I am trying

to do anything but do what I just said.

Mr. MACKIN. As far as the interface on an operational basis, it

is going very, very well. My vision is based on years of experience

in the CIA working against a drug target, and I did a lot of paramilitary work as well, and I learned that you have to have collaboration, you have to have teamwork of all the people that can play.

If they work separately, you will not get there. And that is particularly true against the drug trafficking threat. They are people who

are a lot more clever at times than we are and they do not have

any rules to go by, and they have more cash to work with. So we

have to work as a team. And I walked in saying I have to help

DHS to collaborate within and between DHS and the other organizations. The other thing is we have to have superb intelligence. In

any endeavor, any human endeavor, you have to understand what

you are up against or what your path is. And I have spent a lot

of time trying to help improve that. And third, you have to focus.

You cannot do it all. So collectively, are we putting our resources

where they will get the greatest return. Those are the three precepts that I work by.

I have gotten excellent support from Secretary Ridge. Let me

note that the first time that I briefed Secretary Ridge on the drug

threat and he noted that, it was in the testimony here, that we are

losing about 20,000 people a year directly to drugs, he stopped me

for a moment and he said, ‘‘That is over six Twin Tower events a

year.’’ ‘‘Yes, sir, it is.’’ He got it. The Deputy Secretaries that we

have understand it very well, all the Under Secretaries are quite

aware. And I have spent my time trying to educate them, for those

that were not already familiar, to that subject, and I think I have

had some success, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you had a full understanding then when I

said that when you go to someplace like the inner-city of Baltimore,

you have terrorists right on the street corners?

Mr. MACKIN. Yes, sir. Sir, we have foreign criminal organizations

working throughout the country that deliver those drugs to your

cities, and that bothers me a lot. We have enough criminals inside

our own country without the foreign criminal organizations coming

in. And that shows me how easy it is for terrorists to get here. So

we are working very hard and I think there are indications of success of the synergism working the counternarcotics enterprise and

terrorism. We are getting stronger.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You understand what our concern was. I know

that there have been numerous questions already, we worried tremendously when Homeland Security was developed that emphasis

would be taken off of the drug problems right here in this country

and that—I did not realize my time ran out. I just want to ask this

one question, Mr. Chairman—that so much attention would be

shifted. And we understand the shift, we really do. But at the same

time, to that lady who cannot come out of her door on Madison Avenue in Baltimore because she is afraid, she cannot even go to

church because she is afraid that she is going to be mugged, or the

person who goes to bed at night unable to sleep because they are

afraid somebody is going to break in the window and try to rob

them to get money for the next fix, or people who go to funerals

68

two or three times, maybe four times a year for relatives and people they know who have been killed on the streets, they see what

happened on September 11 and they kind of say, OK, that was a

major deal, we hope it never happens again, but what they are

more afraid of is what they see everyday. And so I am glad you

have that perspective.

Mr. MACKIN. It is a terrible tragedy, sir. I will be frank. I do not

think the Nation realizes it has a drug problem. I know that there

are very concerned people here, hugely concerned people here, and

all the people we have in the field that suffer and sometimes die

at risk, they are aware of it. But, by-in-large, I do not think our

country is. As a result, there is too much passivity to it. You have

terrible things going on in Baltimore, but there are a lot of people

who live in comfortable neighborhoods that do not experience that

and so they are not aware of it, and thus they do not vector concern

about it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I have questions for each one of you,

and I am sure we will have at least a second round because some

of these are pretty critical regarding your departments. But I want

to followup on Mr. Cummings’ questions with Mr. Mackin.

First of all, let me just say flat out that regardless of how it was

worked in transition, and as you know, I was very supportive of

you getting this position, when Mr. Cummings and I worked with

the Speaker to create this, we did not view your position as a

detailee. Period. And while there are useful things to be gained, as

long as you are a detailee, you will be treated like a detailee.

Second, are you aware that your staff are technically employed

by Secretary Ridge and you cannot hire or fire your staff without

the chief of staff’s approval?

Mr. MACKIN. No, sir. But I have people on my staff who could

do that, if they had to.

Mr. SOUDER. You would have to go to Secretary Ridge because

they are not directly under your employee.

Mr. MACKIN. I did not realize that, sir. Let me point out that

most of the people, as you say, people look at me as a detailee,

most of the people do not know that I actually get paid by ONDCP.

Mr. SOUDER. The problem is that the Department of Homeland

Security is supposed to be invested in narcotics. We know ONDCP

is invested in narcotics. The question is, is the Department of

Homeland Security invested in narcotics? The administration resisted this proposal in this Department. It was put in the bill over

their objections by the House and the Senate and they need to follow what the intention of Congress was in this position. What

funds do you directly receive from DHS, and who gives them to

you? Do you have a budget for your department with flexibility?

Mr. MACKIN. Well, the FTEs that I have, sir——

Mr. SOUDER. Beyond even that, what kind of budget do you have

in your department?

Mr. MACKIN. I do not have one, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you believe that, given the fact that you do not

have direct control over your employees, your salary is paid by

ONDCP, and that you do not have a regular budget, do you believe

that you can accomplish the missions?

69

Mr. MACKIN. Well, unfortunately, I have had to spend quite a bit

of time concerned about office space, getting people, getting the administrative support, travel money, and so forth. It is forthcoming.

I have not had any travel turned down. DHS pays the freight. But

it is just that, yes, you do walk in sort of with hat in hand looking

for help rather than being, say, an official member.

Mr. SOUDER. I know what difficulties there are. And as I made

clear in my opening statement, look, this is not about individuals.

We are very fortunate in the mix of individuals we have as far as

counternarcotics missions. That will not always be true. And furthermore, we are not always going to have the respite period we

have had here for an extended period where we have not had an

active terrorist attack since September 11 which could divert all

kinds of resources unless we have structural protections to make

sure there is adequate resources for the DHS to accomplish multiple missions.

Furthermore, I want to make clear, the reason you are in your

slot is we all agree, anybody who works with narcotics, that intelligence is absolutely critical. But intelligence is not the only thing

here. Let me just say as a Member who has followed this issue

since I have been a Member, and before that as a staff, I find the

increasing proliferation of intelligence proposals confusing and almost impossible to understand. Now here we are on the day when

the 9/11 Commission report is being issued, the 9/11 Commission,

like internally in Congress, understands there needs to be a coordination and centralization, your major proposals are that we need

another center down at EPIC. The question is, does DEA agree

with that?

Mr. MACKIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, it is a little mixed. OCDETF is trying to do

these drug fusion centers. What we want to know—on the ground,

we have a Riverside Center, we have the JIATFs, we have EPIC,

we have the Intelligence Interpretation Center in Johnstown, we

have RIS for local law enforcement, we have this proliferation. It

is going to be a little difficult to convince some of us that there is

a shortage of intelligence centers. Now if there are new centers, if

each agency—in effect, what you are proposing here now is DHS

needs an intelligence center, that this proliferation of intelligence

centers may be necessary. But it is going to be a little bit of a hard

sell when I believe the general public and Members of Congress are

looking at how do we coordinate and consolidate intelligence centers, not how do we add intelligence centers.

That is just kind of an initial reaction. Because when I was recently down on the Southwest border, and I want to make sure I

get this into the record, two things: One is, there was a highly

mixed opinion about the functions of the intelligence center and

how we are going to work this through, and I have heard that directly.

The other thing is the Southwest border is, without a doubt, our

No. 1 transit zone for illegal narcotics. It also, at least at this point,

looks like our most vulnerable. Those of us who live more North

are very concerned about the northern border long term, but there

we have better controls and are working aggressively with the Canadians to improve where those holes are in the northern border

70

and legal holes. But the Southwest border is also very vulnerable

on terrorism. Now when we had all the chief people in the sector

of New Mexico, El Paso, and Arizona and asked them whether they

had heard from the Counternarcotics Office, every single one testified under oath, No. In fact, only one had ever heard of you. And

they are the people on the Southwest border.

Now part of the question is your job was not just to create another intelligence center, or to go in a meeting with Mr. Ridge.

Your job is to get out, and I know it is hard because there is line

authority and your staff, but to keep the counternarcotics message

in front of all of their divisions. Your assignment, created by Congress, is to make sure that, particularly in the area like the Southwest border, that they at least know there is a Counternarcotics

Office. It was just astounding, under oath.

Mr. MACKIN. Sir, if I had not been paying attention to it, how

did I propose the Border Interdiction Support Center that will fill

a need that is not filled right now? It is all stovepiped along the

border. It has been that way for 15 years and I am trying to help

make that change so that it becomes a coherent activity and maybe

we can improve our efficiency.

Mr. SOUDER. I am anxious to talk about how we integrate EPIC,

how we integrate the other centers, and how we improve intelligence. You are absolutely right on TARS. My understanding is

the bill we are about to vote on in Congress reduces TARS again

in the budget. We have to be more aggressive here.

Mr. MACKIN. It is a shame, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, shame on Congress as well. And part of our

proposal is how to get TARS under your division so that we have

in the Department of Homeland Security not only an intelligence

center, but actually intelligence to work with. Because if the military is not committed to helping keep the intelligence at an adequate level, what good does it do to make more intelligence centers

if we do not have the intelligence. And we have gaps in our system

if we do not have the TARS up. That is just a plain truth, and you

pointed that out. But intelligence, as I am trying to point out here,

is only part of the problem in the Southwest border.

Mr. MACKIN. I agree, sir. I am hoping that the aggregation of the

intelligence would improve the performance of the operators. I

spent most of my time as a paramilitary operator, I am not an intelligence puke, but I know the value of it. You have to know what

you are doing. Now with Panama Express working the transit zone,

we have more intelligence than we can exploit because, as Admiral

Collins said, we do not have the capabilities to exploit. I cannot do

magic in that aspect. But I assure you that I understand operations.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Ms. Sanchez.

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. My question is for Commissioner

Bonner, and I understand that this is not going to relate necessarily directly to the topic at hand, but it deals with some of the

frustrations that I and some of my colleagues have had with DHS

and the various agencies that are grouped under that in terms of

getting accurate information and finding out who is accountable for

certain things. There have been a number of requests made to meet

with you specifically related to the issue of the immigration sweeps

71

that are being conducted in Southern California and elsewhere that

do not appear to have much reasoning behind them as they relate

to what we all think should be DHS’ primary goal, which is catching terrorists and counter-terrorism efforts.

I do not think there is a person in this room that would not agree

that Federal resources are very scare and that what is important

is how are those resources being used, and who is making the decision of where those resources will be committed. The sweeps that

we have seen in the Southern California region I imagine, and

maybe you can correct me if I am wrong, probably have a very

minimal impact in dealing with the immigration problem, but they

have had a very successful impact in terms of scaring not just illegal immigrants, but legal immigrants in California to the point

where they are afraid to send their children to school, or go to the

doctor’s office for doctor appointments, or go to work so that they

can support their families, and I am talking legal residents as well.

So while I have you here, I would like to ask you, what purpose

do you think those raids serve? And concretely, can you give me

any answers to what they have accomplished? Whether or not

those raids will continue? Because we have met with Mr. Garcia

from ICE the other morning, Under Secretary Hutchinson, we do

not get a clear answer as to whether those will continue. How the

sweeps can be justified as not being based on ethnic profiling or racial profiling? And whether or not ICE is not, in fact, the agency

who should be conducting those interior enforcement operations? I

know 5 minutes is scant time to try to answer those question, but

go ahead and give it a try.

Mr. BONNER. Let me take a stab at it anyway. First of all, in

terms of Border Patrol Agents, they are part of Customs and Border Protection, so they ultimately are reporting to me and I am responsible. Second, let me say, I do not want to get into a debate

as to sweeps, but let me just say that the Border Patrol actions or

activities that took place in Southern California, in Corona and Ontario, in particular, I would not call them ‘‘sweeps.’’ They were intelligence-driven. They were not simply randomly going up to areas

and communities.

Ms. SANCHEZ. I have a followup question on that point.

Mr. BONNER. Could I complete my answer though, because this

gets directly to your question, and that is that the primary responsibility within the Department of Homeland Security for purely interior immigration enforcement is ICE, is Mr. Garcia, not me. With

that said, and I understand Under Secretary Hutchinson may have

spoken to you or others, so I thought that there actually had been

some conversation on this subject.

Ms. SANCHEZ. Conversation, not a lot of information.

Mr. BONNER. Well, I am trying to give you some anyway on it.

What I am telling you is that the Border Patrol, as part of Customs

and Border Protection, its primary responsibility is controlling the

border. Now we are going to do everything we need to do to control

the border, and that is not just taking enforcement actions at the

physical border itself. So some actions that are going to be taken

by the Border Patrol, have been and will continue to be taken, are

not going to be just at the borderline itself. That would not make

a lot of sense, because then you could say once somebody actually

72

gets past the physical border itself they are home free. Well, that

is not the case. And so we are going to control the border and that

means we are going to be taking actions that are relevant to controlling the border. And certainly any place where people that have

illegally entered the United States may be transiting or moving

through is certainly a Border Patrol responsibility.

And last let me say, that with respect to what is a purely interior

enforcement activity, and I have tried to define that for you, that

requires approval from Border Patrol headquarters. I have made

that directive. I have made it clear. Now if Mr. Garcia comes to me

and he says, ‘‘You know, Commissioner Bonner, I need your help

for some interior immigration enforcement activity,’’ and I have the

resources to help ICE do that, of course I will. But our primary responsibility is going to be controlling the border and getting better

control of the borders of our country, which we have always needed

to do but it is absolutely essential in the post-September 11 environment because of the potential of terrorist penetration of our borders, and that includes not just the Canadian border, but the Mexican border.

Ms. SANCHEZ. I have a brief followup question, if I may be permitted, Mr. Chairman, with respect to the intelligence. We have

heard that these sweeps were, in fact, intelligence-driven based on

requests from local law enforcement agencies who provided intelligence that supposedly was the basis of these sweeps or roving patrols or whatever you choose to call them. In fact, Congressman

Baca spoke with the Ontario police department because that was

cited as the source given for the intelligence, and they have responded in writing that they never sent intelligence or requests for

those types of sweeps that were conducted in those areas. So fundamentally, the question I have is, this intelligence that was supposedly based on local law enforcement request, apparently, according to them, was never requested by them.

Mr. BONNER. Look, all I can tell you is what I understand. My

understanding is it was information or intelligence-driven, intelligence-using, in the broadest sense. And as a former Administrator

of DEA, and frankly, in my current capacity, I have never disclosed

sources to anybody. So I am not going to disclose sources here or

get into who gave the information or who did not give the information. It is my understanding there was some actionable information

that the Border Patrol was relying on.

Ms. SANCHEZ. I thank the chairman for his indulgence.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Congresswoman Dunn, do you have any

questions?

Ms. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do have

a question. I am very relieved to hear from your testimony that the

counter-terrorism mission is shoring up your work in doing counternarcotics work. There was some early concern I recall soon after

the beginning of the Department over a year ago that legacy responsibilities might be neglected as you take on a whole lot of new

responsibilities that are very important in making sure that terrorists do not get into our Nation.

I represent a district that is adjacent to a major seaport on the

West coast. It also has a border with Canada, a 120 mile maritime

border, and then a number of miles of land border. In the last few

73

years since September 11, and with the capture of Ahmed Rassum,

who was trying to get into the United States and complete that famous bombing at LAX, there is a conjoining of the problems that

we have with the northern border and what is happening down further South. But more often, when we think of terrorism and drug

enforcement, we think of the southern border.

I would like to hear what you have to say about how you cooperate among yourselves, what is the level, how many meetings do you

have, how do you transmit information. And then also with the Canadian government, I would like to know whether you believe that

we are moving along in a positive way in dealing with the Canadian government as we do both the anti-drug and the counter-terrorism responsibilities.

Mr. BONNER. Let me just say one thing, and I will try to be brief

on this. One of the main mechanisms that we have to coordinate,

particularly on the northern border—and let me say parenthetically, there are some significant amounts of illegal drugs that are

coming across from Canada into the United States. This is primarily high potency THC content, but there is significant seizures

that we are making at or near the Canadian border. But the mechanism for coordination at the northern border actually is a very

good one. It is the IBETS, or Integrated Border Enforcement

Teams, and the IBETS are made up of not only Customs and Border Protection through the Border Patrol, but ICE, DEA, as well

as the RCMP, and the Canadian Border Security Agency. There are

14 of these along the northern border. There is one actually that

started in British Columbia in the State of Washington. But there

are now 14 of them that string the entire northern border. They

work very effectively to exchange information and also to coordinate joint anti-smuggling interdiction and enforcement actions.

And as I say, all of the U.S. Government agencies of note here participate in this with the Canadians. It is a very effective coordination mechanism that is specifically, for the most part, dealing with

smuggling issues, and a lot of that is drug smuggling.

Mr. GARCIA. Just to followup quickly, if I might, on that very

point. I actually was in Washington State fairly recently and had

an opportunity to visit the facility. I walked through it and I saw

Canadian officials sitting there working side-by-side with American

analysts, U.S. law enforcement, looking at data, analyzing it, looking at trends. In fact, they were I think working on an alien smuggling case particularly when I went through there and were communicating that information with a Border Patrol team that had

actually seen some of the actual activity of this organization on the

border very recently near where this facility was located. So I got

to see really first-hand how the organization Rob is describing

works, and I was really struck by the fact that we had Canadian

counterparts sitting there side-by-side with access to their information and their systems, sharing it with us. I thought that was very

much of progress, especially given the risk you cite, the Rassum

case, I remember it well, as I know Commissioner Bonner does,

and the very real threat that posed to national security.

Ms. DUNN. And what about among yourselves, how do you share

information, how do you work together?

74

Admiral COLLINS. It is done at the tactical level, operational

level, and the strategic level. At the Washington level, for example,

there is a weekly operations policy meeting within BTS, the Coast

Guard attends that, we compare notes at the strategic level on how

we move forward. There is coordination at the field level as well.

A great example of that I think is in Florida, it is just terrific cooperation, which is one of the most threat-ridden vectors, if you

will, in our country from whether it is migrants, whether it is

drugs, or whatever. There is terrific planning, coordination. It happens all the time. On the air side particularly, the air folks from

ICE and the air folks from the Coast Guard do scheduling meetings, they work collaboratively together to schedule deployments.

And it played out very, very positively in the last Haitian crisis,

for example, on the migrant side. But it also applies on the drug

side. So I think there has been very, very positive, cooperative action. And every week there is multiple cases that happen where it

is ICE participation, Border Patrol participation, Coast Guard participation that is yielding great results, whether it is a migrant

interdiction or a drug interdiction.

Mr. BONNER. Could I put a quick word in for the Interdiction

Committee which meets in Washington on a monthly basis? It is

something I chair, but Mr. Mackin has been a tremendous participant in it. He basically helps suggest the agenda for it. But this

is a pretty high level, Washington level meeting, which is essentially the Interdiction Committee, and it has the high level Coast

Guard representatives, ICE, DEA, Roger Mackin, me, I chair these

meetings. We meet monthly and we do exchange information about

what is going on at a pretty high level and discuss issues such as

what strategy improvements could we make in terms of, let us say,

a Mexico strategy to do a better job interdicting drugs that are

moving up through Mexico.

Ms. DUNN. Yes?

Mr. MACKIN. Well, first, I have personal interaction with these

gentlemen and with some of their superiors on a weekly to monthly

basis depending on the nature of the relationship. But more than

that, they have been very generous in providing liaison officers to

my staff. And so as issues come up perhaps discussing shortages

of resource at certain areas, we will convene a meeting and these

will be representing those organizations in carrying the information back, or if I have questions I get immediate response through

them. Each of these organizations has one or more people on my

staff. It has been very helpful.

We attend the staff meetings, by-in-large, on a weekly basis, and

that gives venue to talk about issues that we have worked in a our

daily activities. I might say to Admiral Collins, were you aware of

such and such, or he will say that to me, and then it often triggers

actions for our staffs to convey information and develop ideas and

solve problems.

Ms. DUNN. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I want to make sure the record shows

that Ms. Christensen and Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee have both joined

the hearing, and they are both on the Homeland Security Committee.

75

We have three votes on, of which we have roughly about 7 minutes in this first vote, then two 5 minutes. Are all of you able to

stay if we get back here in 20 minutes or so, so we can continue

the questioning?

And is it OK if we go vote, or would you rather start your questioning?

Ms. NORTON. I think if only 7 minutes, I will defer.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. With that, the subcommittee stands in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

I now yield to Ms. Norton for her questions.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The witnesses have at

least comforted me in their testimony, because I believe all of them

testified to increased confiscations and seizures. And since I can

only judge this in some respects by the bottom line, I appreciate

that is happening.

I suppose Mr. Bonner’s testimony leads to this question, because

I appreciate the way in which your testimony at Page 7 indicated

where improvements need to be. It is very good to see witnesses

testify about what they have done, that is clearly what you are

supposed to do and what everybody always does, but also about

what you are trying to do.

My question really goes to whether or not there has been any

change in the methodology. Commissioner Bonner talks about

‘‘cold’’ hits because you are aware of their methods for concealing,

and of course cold hits amount to something close to random along

with a little sense, yes, it is called intelligence, of how they operate.

But Mr. Bonner’s testimony at Page 7 does understand that we are

in a new world where the kind of intelligence we are applying to

terrorism ought to be applied to narcoterrorism as well. You say

that you do get actionable intelligence, but ‘‘would greatly benefit,

and drug interdiction would increase nationally, if the flow of potential actionable information and intelligence from investigative

and intelligence agencies to CBP were greater.’’ That is what I

want to ask you about.

Since the new connections have been set up through the Department of Homeland Security, is there any reliance on intelligence,

as that word is used, as opposed to the old way of interdicting narcotics through ‘‘cold’’ hits, random hits? What I am looking for is

whether or not it is true that when one is looking for WMDs one

might find drugs, or when one is looking for drugs one might find

WMDs. In the ports, for example, you could conceal all kinds of

things, all kinds of bioterrorism and so forth, and if they have not

already discovered this, then they certainly are going to discover

that not only can we make money through narcoterrorism, these

folks will be looking for drugs, we will not put any drugs in here,

we will put some WMDs, so they will not even bother with this.

What I am trying to ask, therefore, is whether your own work in

narcotics detection has truly penetrated the kind of intelligence we

are doing I understand routinely now for terrorism?

Mr. BONNER. Thank you, Ms. Norton. Let me say that you are

right, that part of what you do at the border in terms of interdicting and intercepting drugs and people smuggling them is you do

look at patterns and trends. We also, of course, are aided by drugVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:12 Apr 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\99655.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
76

sniffing canines at our land borders and our international airports.

We are aided by other kinds of detection equipment. But one of the

things we are doing, too, with respect to let us say the terrorist

threat, is we are taking a look at and getting advance information

on all cargo shipments coming into the United States, through all

modes, by the way, commercial trucks, sea containers, it does not

matter. And part of what we are doing is using strategic intelligence to try to figure out better who and what to look for and

what to look at for all threats.

One quick example: part of that is anomaly analysis. An anomaly

analysis is something that is out of the ordinary. That could be a

terrorist weapon, it could be drugs, it could be something else. A

quick example: not too long ago we had a shipment of cargo that

was coming into a West Coast seaport that was manifested by advance manifest information as frozen trout and it was being

shipped actually to another location through a U.S. seaport on the

West Coast. There was an anomaly there. One is, it is a little unusual that frozen trout is coming from Asia that ultimately was

going to Central America. It was anomalous. But second, there

were some other anomalies about it, and that was it was not being

shipped in a refrigerated container. So, OK, we definitely are going

to look in that container. Now it was not a weapon of mass destruction. It was not illegal drugs. It was a cache of a large amount of

automatic weapons that was going to Central America. But I am

just saying this same methodology, the same approach that is helpful in terms of selecting out the let us say cargo shipments that we

are going to x-ray scan and that sort of thing is helpful for the illegal drug threat.

But beyond that, I would just echo what Mr. Mackin said, and

that is, that we can do better. The more intelligence or information

we get at the border, let us say the land border with Mexico, if we

have enough, we can double the number of seizures at the Mexican

border. That is not the ‘‘be all and end all’’ of a counter-drug strategy. But it is part of a strategy to seize as much of the illegal drugs

produced as far back into the supply chain as we can, along with

going after the drug money, along with going after and removing

the major traffickers, the key players and organizations. But Mr.

Mackin has suggested in his testimony, and I fully agree with it,

that we ought to be looking at, maybe under the EPIC umbrella,

but doing a better job of collating information, intelligence, whatever you want to call it, particularly for our border with Mexico,

so that we are increasing our prospects, our visibility, and can increase what are some petty impressive drug seizures now, but even

beyond, exponentially beyond what we are doing right now.

Ms. NORTON. Does the cross-training help the interchange of

methodologies here, the cross-training of your personnel at the border?

Mr. BONNER. Yes, it does. For example, when ‘‘One Face at the

Border’’ is combining Agriculture inspectors with Customs inspectors and Immigration inspectors now as one CBP inspection work

force, one of the things Agriculture inspectors, they have x-ray machines at most of the international airports and they are looking

for organic material, they are mainly looking for fruits for med flies

and that sort of thing, that is important, but we have trained them

77

also to be looking for illegal drugs which are also organic material,

cocaine and heroin. So we are getting synergies, too, by creating

one unified border agency that is looking at all the missions and

working more effectively and more efficiently toward all of the missions of Customs and Border Protection, at least the border agency,

and that includes the interception of illegal drugs, which is a very

important part of our overall mission.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I want to pursue Ms. Norton’s line of

questioning for just a minute. Obviously, as you get the Vacasas

and the x-ray equipment, that is something that can have a joint

function. But to some degree, some of these things are mutually exclusive. At the border, if a bomb dog is checking a car, it is not a

drug dog, and when you are looking at San Ysidro, El Paso, Laredo, these huge areas where we have so much traffic going across,

just a minute delay causes absolute chaos because of long lines.

And so not everything is able to be done jointly. But as we get

more equipment, and probably the No. 1 important things are the

actual training of your agents, in other words, they look at the vehicles, they look at the equipment, they look at the anomalies in

the bills of lading, in the invoices, and to the degree that they are

trained. Now one of the things that we are trying to address, and

I mentioned it in my opening statement, is we are very concerned

that narcotics does not seem to be in the long-term measurement.

Now the people who have been trained in this area and who have

worked with this long-term have already picked that up, and you

have many experienced agents. The question is, what is being done

in the Department of Homeland Security for people who are coming

on board, for new people who are coming in, for some of the people

maybe in Department of Agriculture who have not historically

looked at narcotics, to train them, and how does the Department

see that as being part of the review? Initially, as I am sure you are

all aware, if we ever get a Homeland Security authorizing bill

through, we are certainly looking at that and have huge bipartisan

support of adding that, with the caveat of cooperation. We are not

looking to see if we have this in this sub-agency, and we have this

in this, cooperation should be part of that, too, but we want to see

that as part of the personnel training evaluation.

Mr. BONNER. We are cross-training all of our inspectional work

force for the multitude of missions, it is not just one, but that certainly includes the anti-narcotic mission and detection. We are putting heavy emphasis, Chairman Souder, on essentially what I call

targeting skills, and that is using advance information to target

against threats.

We actually learned what we are doing in the anti-terrorism area

to better target essentially by virtue of things that were being done

by legacy U.S. Customs through passenger analysis units at JFK,

at Miami, and other international airports, and through what we

call manifest review units, which are at all of our major seaports

and our international airports for air cargo. The principles that we

have taken for identifying terrorist risks are actually drawn from

things that particularly legacy U.S. Customs was doing very, very

well in terms of thinking about how do you, given the limited

amount of time you have, how do you select what—what vehicles,

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what people, what cargo—we need to spend extra time with in secondary and do a fuller inspection, and making sure that we have

the right array of technology and equipment to do that. But most

of this technology and equipment, we are still working on canines,

by the way, to get a canine that can detect both bombs and illegal

drugs.

Mr. SOUDER. That would be great.

Mr. BONNER. We are working on that at Front Royal right now.

But nonetheless, most of this stuff really is overlapping and I think

it does overall improve our effectiveness against the drug threat.

Mr. SOUDER. Do any of you have a response to the fact that we

did a word search and could not find ‘‘narcotics’’ or ‘‘drugs’’ or anything in the evaluation proposals?

Mr. BONNER. Which proposals?

Mr. SOUDER. The proposed personnel manuals for the Department that is 40 pages and had nothing——

Mr. BONNER. The Human Resources design.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. Because, basically, anybody who has been in

any Government agency or in the private sector knows that is the

bottom line for a lot of employees. Am I being measured by something?

Mr. BONNER. I do not know the answer to that.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. I want to ask a couple of technical questions.

If you want to get back, I am not looking for long answers, but I

want to make sure that I have some understanding and that we

understand on the record.

Let me move first to Mr. Garcia. In the air and marine operations, you provide aerial support. The ICE pilots and aviation enforcement officers could lend aviation expertise to ongoing drug

smuggling investigations. Have you converted all of your aviation

personnel to 18.11 agent job series to enhance their anti-smuggling

investigation capability, and if not, why not?

Mr. GARCIA. Currently, Chairman Souder, we are looking—let

me just step back a little bit. Our Marine officers, our folks in

AMO, go through the same 18.11 training course at FLETC that

our special agents in the Office of Investigation do. What I have before me now is a proposal to convert the hundred-some-odd Marine

Enforcement Officers from their series as Marine Enforcement Officers to 18.11. I am looking at it. I think there is a lot of merit to

that proposal. I was actually out with Marine Enforcement Officers

in Miami not too long ago and they were telling me about a stop

they made where the drugs were thrown overboard or whatever

contraband they had, by the time they caught the boat, nothing on

it, but the people on the boat were actually re-entering felons after

deportation, which is a serious charge and they had turned them

over to authorities, and how efficient it would be to have them with

not only Customs but Immigration enforcement as we are training

all of our agents. And I think there is much merit to that.

The key issue for me, obviously, is coordination of those investigative resources with our Office of Investigations and looking at

the plan for doing that so we are not going at cross-purposes, and

you can see the merit in that. So I think it is a proposal that has

much merit, and I am considering it right now.

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Commissioner Bonner, a similar type

question. It has come to our attention that you plan to create a new

employee classification for the inspectors at ports of entry called

18.95 classification. Apparently, this will give the inspectors the

authority to do investigations, including controlled deliveries after

they make seizures. How are you going to ensure that this does not

decrease the willingness of inspectors to call in ICE special agents

to do this work?

Mr. BONNER. First of all, I am not contemplating doing that.

Next week we are going to convert all legacy Customs and Immigration inspectors to Customs and Border Protection Officers and

they will have a new classification series. But we are doing that

to unify and integrate the agency. At the current time, I contemplate we continue our historic relations with the special agents

now at ICE for followup controlled deliveries from drug cases. And

as I said in my earlier testimony, the Border Patrol actually has

a relationship with DEA in terms of followup investigations. So we

are an interdicting agency, we do not do followup investigation. We

interdict the drugs and we make arrests of the people that are involved in smuggling them. But I do not contemplate at this time

any change in terms of having CBP Officers do controlled deliveries. I am looking for Mr. Garcia’s agents to do that for port of

entry seizures, and DEA to do it with respect to between the ports

of entry.

Mr. SOUDER. When you and Mr. Garcia debate changes like you

are debating in either of these that have a big impact on narcotics,

do you discuss this with Mr. Mackin and alert him before so he can

get a counternarcotics officer opinion?

Mr. BONNER. Well, I would but I am not even discussing. I have

not had any internal discussions in Customs and Border Protection

at headquarters. If there is anything that we might talk about at

some point, it would be what I call the bag and tag cases, which

are cases that do not have any followup investigative potential because you cannot do a controlled delivery and the magnitude of the

case does not warrant a criminal investigation. It is, basically, we

have a truck driver and we have drugs, and we want to make sure

that where a prosecution can occur, a prosecution occurs. But right

now, ICE is handling that. And at least for the foreseeable future,

until Mr. Garcia says he wants to do it some other way, that is the

way it is going to be done. At some point I might talk to Mr. Garcia

about whether there is a more efficient way to do some things, but

I can tell you right now, in terms of followup investigations and

controlled deliveries, that is a 18.11 investigative agency function,

and that is either ICE or DEA. It is not CBP.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. My question was broader than that, but let me

ask this specific to Mr. Garcia. On the 18.11, do you discuss with

Mr. Mackin—I mean, the point here is that beyond whether you

are individually committed, what he is supposed to be is a watchdog in the agency, that when there is a policy change that could

affect counternarcotics, that he at least knows your internally debating it, not that he is informed at a meeting that it is done, because he is supposed to be making sure that function is not threatened, and, in fact, is expanded. That does not mean he is going to

disagree. But it is an awkward position because we deliberately did

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not put him into a line control over your agencies because you

know your subparts of the agency. But we need to know that he

is in the middle of the decision process to at least watch that.

Mr. BONNER. OK. But the premise is, you take my point here——

Mr. SOUDER. Right. You are not changing, I understand that.

Mr. BONNER. I think it would be a bad idea to have CBP Officers

doing controlled——

Mr. SOUDER. Right. On 18.65 I got the point. But it would be if

you make other decisions related to narcotics. And in the 18.11 decision, here is one that you said is moving forward. I just wondered

whether his office has been consulted in that process.

Mr. GARCIA. Chairman Souder, a very good point. I am not sure,

to be frank, on the 18.11 issue, with the hundred or so marine officers, if our offices have spoken. I have not spoken to Mr. Mackin.

I can tell you that he is very much involved in discussions we have

on our policy, on our working relationships, on MOUs or MOAs on

arrangements we have both within the Department and outside the

Department that I know he is personally involved in, and I thank

him for that effort.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. And let me pursue one other matter

here, and this is for Commissioner Bonner, Admiral Collins, and

Secretary Garcia. In the ICE, AMO, Border Patrol, Coast Guard,

each of you have air and marine assets that they also have overlapping missions, particularly with respect to drug smuggling. It is

part of all your missions. I am going to give you the series of four

questions and then would like each of you to explain how you see

your unique mission as far as air and water, what do you think the

other two agencies’ air and marine missions are and how they differ from your mission, and how you think we can make this more

efficient. And we also understand the Department has commissioned a study by an outside consultant of air and marine programs.

I would like to hear each of your reactions to this because this

is, to some degree, where the rubber meets the road: How do we

sort this through, how do you view each other, and how do we resolve this. Because drugs are not the only mission and it is not the

only reason you have air and marine divisions, but to some degree

it is a primary part of it.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, could I ask you to yield just

for a moment?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. Do you want to do a statement?

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Yes. If you would, I have a security briefing

going and I came back—gentlemen, if you would indulge me—to

support this hearing and to support what you are doing. I very

much want to associate myself with the purpose of this hearing.

We have travelled together and I hope the gentlemen understand

this is not a critique that is without purpose or recognition of the

good service that you do. I think in the backdrop of the September

11 report today that talks about collaboration and being able to

singularly determine or have governance over the intelligence, it is

equally important to recognize that smuggling drugs, aliens, or

arms are, frankly, the same threat against terrorism or the same

threat of terrorism. In addition, we know that narco terrorist orgaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:12 Apr 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\99655.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nizations include the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, the

Islamic radical groups, and others.

I would encourage this hearing to move forward on the idea of

a singular person that coordinates and has standing in the Homeland Security Department. I hope that we will have an opportunity

to work on this together, Mr. Chairman. I would just say to the

fine witnesses, with whom I work with as the ranking member on

the Immigration Claims Committee, we can be enhanced and better for it when we find a stronger voice inside the Homeland Security that coordinates some of these actions dealing with the smuggling of drugs, aliens, or arms, which will continue and will continue to be the fuel of terrorist acts around the world.

Let me also ask unanimous consent to submit my entire statement into the record. And I would appreciate being able to submit

the questions of the ranking member of the full committee, Mr.

Turner, into the record as well. Both of us are off to a briefing and

I apologize for having to depart. I thank the chairman for his indulgence and well as the chairman and the ranking member, Mr.

Cummings, for this great work on this matter.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. Without objection, the full

statement will be inserted in the record, and the questions from

you and Mr. Turner. I thank the gentlelady for her leadership and

constant concern on the narcotics issue. It has been bipartisan and

it is very important that we continue to do that.

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. How about we go in the reverse direction. Mr. Garcia, do you want to start on these?

Mr. GARCIA. Yes. Chairman Souder, you are asking a question

that gets to core competencies of what these various divisions do.

I will perhaps speak on AMO and let the other gentlemen take a

shot at giving their first description of their own programs.

I think if you look at the AMO core competencies, you look at

three different categories. You look at an air and marine law enforcement capability, and we were just talking about that with the

18.11, the training at FLETC and the investigative course work.

You look at the tremendous equipment they have, the infrared

cameras, for example, and I have seen them, I have been with the

Air and Marine and had demonstrations, an ability to monitor, for

example, a controlled delivery, to testify in court about a deal that

was done and who was present and what happened and to present

evidence as witnesses. A tremendous law enforcement capability.

In my experience as a prosecutor and working in law enforcement

in various agencies, it is a very unique and impressive capability.

You have air and marine interdiction, detection, tracking, interception, marine vessels and aircraft engaged in smuggling illegal

drugs, people, contraband, as the Congresswoman was just mentioning. We see that across smuggling organizational lines now and

they do that within certain lanes and parameters, working with

their counterparts represented here at the table.

And air space security mission is the third mission. We see that

most starkly here in the National Capital Region where AMO is responsible for maintaining that security zone. They have done that

work in Olympics in Atlanta and in Salt Lake City, and at other

special events like Presidential inaugurations.

So I would divide it into those three we call core competencies

of law enforcement interdiction and air space security as an AMO

mission.

Mr. SOUDER. Admiral Collins.

Admiral COLLINS. We have quite a substantial air arm, as you

know, Mr. Chairman, over 211 major aircraft, rotary wing an fixed

wing, C–130 is the heart of our fixed wing fleet, and we have several classes of helicopters, and we also have a medium endurance

jet. They service all our wide range of missions, from requirement

for surveillance for fish, migrants, drugs, and other things as far

flung as the Bering Sea and the deep Caribbean and the Western

Pacific. So our venue is very, very wide. It goes all the way to

China and back, all the way to Guam and back. It provides surveillance capabilities, strategic lift capability, I think we are the primary strategic lift with our C–130’s for the Department, so moving

rapid response teams, security teams and so forth from FEMA,

from us, from others is through the C–130’s. They also are

equipped with fairly significant surveillance equipment. Of course,

the other unique part about our air arm is they are the primary

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rescue and recovery of vehicles for our search and rescue mission

and I think the world’s preeminent search and rescue organization.

We save over 4,000 to 5,000 lives a year in the United States

through this. And you have to look at the aircraft types. Some very

different capabilities embedded in our aircraft than you will find in

other aircraft. So it is not just to say they have a fleet. We have

a fleet, it is a fleet with a particular set of competencies, a certain

set of capabilities, reach, and a whole host of other things that are

built in to service the particular mission set that we have.

There is very, very I think close collaboration on the use of those

fleets. There is no duplication when it comes to use of aircraft for

the counter-drug mission. We can use every single aircraft hour we

can get. It is the long pole in the tent, Mr. Chairman, in terms of

servicing the counter-drug mission. And we are doing that collaboratively. The integrating mechanism for the two fleets is JIATFSouth, quite frankly, in terms of that southern vector, integrating

these resources, applying them to the best part of the mission.

Clearly, ICE’s aircraft are very, very focused and very, very productive into air bridge denial, but they are also involved in our at-sea

in surveillance, as we are. But we need both of those competencies,

both of those capabilities to do the job, and they are coordinated,

again, through that integrating mechanism.

We are also looking at enterprise-wide systems in the Department. What I mean by that is how we acquire them, which ones

we acquire, how we vet the requirement. We have an organizational entity called the Air Council that is looking at these issues,

logistics, mission assignment, and a whole host of other things to

acquire and support aircraft. That is actively looking at these

things as we speak.

There is a Commodity Council on how we buy particular equipment, and can we leverage economies of scale. There is an example

where the Border Patrol has bought off a small boat contract, we

have over 1,800 small boats in the Coast Guard around the country. We have an existing contract with a very, very capable boat

company, it happens to be from a company called Safe Boat in

Puget Sound, that the Border Patrol has bought off.

So we are looking at are there synergies, whether it is procurement, whether it is maintenance, whether it is deployment, in how

do we integrate these things together. And we have a lot of things

in motion to look very, very aggressive like that. I think it is a very

positive development and I think we will find efficiencies both in

deployment, maintenance, and everything else across the Department as we manage these in a non-redundant but complimentary

way. And that is the focus, integrated operations.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Bonner.

Mr. BONNER. Well, it is an excellent question. Let me just say

I am in the unusual position of having seen, as Commissioner of

Customs, to have overseen the very fine work of AMO, which was

the air and marine interdiction division which was part of our Office of Investigation at legacy Customs. So I am very familiar with

the good work that is done by the air and marine assets that are

now over in ICE. It was kind of like ships passing in the night because, as a result of this reorganization, of course, the Border Patrol became part of Customs and Border Protection and the Border

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Patrol has air assets and it has a few small what I would call

brown water assets that are important at the St. Lawrence and

other locations.

There are 116 Border Patrol aircraft in the Border Patrol fleet,

about 78 or 80 of those are rotors. These tend to be very tactically,

operationally driven use of air assets that is directly related to the

border control mission, which is both the interception of illegal people that are illegally coming into the United States, and the interception of illegal drugs that are moving across the border, particularly the Mexican border, into the United States. They are, by the

way, far and away the most efficient use of air assets in terms of

per hour air time of any of the air assets of the Federal Government, and I include DEA, and I am very familiar with DEA’s air

assets. But by that I mean, for every air hour flown by a Border

Patrol aircraft, there are three apprehensions that are directly related to that aircraft, on average, and a significant amount of illegal drugs that have moved across our borders. In fact, when you

think of the drive-throughs, and this is illegal drugs down in Arizona and other places, but I mean loads that are literally being

driven through the border, the only way the Border Patrol actually

can successfully interdict is to have air assets that can follow and

get onto those vehicles.

So Border Patrol uses its assets. I think the Commandant is

right that there are some unique assets that are specifically related

to this mission. But let me add that we put together, actually

under the Border and Transportation Security Division of the Department, the Arizona Border Control Initiative. This is something

we started about mid-March. It is led by the Border Patrol but it

is multi-agency. The ICE participates in it in a number of different

ways but part of it is adding to the 14 helicopters that we have deployed in essentially the Arizona sector, this is the Tucson sector

that we are trying to take control over right now, the air and marine assets. We have coordinated that. They have contributed significant assets including the use of Blackhawks to assist moving

teams of Border Patrol agents so apprehensions can be made, and

this is both illegal migration but it is also drug smuggling. So we

are coordinating on it.

But on the other hand, I would say that, sort of looking at it from

the point of view of trying to control the physical border, these air

assets that Border Patrol has are incredibly important. The one

thing we do not have at Border Patrol is we do not have assets that

can go and interdict what I would call well beyond the border.

These are the Air and Marine, former Customs air and marine P–

3s, the Cessna Citations that over-fly Mexico as part of Operation

HALCON, very successful, by the way. So from Border Patrol’s

point of view, we are not out there in terms of the Caribbean and

the East Pacific and over Mexico. That is Air and Marine, because

it has extended border assets to do interdiction work, and that is

the Coast Guard, which has some significant assets that are out

there doing interdiction work. So we do not really overlap with that

area, that theater in terms of Border Patrol assets. I hope that is

helpful.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Let me make a brief comment and then

I am going to yield to Chairman Camp for anything he wants to

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cover here. You also, by each kind of defining who you were, kind

of defined some of your differences. I think it is important as we

move forward to continue to work to resolve this. As we have

looked at some amendments in the Homeland Security bill, and as

I wound up talking and trying to work through kind of the difficulties of having so many authorizers and how we work through this

process, and getting support of Mr. Sensenbrenner and talking to

Don Young, who have very strong opinions about the Department

of Homeland Security Select Committee but at the same time understand that there are multi tasks, that we are going to have to

figure out how we integrate the tasks that are clearly homeland security-related and the other tasks in the Department which may or

may not be homeland security related.

The Coast Guard is a classic example of that because fisheries

and search and rescue are really more dominant in the mission

than homeland security and narcotics have been. It is not that they

are not important, and port security, for example, is a huge part

of that. But there is no question that when I have been briefed at

the different regional places that the bulk of the Coast Guard

points are going to have, depending on the location—for example,

on Lake Michigan and in the mid-West, you are going to have one

set; if it is in Alaska, you are going to have another set; if it is on

the Texas-East Coast, you are going to have another set. But you

have multi task missions that we have to sort out and most of

those, with the exception certainly of the Caribbean, most of the

Coast Guard missions tend to be more toward the border. And I

will let you rebut that point or add to it in a minute. Whereas in

the Border Patrol, clearly, while there might be some fungibility inland, as you have clearly stated, you are pretty much, in addition,

to interdict right at the border—on the Rio Grande with the

boats—you are pretty much an addition and a discouragement. And

the goal is immigration, which is a terrorist function potentially as

well as an immigration function, and a narcotics function. But the

usual thing, and this is what has been our continual discussion

about Shadow Wolves, is whether we should have a similar thing

on the North border. And the AMO division of the Department of

Homeland Security has historically had tasks that do not fit the

box. In other words, they go both directions. They go this way from

the border, and they go this way from the border. Certainly, by the

way, I just want to say for the record, Mr. Bonner, I agree with

you that the Border Patrol cannot be like a picket fence, only that

you have to have some back checkpoints like up in New York State

or in Arizona or in California and have to have the ability to enforce it, otherwise once they get through it will take so long to follow through.

Now with that concept I think in the Department of Homeland

Security, if we are going to keep our narcotics function, that one

way to address this, as long as there is adequate funding in the Department that we need to battle for, is that there are going to be

some units that do not fit the traditional function that may even

have narcotics and contraband as a primary function as opposed

homeland security. I want to get your reactions.

Admiral Collins, you have been chomping at the bit.

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Admiral COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to

add just a little bit on the helicopter capability, in particular, about

the range and the reach of those. Yes, we have helicopter stations

in the Great Lakes, in Alaska, along the coastal regions, and certainly they have search and rescue responsibility in the coastal

arena. But those same helicopters, those air stations provide

deployers to all our ships. Most of our ships are helicopter-equipped

ships, they have a helicopter deck, they deploy to the Caribbean,

they deploy to the Western Pacific, they deploy to the Bering Sea,

they carry helicopters. Helicopters give them reach, give them surveillance capability for law enforcement, particularly for counterdrugs.

We also have I think incredible capability. It has turned around

the seizure rate for us. That is the reason why. And if you plot it,

you plot it over time and you see huge spike in the growth of our

seizure rate, it has everything to do with those airborne capabilities. Use of force from helicopters, the HITRON squadron based out

of Jacksonville, eight helicopters that have machine gun and laserguided sniper rifle capability that can stop go-fast. We have all our

arrests at sea, a great deal of our seizures are a result of that activity. They are the arrestees that go to Panama Express. They are

the arrestees that give us all our information. They are the

arrestees that give us the indictment and extradition out of Colombia. This is the enabler for the drug war. And our next step is to

embed that capability organically in every helicopter in the U.S.

Coast Guard so it is not just the HITRON helicopters. We will have

security zone enforcement, vessel escorts in and out of ports, and

a whole hosts of other things. So it is both homeland security, law

enforcement, and counter-drug effort of great import to this Nation.

And we have special dispensation with the Justice Department to

use Use of Force in domestic airspace.

So I think it is a potent force for our country and the one that

we can offer. So I just wanted to add that clarity to the reach and

the focus of that fleet.

Mr. SOUDER. I will let each comment. Mr. Garcia, then Mr.

Mackin.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You make very good

points in terms of where are we, where does that border end. And

it has to be somewhat fluid because we have to treat it as the most

effective way that we can address the threat that we have all been

talking about here today. It is difficult when you are looking at it

that way, as the border is fluid and our response must be, and how

do you put a particular asset in a particular box. Some judgment

has to be exercised, a call has to be made, and then you have to

show flexibility in how you use the asset, in how Air and Marine,

or the Coast Guard, or Commissioner Bonner’s assets work with

the other assets, how we support each other, and Commissioner

Bonner gave the example in Arizona. We always look for efficiencies. Admiral Collins mentioned procurement, we also have

purchased off the Safe Boat contract as well, how do we save

money, how do we order, how do we procure materials for these

units, and always looking at can we do it more efficiently. BTS I

know right now has a group going that is looking at the air assets

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particularly, and where they are, how are we using them, and is

that the best structure for it.

I know there has been interest here and in other places in Congress about the same issues. And we balance that also with the fact

that we have gone through a period of tremendous reorganization

and upheaval already. People are being asked to do really incredibly difficult and important work out there and they want to know

with some certainty where they are and what they are doing in the

mission.

So, we would never say we do not want to change, because

change can be a very good thing. But we balance that against the

fact that we have gone through many changes in the last 16

months or 18 months or so. I can assure you that analysis is constantly going on at every level I just described. And I can say that,

having worked with the people here at the table, they are also committed to looking at those assets and using them in the most efficient way and considering them as national assets in doing the

work that you describe.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Mackin.

Mr. MACKIN. Mr. Souder, just a brief comment to endorse Admiral Collins’ discussion of the Use of Force helicopters. They are integral. He has done a marvelous thing in creating them and sustaining them and now he is embarking on doing that for all of the

helicopters. That will greatly increase the interdiction capability of

our forces both in Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. And so I applaud that. And in thoughts for the future, any aid that you can

give him to move that faster is certainly appropriate. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. BONNER. Just a very short comment, and that is that looking

at it from the perspective let us say of the land border, and particularly Mexico where most illegal drugs, at least the vast majority,

are coming through, I think it is a truism, Mr. Chairman, to say

that smuggling is smuggling is smuggling, and it does not really

matter whether it is people being smuggled, whether it is drugs,

or whether it is terrorists. The reality is you need air assets to be

effective, to have the mobility that we need to be able to track

down, intercept, and interdict.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Chairman Camp.

Mr. CAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of

mission-specific questions. Mr. Garcia, the Office of Air and Marine

Operations is expanding their presence on the northern border and

also in our own National Capital Region. And with slightly over

1,000 people, how have these activities impacted AMO’s ability to

provide counternarcotics support to ICE and Customs and Border

Protection?

Mr. GARCIA. You are correct, we are increasing the presence on

the northern border. Everybody has realized that risk. We discussed the Rassum case earlier, a particular example of the risk.

To date, Mr. Chairman, as we have increased the presence, it has

been very gradual. In fact, I visited the station that we are building up in Washington, I know there is one scheduled in upstate

New York that is actually going forward there, we have detailed

personnel in, we are in the process of hiring, and have hired for

those stations particularly. So in discussing that very issue with

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Air and Marine, they have not seen a decrease either in their effectiveness on the Southwest border or in their ability to support

other Federal agencies such as CBP.

Mr. CAMP. Admiral Collins, the Coast Guard has an increased

U.S. presence in U.S. ports, which is a new mission, basically, in

many ways. How has this impacted the Coast Guard’s ability to

conduct surveillance and search for narcotics vessels?

Admiral COLLINS. It is not a new mission. We have had the mission since 1790. We were created as a law enforcement agency, by

the way, by Alexander Hamilton. So it is not a new mission. It is

sort of taken off the back burner. We had 45,000 people dedicated

to port security during World War II, which is bigger than the entire U.S. Coast Guard today. So we have had that, it has just ebbed

and flowed. It is taken from the back burner and put on the front

burner and the flames are turned up a little bit now.

You are right in saying that we have had to allocate resources

to greater surveillance, both from a boat perspective and air perspective, in the ports of the United States, particularly during Orange condition. When that happens, we have pulled assets, clearly,

there is less deploying helicopters with our ships, there is less fixed

wing support deep in the Caribbean. And so it has had a resource

impact. That is why I mentioned in my opening statement, Mr.

Chairman, Chairmen, that it was a capability capacity thing to us

was the key issues in terms of servicing the wide range of missions

that the Nation needs.

What is the good news is that we are capable of flexing back and

forth very, very quickly and to mobilizing the surge into the highest risk at the time. And the other good news is we have doubled

the effectiveness of the existing assets. Let me give just a couple

of statistics. During the 1992 to 1996 timeframe, we allocated

73,000 air hours to the drug mission and had an average seizure

rate of 6 percent overall, overall, 6 percent. In the year 2002 to

2003, we allocated 72,000 air hours to the drug mission and we

have an average seizure rate of 13 percent. We have more than

doubled the productivity of those aircraft. And that has a lot to do

with using acute intelligence, international partnerships and coalitions, bilateral agreements with over 26 nations in the Caribbean

and South America, and a host of other initiatives that we have

put together to leverage the heck out of those assets.

Could we do more if we had more assets? Absolutely. In the gofast war, for example, we can document that during the last 12

months that we forego about 55 tons of cocaine. We had hard intelligence and we had go-fast, but we did not have the surface asset

or the HITRON helicopter to prosecute the intelligence. So we have

intelligence-rich environment getting better, and better, and better

at it in the interagency. We do not have the force structure capacity to handle all the intelligence.

Mr. CAMP. Commissioner Bonner, with the money flow in terms

of drug trafficking, CRS has a report that in the Caribbean alone

they estimate $3.3 billion is traced to the illegal drug industry.

What programs does DHS have in place to track and disrupt that

money flow, which is significant?

Mr. BONNER. It is significant. Again, this is a coordinated effort.

But from the CBP end of it, we have not only inbound authority,

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we have outbound authority to essentially search and question people going outbound or vehicles going outbound. And so we do seize

a fair amount, I do not have the data right in front of me now, of

outbound cash, most of which is drug money. This is money going

across the Port of Laredo out to Mexico, and sometimes money

going out to Canada and elsewhere that is mainly drug-related.

But we do coordinate on this overall issue of how do you do this

more effectively with ICE and with the special agents in ICE who

have considerable, formidable expertise in terms of money laundering and drug money laundering. So we work in combination. Sometimes, by the way, ICE will suggest to us where we might be looking for outbound drug money, this is intelligence-cueing and that

sort of thing, and we coordinate with them. Well, I do not want to

go into another situation I was talking to Mr. Mackin about on the

public record. But in any event, this is an important part of our

responsibility in terms of seizing outbound currency and cash. Part

of that, too, is sometimes homeland security-related because we

have seized a very significant amount of outbound cash going to

the Middle East, much of which was generated by drug trafficking

activity. I am not saying it was going to terrorists, but I am saying

that just by doing some targeting of outbound money that is leaving the United States either through our international airports or

through our land border, it is an important part of how we view

our overall responsibility and use of authorities to get after drug

money laundering.

Mr. CAMP. Yes, Mr. Mackin.

Mr. MACKIN. Mr. Camp, I would like to point out that I spend

quite a bit of my time working the outbound money issue with

Mexico and with Colombia, I am working with my ICE colleagues

who are experts in that area. I am helping to work with our Mexican colleagues there about investigating the leads that we can harvest in the United States and get them to help, because often the

money is identifiable only after it gets down there you discover it

has arrived, you did not know which car was bringing it over. So

we are trying to work to improve their capability to work these

issues with both ICE and with DEA. And with Colombia, the black

market pesos exchange is a serious problem there and we have

worked with them to develop a program where we can identify—

I have to be careful how far I get into this—information that the

Colombians can use to go after both businessmen and traffickers

that are using this black market pesos exchange to their advantage.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Chairman, I think there is a success story in

the paper today. Working in Colombia actually, we seized with a

unit we work with down there 78 properties, the Colombians seized

millions of dollars in value, showing that we are tracing the money

into the source countries. So, progress on that front. In fact, using

some of the new tools under the Patriot Act, the unlicensed money

brokers, the bulk cash smuggling, authorities that have really

made us a lot more effective in the money laundering area, and

using our money laundering coordination center to deconflict and

look at intelligence information on a money laundering front. So,

an incredibly important part of what we all do here.

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Mr. CAMP. Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony

today. It was a very good hearing. I appreciate your being here and

all that you had to say. Thanks a lot, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Congresswoman Kelly from the Banking Committee is just forming a financial terrorism working group

with a number of us who are on committees from Homeland Security to Financial Services to Judiciary, and we are putting together

a group of people who have been tracking this, because in Congress

you all get hauled up for all kinds of things, so many kinds of committees, and we need to be talking more too.

I have some additional written questions. It would be helpful if

we can get answers in writing and we do not have to use up so

much time. I very much appreciate your taking a long time this

afternoon to do this. So maybe we can do it with written followup

and we will not have to take so much of your time in the future.

I appreciate all your leadership and long-time commitment. It is

a very difficult time to try to figure out how to coordinate all these

things and where the priorities are, and you need to keep working

aggressively at it. As you are well aware, I am very concerned

about the counternarcotics, what the role of Mr. Mackin is in the

agency in a structural way, not him personally but his position;

that we figure out how to work out the Air and Marine; we figure

out how we are going deal with the challenges on the norther border as well as the southern border; how we make sure that if we

get in a period where we have 3 months of sustained Orange that

we do not lose the narcotics war by having everything pulled in

tight and that we have some units that are still able to support

DEA and some of the other narcotics agents who have that as their

primary mission.

So we will look forward to continuing to work together. We appreciate your work.

And with that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Michael R. Turner and Hon.

Joe Barton, and additional information submitted for the hearing

record follows:]

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