S. Hrg. 114–516 

BORDER SECURITY—2015 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DEFERRED ACTION ON IMMIGATION: IMPLICATIONS AND 

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

VISA WAIVER PROGRAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. NATIONAL 

SECURITY, MARCH 12, 2015 

SECURING THE SOUTHWEST BORDER: PERSPECTIVES FROM 

BEYOND THE BELTWAY, MARCH 17, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF 

TRANSNATIONAL CRIME, MARCH 24, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING THE 

ROOT CAUSES OF CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED 

STATES, MARCH 25, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: DEFINING THE CURRENT POPULATION 

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS AND ADDRESSING FUTURE FLOWS, 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
BORDER SECURITY—2015 

VOLUME 1 of 2 
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WASHINGTON : 

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94–899 PDF 2016

S. Hrg. 114–516 

BORDER SECURITY—2015 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DEFERRED ACTION ON IMMIGRATION: IMPLICATIONS AND 

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, FEBRURY 4, 2015 

VISA WAIVER PROGRAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. NATIONAL 

SECURITY, MARCH 12, 2015 

SECURING THE SOUTHWEST BORDER: PERSPECTIVES FROM 

BEYOND THE BELTWAY, MARCH 17, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF 

TRANSNATIONAL CRIME, MARCH 24, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING THE 

ROOT CAUSES OF CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED 

STATES, MARCH 25, 2015 

SECURING THE BORDER: DEFINING THE CURRENT POPULATION 

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS AND ADDRESSING FUTURE FLOWS, 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER R. HIXON, Chief Counsel 

BROOKE N. ERICSON, Deputy Chief Counsel for Homeland Security 

JENA N. MCNEIL, Deputy Director of Homeland Security 

JOSE J. BAUTISTA, Professional Staff Member 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

MARY BETH SCHULTZ, Minority Chief Counsel 

STEPHEN R. VIN ̃ A, Minority Chief Counsel for Homeland Security 

HOLLY A. IDELSON, Minority Senior Counsel 

HARLAN C. GEER, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

JILL B. MUELLER, Minority U.S. Customs and Border Protection Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson..... 1, 165 303, 425, 599, 771, 933, 1087, 1207, 1409, 1585, 1919 

Senator Carper ................ 3, 166, 305, 427, 600, 771, 934, 1098, 1208, 1410, 1587 

Senator Baldwin............................................................................................ 22, 1227 

Senator Heitkamp................................................................................... 24, 331, 963 

Senator Lankford ..................................................... 27, 204, 797, 1113, 1431, 1612 

Senator Booker ..................................................................... 31, 182, 453, 950, 1097 

Senator Ayotte.................................................. 33, 179, 325, 977, 1229, 1420, 1481 

Senator Ernst ............................................................. 184, 171, 335, 795, 961, 1426 

Senator Peters................................................ 202, 449, 789, 956, 1224, 1428, 1609 

Senator McCain ........................................................................ 320, 958, 1422, 1920 

Senator Tester............................................................................................. 446, 1104 

Senator Sasse .................................................................................................... 953 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 1605 

Senator Shaheen ............................................................................................... 1485 

Senator Flake .................................................................................................... 1922 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ........... 43, 209, 351, 465, 645, 813, 981, 1129, 1241, 1443, 1515, 

1625, 1961 

Senator Carper .... 45, 210, 353, 467, 646, 814, 982, 1130, 1243, 1444, 1517, 1626 

Senator Ayotte........................................................................................... 1519, 1964 

Senator Shaheen ............................................................................................... 1523 

Senator McCain ................................................................................................ 1963 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary, U.S. Social Security Administration ............... 6 

Hon. Eileen J. O’Connor, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP ...... 8 

Luke Peter Bellocchi, Of Counsel, Wasserman, Mancini and Chang, and 

Former Deputy Ombudsman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 

ath the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................................... 10 

Shawn Moran, Vice President, National Border Patrol Council .......................... 12 

Bo Cooper, Partner, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen and Loewy LLP, and 

Former General Counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service ..... 14 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bellocchi, Luke Peter: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Cooper, Bo: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 91 

Goss, Stephen C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 47 

Moran, Shawn: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 80 

O’Connor, Hon. Eileen J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 
Page

IV 

APPENDIX 

Chart submitted by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 104 

Goss Actuarial Note submitted by Senator Johnson ............................................ 105 

Statement submitted for the Record from American Immigration Council ........ 110 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Goss ............................................................................................................ 141 

Ms. O’Connor .................................................................................................... 143 

Mr. Bellocchi ..................................................................................................... 147 

Mr. Moran ......................................................................................................... 161 

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Hon. Michael Chertoff, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, The Chertoff 

Group .................................................................................................................... 168 

Marc E. Frey, Ph.D., Senior Director, Steptoe and Johnson, LLP ...................... 170 

Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Adviser to the President, The RAND Corporation ........................................................................................................................ 172 

Mark Koumans, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, Office 

of Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................................ 189 

Maureen Dugan, Deputy Executive Director, National Targeting Center, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ...... 191 

Edward J. Ramotowski, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, U.S. 

Department of State ............................................................................................ 193 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Chertoff, Hon. Michael: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 168 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 212 

Dugan, Maureen: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 191 

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 239 

Frey, Marc E., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 170 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 219 

Jenkins, Brian Michael: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 172 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 228 

Koumans, Mark: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 189 

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 239 

Ramotowski, Edward J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 193 

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

APPENDIX 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Dr. Frey ............................................................................................................. 251 

Mr. Jenkins ....................................................................................................... 254 

Mr. Koumans and Ms. Dugan ......................................................................... 266 

Mr. Ramotowski ................................................................................................ 295 

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Chris Cabrera, Border Patrol Agent, Rio Grande Valley Sector, U.S. Customs 

and Border Protection, on behalf of the National Border Patrol Council ....... 308 

Mark J. Dannels, Sheriff, Cochise County, Arizona ............................................. 310 

Howard G. Buffett, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Howard G. Buffett 

Foundation, and Arizona Landowner ................................................................. 313 

Othal E. Brand, Jr., Farmer, McAllen, Texas ....................................................... 315 

Monica Weisberg-Stewart, Chairwoman, Committee on Border Security and 

Immigration, Texas Border Coalition ................................................................. 318 
Page

V 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Brand, Othal E., Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 315 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 394 

Buffett, Howard G.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 313 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 364 

Cabrera, Chris: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 308 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 355 

Dannels, Mark J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 310 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 358 

Weisberg-Stewart, Monica: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 318 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 400 

APPENDIX 

Statement for the Record: 

American Civil Liberties Union ....................................................................... 406 

National Immigration Forum .......................................................................... 414 

Responses to questions for the Record: 

Ms. Weisberg-Stewart ...................................................................................... 422 

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015 

WITNESSES 

General Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret.), Former Director (1996–2001) of 

the Office of National Drug Control Policy ........................................................ 430 

John P. Torres, Former Acting Director and Former Deputy Assistant Director for Smuggling and Public Safety at U.S. Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ..................................... 433 

Elizabeth Kempshall, Executive Director, Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, Office of National Drug Control Policy ........................................ 435 

Benny Martinez, Chief Deputy Sheriff, Brooks County, Texas ........................... 437 

Bryan E. Costigan, Director, Montana All-Threat Intelligence Center, Division 

on Criminal Investigation, Montana Department of Justice ............................ 439 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Costigan, Bryan E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 439 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 539 

Kempshall, Elizabeth: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 435 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 487 

Martinez, Benny: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 437 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 494 

McCaffrey, General Barry R.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 430 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 469 

Torres, John P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 433 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 477 

APPENDIX 

Picture submitted by Senator Johnson .................................................................. 552 

Statement submitted for the Record from AIC ..................................................... 553 
Page

VI 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 

WITNESSES 

William A. Kandel, Analyst in Immigration Policy, Congressional Research 

Service, U.S. Library of Congress ....................................................................... 603 

Hon. Roger F. Noriega, Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, and 

Former Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. 

Department of State ............................................................................................ 605 

Hon. Adolfo A. Franco, Former Assistant Administrator for Latin America 

and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development .......... 607 

Eric L. Olson, Associate Director, Latin American Program, Woodrow Wilson 

International Center for Scholars ....................................................................... 610 

Hon. Alan D. Bersin, Acting Assistant Secretary and Chief Diplomatic Officer, 

Office of Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ................................. 627 

Francisco Palmieri, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central America and the 

Carribean, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Deparment of 

State ...................................................................................................................... 629

Lieutenant General Kenneth E. Tovo, USA, Military Deputy Commander, 

U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Department of Defense ................................... 631 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bersin, Hon. Alan D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 627 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 683 

Franco, Hon. Adolfo A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 607 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 673 

Kandel, William A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 603 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 648 

Noriega, Hon. Roger F.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 605 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 659 

Olson, Eric L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 610 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 677 

Palmieri, Francisco: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 629 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 689 

Tovo, Lt. Gen. Kenneth E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 631 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 694 

APPENDIX 

Chart submitted by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 734 

Statement submitted for the Record from Church World Service ....................... 735 

Statement submitted for the Record from United Nations High Commissioner 

for Refugees .......................................................................................................... 736 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Bersin ......................................................................................................... 741 

Mr. Palmieri ...................................................................................................... 749 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Jeffrey S. Passel, Ph.D., Senior Demographer, Hispanic Trends Project, Pew 

Research Center ................................................................................................... 774 

Daniel Garza, Executive Director, The LIBRE Initiative .................................... 776 

Madeline Zavodny, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, Agnes Scott College, and 

Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute ............................................... 779 

Randel K. Johnson, Senior Vice President, Labor, Immigration, and Employee 

Benefits, U.S. Chamber of Commerce ................................................................ 781 

Marc R. Rosenblum, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Immigration Policy Program, 

Migration Policy Insitute ..................................................................................... 784 
Page

VII 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Garza, Daniel: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 776 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 848 

Johnson, Randel K.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 781 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 862 

Passel, Jeffrey S., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 774 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 816 

Rosenblum, Marc R., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 784 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 881 

Zavodny, Madeline, Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 779 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 853 

APPENDIX 

Charts submitted by Senator Johnson ................................................................... 906 

Statements submitted for the Record from: 

AFL–CIO ........................................................................................................... 909 

Farmworker Justice ......................................................................................... 912 

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers .......................................... 920 

Immigration Myths .......................................................................................... 921 

Jobs with Justice .............................................................................................. 927 

National Association of Home Builders .......................................................... 929 

National Roofing Contractors Association ...................................................... 931 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Michael J. Fisher, Chief, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .................................................... 936 

James C. Spero, Special Agent in Charge Buffalo, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department 

of Homeland Security .......................................................................................... 938 

John Wagner, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations, 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ......................................................................................................................... 939 

David Rodriguez, Director, Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, 

Office of National Drug Control Policy ............................................................... 942 

Hon. Richard S. Hartunian, United States Attorney, Northern District of 

New York, U.S. Department of Justice .............................................................. 944 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Fisher, Michael J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 936 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 984 

Hartunian, Hon. Richard S.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 944 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1019 

Rodriguez, David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 942 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 1002 

Spero, James C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 938 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 992 

Wagner, John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 939 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 984 

APPENDIX 

Charts submitted by Senator Johnson ................................................................... 1027 
Page

VIII 

Chart submitted by CBP to Senator McCain ........................................................ 1029 

Prepared statements submitted for the Record by: 

John Ghertner, Director, Greater Rochester Coalition for Immigration 

Justice ............................................................................................................ 1030 

Northern Border Coalition ............................................................................... 1034 

New York Civil Liberties Union ...................................................................... 1038 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Fisher & Mr. Wagner ................................................................................ 1046 

Mr. Spero ........................................................................................................... 1082 

Mr. Rodriguez ................................................................................................... 1086 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Randolph D. Alles, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Air and Marine, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ...... 1088 

Mark Borkowski, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Technology Innovation 

and Acquisition, U.S. Cusoms and Border Protection, U.S. Department 

of Homeland Security .......................................................................................... 1090 

Ronald Vitiello, Deputy Chief, Office of Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and 

Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................. 1091 

Anh Duong, Director, Borders and Maritime Security Division, Directorate 

of Science and Technology, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .............. 1092 

Rebecca Gambler, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 1094 

Michael John Garcia, Legislative Attorney, Congressional Research Service, 

U.S. Library of Congress ..................................................................................... 1095 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Alles, Randolph D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1088 

Joint Prepared statement ................................................................................ 1131 

Borkowski, Mark: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1090 

Joint Prepared statement ................................................................................ 1131 

Duong, Anh: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1092 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1147 

Gambler, Rebecca: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1094 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1153 

Garcia, Michael John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1095 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1175 

Vitiello, Ronald: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1091 

Joint Prepared statement ................................................................................ 1131 

APPENDIX 

Chart referenced by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 1190 

Prepared statements submitted for the Record by: 

American Civil Liberties Union ....................................................................... 1191 

National Immigration Forum .......................................................................... 1194 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Borkowski & Ms. Duong ........................................................................... 1200 

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Juan P. Osuna, Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Department of Justice .............................................................................................. 1212 

Mark H. Greenberg, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children 

and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ..................... 1214 
Page

IX 

Philip T. Miller, Assistant Director of Field Operations, Enforcement and 

Removal Operations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security ..................................................................... 1216 

Joseph E. Langlois, Associate Director, Refugee, Asylum, and International 

Operations Directorate, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security ..................................................................... 1218 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Greenberg, Mark H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1214 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1252 

Langlois, Joseph E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1218 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1273 

Miller, Philip T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1216 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1267 

Osuna, Juan P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1212 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1245 

APPENDIX 

Chart referenced by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 1279 

Prepared statements submitted for the Record by: 

American Immigration Council with an attachment ..................................... 1280 

American Immigration Lawyers Association ................................................. 1307 

Alliance To End Slavery and Trafficking ....................................................... 1313 

Center for Gender and Refugee Studies ......................................................... 1319 

Church World Service ...................................................................................... 1328 

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ...................................................... 1329 

First Focus Campaign for Children ................................................................ 1332 

Freedom Network USA .................................................................................... 1334 

Kids Post ........................................................................................................... 1339 

Kids in Need of Defense ................................................................................... 1343 

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Women’s Refugee Commission ........................................................................................................... 1347 

National Immigration Forum .......................................................................... 1356 

National Immigrant Justice Center ................................................................ 1360 

Safe Passage Project ......................................................................................... 1366 

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ......................................... 1369 

U.S. Committee for Refugee and Immigrants ................................................ 1375 

Young Center with an attachment .................................................................. 1377 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record 

Mr. Osuna ......................................................................................................... 1393 

Mr. Greenberg ................................................................................................... 1396 

Mr. Miller and Mr. Langlois ............................................................................ 1400 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown, Assistant Commandant for Response Policy, 

U.S. Coast Guard ................................................................................................. 1412 

Randolph D. Alles, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Air and Marine, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ...... 1414 

Peter T. Edge, Executive Associate Director, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 1416 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Alles, Randolph D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1414 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1452 

Brown, Rear Admiral Peter J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1412 
Page

X 

Brown, Rear Admiral Peter J.—Continued 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1446 

Edge, Peter T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1416 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1462 

APPENDIX 

Response to post-hearing questions for the Record from Mr. Alles ..................... 1475 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Enoch ‘‘Nick’’ Willard, Chief, Manchester Police Department, Manchester, 

New Hampshire .................................................................................................... 1486 

Doug Griffin, Father of Courtney Griffin, Newton, New Hampshire .................. 1488 

Heidi Moran, Clinical Administrator, Southeastern New Hamsphire Services, 

Dover, New Hampshire ....................................................................................... 1491 

Hon. Michael P. Botticelli, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ..... 1499 

Hon. R. Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................................................. 1501 

John ‘‘Jack’’ Riley, Acting Deputy Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice ................................................................... 1503 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Botticelli, Hon. Michael P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1499 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1544 

Griffin, Doug: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1488 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1531 

Kerlikowske, Hon. R. Gil: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1501 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1568 

Moran, Heidi: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1491 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1536 

Riley, John ‘‘Jack’’: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1503 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1576 

Willard, Enoch ‘‘Nick’’: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1486 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1525 

APPENDIX 

Photos submitted by Chief Willard ........................................................................ 1529 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Kimberly M. Gianopoulos, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 1590 

Chris Cabrera, Border Patrol Agent, Rio Grande Valley Sector, U.S. Customs 

and Border Protection, on behalf of the National Border Patrol Council ....... 1591 

Kevin Casas-Zamora, D.Phil., Senior Fellow and Program Director, Peter 

D. Bell Rule of Law Program, Inter-American Dialogue .................................. 1593 

Duncan Wood, Ph.D., Director, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ............................................................................... 1595 

The Most Reverend Mark J. Seitz, Bishop, Diocese of El Paso, Texas, on 

behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ............................................ 1597 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Cabrera, Chris: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1591 
Page

XI 

Cabrera, Chris—Continued 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1641 

Casas-Zamora, Kevin, D.Phil.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1593 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1643 

Gianopoulos, Kimberly M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1590 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1628 

Seitz, Bishop Mark J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1597 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1666 

Wood, Duncan, Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1595 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 1656 

APPENDIX 

Documents submitted by Senator McCaskill ........................................................ 1681 

Charts submitted by Senator Johnson ................................................................... 1831 

Document submitted by Bishop Seitz .................................................................... 1833 

Statement submitted for the Record from: 

American Immigration Council with an attachment ............................................ 1834 

Interfaith Immigration Coalition ............................................................................ 1895 

Women’s Refugee Commission, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service 

(LIRS) and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) ..................................................... 1907 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record 

Ms. Gianopoulos ............................................................................................... 1913 

Mr. Casas-Zamora ............................................................................................ 1917 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2015 

WITNESSES 

Hon. Douglas A. Ducey, Governor, State of Arizona; accompanied by Colonel 

Frank Milstead, Director, Arizona Department of Public Safety ..................... 1922 

Hon. R. Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................................................. 1926 

Hon. Bill Montgomery, County Attorney, Maricopa County ................................ 1930 

Hon. Mark J. Dannels, Sheriff, Cochise County ................................................... 1940 

Dawn Mertz, Executive Director, Arizona HIDTA, Office of National Drug 

Control Policy ....................................................................................................... 1944 

Brandon Judd, President, National Border Control Council ............................... 1945 

Jeff Taylor, Member, Public Advisory Board/Public Policy, The Salvation 

Army ...................................................................................................................... 1948

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Dannels, Hon. Mark J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1940 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 1987 

Ducey, Hon. Douglas A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1922 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1966 

Judd, Brandon: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1945 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2026 

Kerlikowske, Hon. R. Gil: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1926 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1971 

Mertz, Dawn: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1944 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2017 

Montgomery, Hon. Bill: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1930 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 1981 

Taylor, Jeff: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 1948 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2029 
Page

XII 

APPENDIX 

Wilmot statement for the Record ........................................................................... 2033 

Chart submitted by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 2053 
(1) 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

DEFERRED ACTION ON IMMIGRATION: IMPLICATIONS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Paul, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, 

Carper, Baldwin, Heitkamp, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. 

First of all, I would like to thank all the witnesses for your very 

thoughtful testimony. I have read it and appreciate you taking the 

time to be so thoughtful. I want to thank all the people attending 

this very important hearing. 

I do have a written opening statement that, without objection, I 

would like to enter into the record.1 Hearing none, so ordered. 

The subject of this hearing is complex. That really made an impression on me as I was reading the testimony. I come from a manufacturing background. This, to me, is the definition of a real problem. There are no easy solutions. So, the attempt of this hearing 

is really trying to, in a very honest, very forthright way, lay out 

the problem and what we need to do to try and grapple with the 

problem. 

Let me say, the problem starts with the fact that we do not have 

secure borders. We have not had secure borders for decades, and 

that creates the second problem, which is more the subject of the 

hearing today. As a result of those borders that are not secure, we 

have almost enticed people to come into this country illegally. Now, 

we have a population estimated somewhere between 11 and 12 million people in this country illegally. That is a problem. That is not 

good for them. That is not good for this country. That is not good 

for our national security, for public health and safety. And, it certainly does not promote a functioning legal immigration system. 

So, the purpose of this hearing, I think, is laid out just in the 

title: Deferred Action on Immigration: Implications and Unanswered Questions. What I would really like to explore is, obviously, 

President Obama has now a couple of times through executive ac-
2 

1The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 104. 

tion, through memorandums published, deferred action first on 

childhood arrivals, and now he is deferring action on parents of 

American citizens and other legal permanent residents. 

The question I have, and I think it is a legitimate question, is 

are those executive actions, are those going to help the problem or 

is it going to exacerbate the problem? Is it going to make it worse? 

And, I think that is a legitimate question to ask. I think we have 

some history which we will be exploring. 

Our witnesses, and I will introduce you before you testify, but we 

have the Chief Actuary of Social Security to talk about the effects 

on our Social Security system. We have an expert on tax compliance and tax fraud, which I think will be interesting to hear the 

effects of the executive actions in that situation. We have a former 

deputy ombudsman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to find out, is that agency going to be able to cope 

with the increased number of applications and people seeking this 

legal status. We have an official with the National Border Patrol 

Council, basically the union of Border Patrol Agents. And, we have 

a former General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) predecessor organization, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agency. Again, I think there is going to be 

some very thoughtful testimony. I am looking forward to it. 

Here is my main concern. If we can put up a chart 1 that we 

have prepared here, we have seen the results of deferred action in 

the past, and I think it is relatively stark. We had unaccompanied 

children coming across the border historically, but the numbers 

were actually declining until basically 2012, when President 

Obama issued the first series, or members of his Administration 

issued memos on deferred action on childhood arrivals. I think just 

pictorially, graphically, it is pretty stark what the result was. We 

had a flooding of unaccompanied children to our border, creating 

that humanitarian crisis. 

And, even though those memoranda did not apply to people coming into this country at that time, that did not make any difference. 

If you take a look at the bottom line there that is in yellow, that 

is showing the percentage of those unaccompanied children that 

were actually removed from this country, actually sent back to 

their countries of origin. You can see how that has declined from 

21.4 and 21.7 percent in 2009 and 2010 to only 2.2 percent in the 

last year, 2014. 

So, I think this is certainly evidence, and it is my concern that 

President Obama’s deferred action now in this latest round of 

memoranda could create that same dynamic, actually increase the 

incentives for illegal immigration—no matter what the memoranda 

say, actually create the incentives for more people to come into this 

country illegally, increasing the pressure on the border. And, again, 

I think that is a legitimate question to ask. 

Now, I would like to conclude my comments by acknowledging 

the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. We always have been. 

It has made our Nation strong and vibrant. The vast majority of 

people coming into this country as immigrants, whether legally or 

illegally, are doing it for the same reason that our ancestors came 
3 

1The prepared statement of Senator Carper appears in the Appendix on page 45. 

here. They are seeking the opportunity, the hope, the promise of 

this great Nation. So, I understand that and we need to value their 

contributions. 

But, we have to recognize there are literally hundreds of millions 

of people that would like to become American citizens, who would 

like to come to this country. We have to make that a legal process. 

We have to control that. We have to make sure that what immigration we do allow in this country is done for the benefit of all Americans, and so it has to be a legal system. 

So, again, I am looking forward to the testimony. I am looking 

forward to a very thoughtful discussion. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And with that, I would like to turn it over 

to our Ranking Member, Senator Carper, for his opening comments. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER1

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. 

To our witnesses, welcome and thank you for joining us today. 

We are here today to learn more about the implementation of the 

President’s executive actions on immigration. I think it is fair and 

reasonable oversight for this Committee to take and I am glad that 

we are here and I am glad that you are here. As with any new government initiative, there are likely to be a variety of bureaucratic 

challenges that need to be addressed, and we will talk about those 

today. So, I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses about 

the challenges that might lie ahead, as well as some possible solutions to those challenges. 

Last Congress, this Committee—and the entire Senate—spent a 

great deal of time examining our Nation’s broken immigration system. And after months of debate, two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, including Democrats and Republicans, came together to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The bill was not perfect. There 

are plenty of ways to improve it, and my hope is that we will. 

But, it did address a number of issues that have plagued our immigration system for years. Perhaps just as important, it would 

have also reduced our budget deficits by—listen to this—nearly 

$200 billion over the next 10 years, and by another $700 billion in 

the 10-years after that. Moreover, it would have grown our Gross 

Domestic Product (GDP) by 5 percent over the next 20 years. 

As we know, unfortunately, the House did not act on that legislation, and as a result, we continue to be left with a broken immigration system that meets neither our economic nor our security needs 

as a Nation. Faced with paralysis here in Congress and continued 

inefficiency and unfairness in our immigration system, whether you 

like it or not, the President has decided to try and make several 

temporary improvements, hoping it would spur those of us in Congress to finish the job that we began almost 2 years ago. Those improvements or changes were not meant to be permanent, but they 

are what brings us to this debate today. 

Look, I know many of our colleagues, some on this Committee 

and some not on this Committee, have strong misgivings about the 

President acting on his own on these matters. Nonetheless, I hope 
4 

we can set aside any frustrations over tactics and look at the substance of what the Administration is trying to do. If we can find 

a way to do that, I think we just might find room for common 

ground at the end of the day. After all, that is what the American 

people sent us here to do. 

There are more than 11 million people living in this country 

without documentation. We would not be able to remove all of them 

even if we wanted to try, and we should not try. Some of these individuals are young adults, brought here as children with no choice 

of their own in that matter. They are Americans in every way except on paper. Others are productive and law abiding parents of 

U.S. citizens or legal residents who have lived here in some cases 

for decades. Allowing these folks who live in our communities to 

work legally and pay full taxes will be good for both our economy 

and for our Federal budget. 

In fact, the Council on Economic Advisors has estimated that 

these new Administration initiatives, along with other immigration 

policies announced in November, would increase our Nation’s Gross 

Domestic Product by $90 billion over the next 10 years. These 

changes will also lead to a decrease in Federal deficits by somewhere between $25 and $60 billion over the next 10 years, as well. 

Blocking or repealing the Administration’s initiatives would take 

us backward. In fact, just last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the House bill to block these deferred deportation programs that the Senate declined to take up and consider yesterday would cost our economy $7.5 billion over 10 years. 

Estimates indicate that more than 4 million immigrants will be 

eligible for the temporary deportation relief outlined by the President. And, while not all those eligible are expected to apply, many 

will, and that will allow the Administration to focus its limited enforcement resources on the highest priorities for removal, those 

who pose security risks to our country or recent arrivals without 

longstanding ties to our Nation. That is more than enough work for 

our border security and immigration enforcement officials to handle, even at the record deportation levels that we have seen in recent years. 

So, in sum, based on what we know so far, I have come to the 

conclusion that the initiatives whose implementation we are examining today are feasible, are fair, make good economic sense, and 

actually enhance our Nation’s security. And, whether we agree 

with that or not, these initiatives are interim steps. Let me just 

say, these should not be the final steps. Those are the ones that 

we need to take by doing the hard work of rebuilding the consensus 

that allowed two-thirds of the Senate just 2 years ago to support 

compromise immigration reform legislation. 

And, so as I close, I want to thank the Chairman for calling this 

hearing together. While there is some disagreement about what the 

President has done, I hope we can all agree that this hearing is the 

proper forum to have the debate on immigration policy. 

I do not believe that we should be threatening to shut down the 

Department of Homeland Security, an agency vital to our Nation’s 

security, over disagreements with the President’s policies. All three 

former Homeland Security Secretaries, two of them Republicans, 

one of them a Democrat, agree with me on that point. 
5 

In the next several days, I hope that most of us can come together to do what I believe is the right thing, and that is support 

the passage of a clean 4-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security by February 27, and then we have to 

work to pass a thoughtful, comprehensive immigration reform bill 

that is worthy of this body into which all of us are privileged to 

serve. 

Let me just say, if I could, last night I got home and I had a late 

dinner with my wife and she was troubled and I said, ‘‘What is 

bothering you? ’’ And, she said, ‘‘The Jordanian pilot that was 

burned to death in a cage today, that is what is bothering me.’’ 

And, my friends, we live in a world that is scary. It is scary. 

And, it is not just people being burned to death in a cage by the 

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or ISIS beheading people. 

It is not just them doing mass murders or enslaving women into 

servitude to them. It is not just that. It is not just lone wolves in 

Detroit trying to gather the munitions and the equipment to enable 

them to come down here and attack this place where we work. It 

is not just Ebola. It is not just people trying to get drugs into this 

country illegally or trafficking human beings. All that is going on. 

It is not just about trying to make sure our airplanes are safe and 

our airports and our ports are secure, that we are able to move 

products through our borders. 

All that stuff is being done this day in large part because of the 

work of the Department of Homeland Security. And, for anybody 

to be thinking that it might make some sense to let that Department go out of business, to put them on the sidelines at this time 

in this age in which we live, have we lost our minds? I hope not. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

I think Mrs. Carper, by the way, is voicing the concerns of most 

Americans. We all share the same goal. We want a prosperous 

country. We want a safe and secure Nation, which is why the mission of this Committee is to enhance the economic and national security of America. And, so, again, I appreciate your comments. I do 

not believe there is anybody serving in the U.S. Congress that does 

not want to keep this Nation safe and secure. 

We want to make sure that the Department is going to be funded. It is one of the reasons that a number of our leaders, including 

myself, did ask President Obama not to initiate this executive action, which so many of us do disagree with. That is what has created this issue. Without those actions, DHS would have been funded through the end of the fiscal year (FY) and we would be talking 

about funding for the next fiscal year. 

It is unfortunate we are going to have to grapple with this and 

I think the best way to do it is what we are doing here today, is 

to let us have an honest discussion and let us talk about what the 

intended and unintended consequences of that action would be. 

It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in witnesses, so if 

you could all rise. Raise your right hand. 

Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

Mr. GOSS. I do. 
6 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Goss appears in the Appendix on page 47. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. I do. 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. I do. 

Mr. MORAN. I do. 

Mr. COOPER. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. The witnesses are sworn in. 

We will begin testimony with Mr. Stephen Goss. He has been the 

Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration (SSA) since 

2001 and has worked in the Office of the Chief Actuary for over 

40 years. Mr. Goss. 

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN C. GOSS,1 CHIEF ACTUARY, U.S. 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. GOSS. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to come and talk to you today. Immigration, as both Chairman Johnson and Senator Carper have mentioned, is an incredibly 

important part of the evolution of the population of the United 

States. 

We are here to talk today and for me to share with you some estimates that we have developed in my office about the implications 

of the recent executive actions put forth by the President on November 20 of last year. It includes, if I may give the short form, 

the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) extension and 

the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program, 

along with several other provisions. It is not just those two that are 

included in these executive actions. 

These proposals, these actions that have been put forth, will 

have significant implications for the population, the economy, and 

also Social Security finances. They will also have significant implications beyond even just Social Security and Medicare. 

Let me just share with you that net immigration into the United 

States adds about one million extra people into our population 

every year. Now, compare that with four million births that we 

have in our shores every year. That is a substantial component of 

the growth of our population that not only causes our population 

to grow faster than it would otherwise, but it also changes the age 

distribution, which is a long topic, but it is incredibly critical to the 

financing of Social Security, Medicare, and all retirement plans in 

this country. With the drop in birth rates that we had back in 

1965, if we did not have the kind of net immigration that we have 

now with young people coming in about a million every year, we 

would have much more severe challenges for Social Security, Medicare, and all of our retirement plans in the country. 

Now, let me just address a little bit the financial implications for 

the national economy of the executive actions as we have estimated 

them, and many assumptions need to be made, as you know. We 

have made those assumptions. 

We assume that individuals, first of all, who come to the United 

States without documentation or who have overstayed visas and 

are not currently legally documented status will be working in our 

economy at about the same rate as other people at the same age 

and sex. Per Senator Johnson’s comments, people come here be-
7 

cause it is a land of economic opportunity. That is why people come 

here, by and large, so we assume the rate of people being employed 

and working in the economy is about the same. Thus, extra employment from extra immigration by whatever means does generate extra gross domestic product (GDP), as noted from some 

other sources. 

By 2024, we estimate that as a result of these executive actions 

the increase in our overall population of the United States will be 

about 359,000 individuals, about 248,000 of which will be additional employed individuals in our economy, and this will cause the 

Gross Domestic Product in 2024 to be about 0.15 percent more than 

it would otherwise be. It is not a lot, but these are small actions 

relative, especially, to S. 744 passed by the Senate just a year ago. 

By 2050, we project that the added population as it ages from especially the DAPA/DACA groups, will be about 922,000 increase in 

the population about 408,000 of whom will be workers, and that 

will cause GDP at that time, in 2050, to be about 0.22 percent 

higher than it would otherwise be. 

Now, implications for Social Security, sort of our bailiwick. The 

net annual cash-flow, that is tax income coming into Social Security less the cost that we pay out from Social Security for all purposes, for the combined Social Security, Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds will be 

increased for 2015 through 2045 when the individuals granted 

legal work status under these provisions will still be at younger 

working ages. However, for 2046 through 2082, as these same 

groups will be aging, they will be moving from working ages into 

benefit ages, and assuming that they stay around with us, that 

they have worked, that they have gotten earnings credits and get 

benefits later, then we will have the reverse and the cash-flow for 

Social Security will go negative for that period of time. 

As it happens, for the estimates that we worked out for the totality of all the provisions in these executive actions, we have a small 

long-range positive, but it is very small. It is 0.01 percent of payroll, and that is relative, by the way, to a 2.88 percent of payroll 

shortfall for Social Security as a whole over the next 75 years. So, 

it is a small positive, not a big thing, but it is essentially neutral. 

Now, we project by 2024 that we will have 925 thousand additional workers paying taxes into the Social Security system. This 

increase comes from increases in workers in the national economy 

mentioned above, but in addition, it comes from people who are 

now in the informal economy, sometimes called the underground 

economy, who will be moved into the formal economy and will 

begin paying taxes, by our estimates. The added workers paying 

taxes is fairly stable, at about a million for years 2024 through 

2050. 

Now, let me just address very briefly the totality of components 

of the executive actions, just to make sure that we have them all 

on the table. There are two components that principally address— 

well, they really address legal permanent residents. One is the entrepreneurs, about 10,000 per year additional entering the country. 

That will create a significant increase over time in our population 

of people who are legal permanent residents, working and contributing. Also, from all the provisions, the net effect we estimate will 
8 

1The prepared statement of Ms. O’Connor appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

be an increase in the population at childbearing ages, and, therefore, there will be additional children born on our soil who, of 

course, will be natural born citizens. Those are the components 

that are on the legal permanent resident side. 

There are several components, that operate on the undocumented 

side, and I see we are getting really low on time here, so I will be 

very brief on this. Of course, the first thing that we point to is the 

increased border security, and the second item is emphasis on enforcement for people within our borders to go after people mainly 

who are security risks. We see those as having some offsetting effects. As for the exact magnitudes, we have made estimates. It is 

not clear, but we think that those will be probably largely offsetting. 

Of course, there is the expansion of the DACA and the introduction of the DAPA. We estimate that those will result in substantial 

numbers of people filing for and receiving authorization. But, the 

key point about those groups is that they are groups that are, particularly for the DACA, still generally very young. For the DAPAs, 

they are still sort of relatively low ages, so they are what we would 

refer to as a closed group of people. It is a temporary action. Those 

people would get work status. We assume they will be re-upped if 

they do not do bad things along the way, and that they will continue to work in our economy and eventually get the ability to get 

benefits. 

And, with that said, I guess I should conclude and just say, 

again, thank you very much for the opportunity and I look forward 

to hearing all the other testimonies and any questions you might 

have. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Goss. 

Our next witness is Eileen O’Connor. She is a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, where she practices tax law. 

Ms. O’Connor has served as Assistant Attorney General of the Tax 

Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ), on the President’s 

Corporate Tax Fraud Force, and previously worked at the Internal 

Revenue Service (IRS). Ms. O’Connor. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE EILEEN J. O’CONNOR,1

PARTNER, PILLSBURY WINTHROP SHAW PITTMAN LLP 

Ms. O’CONNOR. Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak with 

you today, and for those of you who are new to the Senate and 

Washington, welcome. Glad to have you here. 

I am speaking today on my own behalf, not on behalf of my partners, my firm, or my firm’s clients. I am speaking to you on the 

basis of my experience with tax enforcement. 

There are a couple of concepts that we need to keep in mind 

when we are talking about the effects of the deferred actions. One 

is the Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). My colleague 

to the right just mentioned that some people who were subject to 

the deferred action might be moving from the informal to the formal economy and, therefore, start paying taxes. A great number of 

people who are in the country illegally are already paying taxes, so 
9 

I think that when we look at the numbers that were offered for 

that movement, we need to keep that in mind. 

The Individual Tax Identification Number, was developed because the Internal Revenue Code applies to all U.S.-source income 

and all U.S. persons. Not everyone who has U.S.-source income is 

a U.S. person and, therefore, qualified for a Social Security number 

(SSN). So, Individual Tax Identification Numbers were established 

to permit the Internal Revenue Service to track the returns and 

the tax payments of people who are not U.S. persons but have U.S. 

tax liabilities. 

In 1996, the Internal Revenue Service started issuing ITINs to 

illegal aliens. In 1999, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported to Congress and to the Internal Revenue 

Service that this created a direct contradiction with the obligation 

of the government to enforce the immigration laws and asked Congress or the IRS to do something about that. That has yet to happen. 

The Treasury Inspector General also reported to Senator Roth 

that illegal aliens were being given the Earned Income Tax Credit 

(EITC). Senator Roth then saw to it that legislation was enacted 

making it clear that in order to receive the Earned Income Tax 

Credit, you have to have a Social Security number, meaning you 

are a U.S. person authorized to work in the United States. 

I need to talk just a second about the Earned Income Tax Credit. 

It is a refundable credit. There is more than one refundable credit. 

There is the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Additional Child 

Tax Credit. A refundable credit is not a refund and not really a 

credit. It is a credit that exceeds the amount of tax somebody has 

paid in. My colleague to the right has mentioned the increase in 

Social Security taxes that will be collected. Social Security taxes 

are collected from people who are earning wages, but then they are 

given back in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit. So, a refundable tax credit will reduce tax liability below zero and result 

in checks being paid to the person who claims the credit. 

The Earned Income Tax Credit is not available for people who do 

not have Social Security numbers, but the law on the Additional 

Child Tax Credit, also a refundable credit, is not that clear. Some 

people think it is clear, and unless you have a Social Security number, you are not eligible for the credit. Other people—most importantly the Internal Revenue Service—believe that it is very clear 

that a Social Security number is not required. So, the Internal Revenue Service makes no effort to determine the alien or legal status 

of people who are claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit. 

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) 

issues report after report, year after year, about the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of ITIN-filed returns and refundable credits, and reports such horrifying statistics as, in one year, the Internal Revenue Service sent 24,000 checks to a single address ‘‘refunding’’ tens of millions of dollars in tax that probably had not been 

paid to begin with, and this is where some of my experience at the 

Justice Department comes in. 

There are many tax scams. These refundable credits and ITINs 

create an attractive nuisance. Just like securities criminals have 

pump-and-dump schemes, there are ITIN refund mills, and the 
10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Bellocchi appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration estimates that 

over a 10-year period, $122 billion in taxpayer dollars was sent to 

said criminals. 

Now, this is not to say that everyone who files an ITIN return 

is a criminal, but it is a fact that we have refundable credits in the 

Internal Revenue Code that are paid to anybody who asks for 

them—and ITINs are available very easily. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported to the Internal Revenue Service 

years ago that ITINs were easily obtained on bogus documents, and 

once obtained, they were also used for other purposes. 

Many States permit the use of an ITIN, although it requires no 

proof of identity—permit the use of an ITIN as documentation supporting a driver’s license or property ownership or other things, 

purposes for which the ITIN was never intended. It was intended 

only to permit the Internal Revenue Service to track payments and 

to track returns. 

So, my time is running out, but I have many more horrifying statistics in my written testimony. I hope that you will refer to it. It 

includes largely summaries of many of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s reports over the years, which, in turn, 

contain many more statistics. I have just summarized them ever so 

briefly in my testimony. 

We know from experience that the actions upon which the Administration has embarked are guaranteed to inflict substantial 

damage on tax administration and enforcement and to drain even 

more billions of dollars from the Treasury, even more than the past 

follies are already costing and continue to cost us. 

I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. O’Connor. 

Our next witness is Luke Bellocchi. He is of Counsel at 

Wasserman, Mancini and Chang, and former Deputy Ombudsman 

for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Department 

of Homeland Security and Assistant Commissioner of the Customs 

and Border Protection (CBP). Mr. Bellocchi. 

TESTIMONY OF LUKE P. BELLOCCHI,1 OF COUNSEL, 

WASSERMAN, MANCINI AND CHANG, AND FORMER DEPUTY 

OMBUDSMAN FOR CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of 

the Committee, thank you for the honor of allowing me to testify 

today before this Committee, for which I was once a staff member. 

The President’s new initiative to stay deportation for an estimated 4 to 5 million undocumented immigrants will create incredible pressure on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to handle millions of new applications. This will be the largest wave of 

applications USCIS has ever seen. 

USCIS is still primarily a paper-based, mail-based application 

adjudicatory body. USCIS has 13,000 employees, or 13,000 officers, 

and 5,000 contractors to handle about six million applications per 

year. USCIS plans to hire about a thousand new employees to han-
11 

dle DAPA. It is hard to imagine how they are going to be able to 

get those 1,000 people on-board, go through security clearance, and 

be trained to handle that many applications. 

More likely, USCIS will divert resources from processing other 

applications to handle DAPA applications. This is, in fact, what 

they did with DACA applications, and that has created some backlogs in other types of applications; for example, I–130 family Green 

Card applications, and Employment Authorization Document Cards 

(EADs). An EAD is very important to an immigrant who is working. If the EAD expires, usually in 1 or 2 years, they cannot continue to work, and this puts their employer and employees in a 

lurch. 

But, in fact, that is what is happening in good numbers. In fact, 

it is happening to DACA applicants who applied 1 or 2 years ago 

and their EADs are expiring now. By one estimate, 25 percent of 

EADs for DACA applicants are not being renewed in time for them 

to continue work. This is the problem with trying to push through 

so many applications all at once without having the proper resources. 

This reminds me of a program that was handled by INS in the 

mid-1990s called Citizenship USA, in which one million people 

were naturalized. The INS hired a lot of people very quickly, in 

some cases only gave them about 40 hours of training, and of 

course, mistakes were made. In fact, in that case, more than 60,000 

people were naturalized without any kind of background check and 

over 10,000 felons were actually naturalized. The Department of 

Justice had to go back and denaturalize a lot of them. 

You would think USCIS would try and avoid this problem again, 

but we are seeing evidence from e-mails that have been released 

by management that managers are telling their front-line people to 

use streamlined, light background checks, abbreviated Treasury 

Enforcement Communications System (TECS) checks, and to accept 

pretty much any kind of documentation of their identity when they 

go for biometric checks. This is a population that we have to be 

very careful about. Unlike visa applicants who came through the 

border and were checked at one time, if they entered without inspection at all, crossed the border at some point, they may have 

never gone through any kind of check. 

Now, the fingerprint checks are going to be run through the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and, of course, if they were 

ever arrested or convicted in this country, they are going to show 

up with that identity. But, if they ever committed a crime in a foreign country, we are not sure that they would be flagged. 

Further, there is some evidence that the background checks are 

not being checked against the entire counterterrorism database, as 

evidenced by the Boston Marathon bomber who was naturalized 7 

months before he perpetrated his crime. He was on, actually, the 

expanded Counterterrorism Watch List, as well. 

As far as anti-fraud goes, the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS), which is the USCIS anti-fraud office, I 

have been told, has been taken out of document review for DACA 

cases. And, the evidentiary standard for getting through DACA is 

actually quite low, as I alluded to earlier, in terms of identity and 

so forth. 
12 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Moran appears in the Appendix on page 80. 

With DAPA applicants, they will be dealing with family relationships. I understand that mostly assertions and documents will be 

used to confirm family relationships and Deoxyribonucleic acid 

(DNA) testing will not be used. 

In summary, I will just say that USCIS officers are very hard 

working, patriotic people, but they are a service oriented agency 

and they will try and get through all these applications in the time 

frame given to them. But, in doing so, if they are not realistic and 

honest about the resources they will need and the time it will take 

to process these applications properly, they are going to run into 

problems and I urge them to take that into consideration. Thank 

you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Bellocchi. 

Our next witness is Shawn Moran. He is Vice President of the 

National Border Patrol Council and has over 17 years of experience 

as a Border Patrol Agent. Mr. Moran. 

TESTIMONY OF SHAWN MORAN,1 VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

BORDER PATROL COUNCIL 

Mr. MORAN. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the Committee, on behalf of the 16,500 Border Patrol 

Agents who I represent, I want to thank you for having this hearing today. 

My name is Shawn Moran. I am the Vice President and National 

Spokesperson of the National Border Patrol Council. I am a 17-year 

veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol and have spent the majority of 

my career in the Imperial Beach and El Cajon Border Patrol Stations in California. I have also been temporarily assigned to several 

sectors and stations along the Southwest Border during that time. 

Before I discuss how I believe the President’s decision will impact 

border security, I want to be clear that I am not a lawyer and I 

am not here to comment on the legality of the President’s actions. 

I am here as a Federal law enforcement agent to discuss how the 

amnesty provided in November will impact border security. Unfortunately, I do not believe that border security implications were 

fully considered prior to the issuance of the Executive Order (EO) 

and that concrete actions need to be taken by Congress and the Administration this year to bolster border security. 

Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing 

over and over again, expecting a different result. If you look at the 

history of our response to illegal immigration, we certainly meet 

that definition. 

In 1986, Congress passed and President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). The legislation was supposed to solve the illegal immigration problem in this country and 

in the process legalized illegal aliens who had been in the country 

prior to 1982. What was the result? Illegal immigration exploded 

in this country. The Pew Research Center estimates that the population of illegal aliens in this country in 1990 immediately following the passage of IRCA was 3.5 million. By 2007, that population had swelled to 12.2 million. Cities like San Diego, where I 

live, and El Paso were nearly overrun. 
13 

In my career, I have arrested and interviewed thousands of illegal aliens. In deciding whether or not to attempt to enter this country illegally, these individuals weigh the risks and potential rewards. These individuals are risking not only a lifetime of savings 

to pay the smugglers, but literally their own lives in the process. 

They know the border is a dangerous place. They know that they 

are opening themselves up to predation from smugglers in addition 

to the physical hazards of crossing the Rio Grande River, the Arizona desert, or even the wilderness of Montana. 

Unfortunately, since the passage of IRCA, there is a perception 

among illegal aliens that if you can get over the border and can 

hide in the shadows long enough, eventually, there will be a pathway to legal status. This pathway may be by virtue of the duration 

you have been in this country or through your children. We need 

to only look to the debacle last summer with unaccompanied minors to see how prevalent this perception is among potential illegal 

aliens. 

Last year, the Administration took great pains to point out that 

their most recent expansion of deferred action for childhood arrivals, was a continuation of deferred actions that had been taken by 

previous Administrations. We were all told that there was precedent for their actions, and the Administration was completely correct. There were ample amounts of precedent, and therein lies the 

problem. We will never be able to stop illegal immigration until potential illegal aliens believe that it is a losing proposition. They 

need to know that they will be found and that hiding in the shadows will do them no good. Employers need to know that if they hire 

illegal aliens, there will be credible sanctions. 

The question then becomes what steps this Committee, within 

your jurisdiction, can take to strengthen border security before the 

next wave of illegal immigration occurs. Several suggestions that 

I have include increased manpower. Currently, there are 21,370 

Border Patrol Agents in this country. Under sequestration, we effectively lost 1,500 full-time equivalents that have, thankfully, been 

restored under the Border Patrol Pay Reform Act introduced by 

Senators Tester and McCain. 

We do not have to double the size of the Border Patrol to gain 

operational control of the border, but we are, in my opinion, approximately 5,000 agents short of where we should be. The National Border Patrol Council would advocate that of this number, 

1,500 be sent to the Northern Border, which is woefully understaffed, and the remaining 3,500 positions be allocated to interior 

enforcement, which is virtually nonexistent. 

Supervising staffing levels—the Border Patrol is an extremely 

top-heavy organization with far too many layers of management 

and a convoluted chain of command. Although Congress has provided the funding to double the size of the Border Patrol, we have 

not doubled the number of agents at the border. Let me explain 

that. 

The average large police department has one supervisor for every 

10 officers. The Border Patrol has one supervisor for every four 

agents. The Committee should mandate a 10-to-1 ratio and achieve 

it through attrition in the supervisory ranks. The second problem 

is that we have agents doing duties like processing and transpor-
14 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper appears in the Appendix on page 91. 

tation that could be handled more cost effectively by non-law enforcement personnel. 

Every night, we effectively play goal line defense because all of 

our resources and assets are concentrated right at the border instead of having a defense in depth. Let me give you an example. 

In Arizona, we have 7,000 agents, and of all those agents, we 

have—I am sorry. Do you know how many agents we have assigned 

to Phoenix, which is an important transit point for traffickers? The 

answer is zero. The Border Patrol’s northernmost station in Arizona is Casa Grande, which is 50 miles south of Phoenix. 

We also advocate for better training. During the buildup of the 

Border Patrol during the Bush Administration, the Border Patrol 

Academy’s duration was reduced from approximately 20 weeks to 

as little as 54 days if you spoke Spanish. This is simply not enough 

time to properly train an agent and weed out those who are not 

up to the challenge. The Committee should require that the Academy revert back to 20 weeks. 

Again, I want to thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify today, and if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Moran. 

Our next witness is Bo Cooper. He is a partner at Fragomen, Del 

Rey, Bernsen and Loewy LLP and former General Counsel at the 

Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1999 to 2003. Mr. 

Cooper. 

TESTIMONY OF BO COOPER,1 PARTNER, FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, 

BERNSEN AND LOEWY LLP, AND FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL AT THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE 

Mr. COOPER. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate very much 

the opportunity to join you today for this important discussion. 

The perspectives I will offer are based on decades of involvement 

with the U.S. immigration system, about half in the government 

and about half in private practice and teaching. When I was General Counsel of the INS, I served Administrations of both parties 

and was a career public servant. 

Every new government initiative, especially one of this scale, 

needs to be examined for cost, achievability, risk, and benefits, and 

the Committee is right to be doing so here, and I acknowledge and 

respect the view you expressed, Chairman Johnson, that you disfavor the decision of the President to initiate these programs. But, 

I also appreciate very much the spirit of open discussion that you 

have established and I would like to try to offer some suggestions 

for why I believe that DAPA and DACA are sensible policy initiatives that can be carried out effectively by DHS and that deserve 

the support of the Congress and the American public. 

First, DACA and DAPA will help the U.S. economy. As you 

noted, Ranking Member Carper, the Council of Economic Advisors 

has concluded that DACA and DAPA will increase Gross Domestic 

Product by $90 billion over the next decade. They also estimate 

that the programs will help and not harm American workers by 
15 

growing wage levels overall, modestly, but growing. At the same 

time, we have heard from Mr. Goss that the addition of new taxpayers should positively affect the Social Security safety net. 

In addition, the programs are designed not to cost the taxpayer 

anything in implementation because they will be funded by the 

user fees that support U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

And, then, just last week, CBO concluded that if DACA and DAPA 

are eliminated by legislation, that decision would increase the Federal deficit by $7.5 billion over the next decade. DACA and DAPA 

are smart economically. 

Second, DACA and DAPA are smart public safety policy. Law enforcement currently has too little idea who the undocumented immigrants in our country are, where they work, and where they live. 

DACA and DAPA will help to change this, not completely, but they 

will significantly help to change this. Millions of people who are 

now in the shadows will come forward and provide biographical information, including biometrics, to the Federal Government. 

On this point, we can take it from the public safety experts. In 

the lawsuit that has been filed and heard in Brownsville, Texas, in 

the District Court to challenge DACA and DAPA, a brief was filed 

by the Major City Chiefs Association. This organization represents 

chiefs and sheriffs that serve nearly 70 million people in this country. In that brief, those law enforcement officials explained the significant advantages that DACA and DAPA will bring to them and 

their work. 

First of all, the programs will firmly establish identity for a far 

greater number of people. Better identification means better coordination of law enforcement data, including prior crimes and arrests. 

Also, when police officers encounter people who lack identification, 

typically, they have to then arrest the person and bring them in 

for further processing. Where that person has proper identification, 

that issue comes off the table and the officers then can make better 

decisions about how to prioritize their resources and where to 

focus. 

In addition, DACA and DAPA will make undocumented victims 

and witnesses more likely to come forward to speak to police trying 

to prevent and investigate crimes, and more information means 

better law enforcement. 

Third, DAPA and DACA are smart immigration policy. With resources to remove only about 400,000 people each year out of the 

estimated 11 million people who are subject to removal, DHS necessarily must exercise prosecutorial discretion and establish enforcement priorities. They have made the decision to place maximum focus on those who present security threats, on criminals, 

and those with the most recent border violations and removal orders. It is equally sensible to formally identify those people who are 

not enforcement priorities and to provide them with temporary authorization to be present and to work. 

With DAPA, that decision is being made with respect to people 

who have lived in this country for at least a half a decade, who do 

not pose criminal and security threats, and who have children who 

are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. That is a strong 

set of ties. It strikes me as sound immigration enforcement policy 

for DHS to conclude that with 11 million people to choose from as 
16 

enforcement targets and the resources to remove about 400,000 of 

those people per year, this is a group whose presence we can reasonably allow. 

Fourth, I believe DHS can carry this out. There is no doubt that 

these programs are going to pose an operational challenge, but 

DHS is working from a position of several advantages. 

First, they have a model in the DACA program. They put it in 

place pretty quickly, pretty efficiently, and they have been through 

the caseload in an efficient way. There is no question that this is 

a larger program and, therefore, will have much larger challenges, 

but that is the beauty of a fee-funded agency. With more applications come more resources to deal with those applications. 

Third, there is every reason, I believe, that DHS has the technological and other capacity to manage carefully the very important 

anti-fraud and security concerns that are going to come with a program like this. Since September 11, 2001, there has been an explosion in the contents and the interoperability of Federal, State, and 

even international law enforcement databases and in the sophistication of the agency and its ability to deal with those. 

I understand that DHS plans to run DAPA applicants very thoroughly through their fingerprinting and background checks across 

several Federal databases and will be able to use this information 

to more effectively identify and track the people in this country. I 

think that will make this country safer in the long run. 

I would be very happy to address any questions that the Committee has and I appreciate again the opportunity to join you 

today. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. 

I will start off the round of 7 minutes of questioning. 

Mr. Goss, I just want to make sure I understand the assumptions 

that you certainly made in your actuarial assessments here. You do 

assume that we have the border secure and that there is interior 

enforcement as we would have achieved under the Senate comprehensive immigration bill, correct? 

Mr. GOSS. Well, to a degree. We have assumed, actually, about 

half as much effectiveness on the border security as we were for 

S. 744, only half. There are certain features that were built into S. 

744 that we are not aware would be part of what is going on. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, you assumed greater border security 

than we have right now? 

Mr. GOSS. Absolutely. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. So, that is not the case, because we 

have not passed a border security bill, which, by the way, that is 

a top priority of this Committee, give the American people what 

they have been demanding, a border security and immigration enforcement bill. That would be handy. 

Ms. O’Connor, another assumption—I want both of you to speak 

to this, supposedly, all these people that are currently here and living in the shadows are all in the underground economy, all of a 

sudden, they come into the formal economy and now they start 

paying taxes. I mean, is it not really the case that, and I do not 

know where we get the number on this, but how many do you 

think, what percentage actually are either paying taxes through 

ITINs or actually with false Social Security numbers? 
17 

Ms. O’CONNOR. I do not know the numbers and I do not know 

whether the IRS actually has the numbers, either, because it tells 

the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that it does 

not identify the legal status of people who file returns using ITINs. 

There are a large number, however, of returns that are filed using 

false Social Security numbers. Sometimes those are used as a vehicle for theft from the Treasury generally. Sometimes they are used 

just because the person wants to get a job and use a Social Security 

number for that and files a return using it and it ends up not 

matching the Social Security Administration’s records. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I mean, do you think they are kind of overestimating the number of people that really are in this underground economy that are all of a sudden going to start paying 

taxes, that they probably already are paying taxes? 

Ms. O’CONNOR. I am not an economist, so I do not have the ability to analyze that data, but that is certainly my impression. I am 

a big consumer of economic reports and that is certainly my impression. Millions of tax returns are filed every year using ITINs. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. Bellocchi, I want to talk a little bit about potential document 

fraud. How prevalent is it? How easy is it? What kind of shortcuts 

are you concerned might be made because of this onslaught or this 

surge of applications that are going to have to be handled by 

USCIS? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Well, it is going to be hard to tell how much 

fraud there is in DACA since I mentioned that, as I understand it, 

FDNS, USCIS, Anti-Fraud Office is not involved in document review for those cases at all. However, even if they were, the evidentiary standard for meeting DACA requirements is quite low, 

and I alluded to one—even the formal instructions on the application say, well, we need some proof of identity. You have a passport? 

Well, if you do not have a passport, how about a driver’s license? 

If you do not have that, well, we will just take anything with a 

photo on it. And, as I alluded to before, there are e-mails from my 

management that say, do not turn anyone away from biometric 

checks because you do not have their identity, so—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you believe that legal immigrants that 

are looking to apply for different benefits through USCIS, that 

their applications will be put to the back burner, that some of those 

folks will be harmed as USCIS redeploys assets trying to take care 

of the surge? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Yes, indeed. In fact, I think they already have. 

As I mentioned, EADs are not being produced fast enough, before 

people’s Employment Authorization expires, and that is just with 

DACA, which had about 700,000 applications over 2 years. DAPA 

applications start coming in—or, expanded DAPA will start coming 

in later this month, and by May, there may be millions of applications for DAPA, which will probably knock out a lot of the other 

kinds of immigration applications. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And again, in your testimony, you said 

there are about 18,000 total employees now at USCIS handling 

about six million applications a year? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. That is correct. 
18 

Chairman JOHNSON. Now, we are going to add a thousand to 

process, nobody really knows, but probably millions, correct? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Real quick, Mr. Goss, why would the administration be issuing permanent Social Security cards for a temporary deferred action program, and what are the implications of 

those permanent Social Security cards? 

Mr. GOSS. I really could not speak to the motivation of the Administration on that, but our assumptions are that once people are 

granted this authority, as long as they are re-upped every 3 years 

and the executive actions stay in force, that they will be able to 

maintain the status, and with the SSNs that they have been provided, much as the SSNs provided to people who have temporary 

visas for work or education and get those re-upped or even overstay 

those visas, those SSNs stay with them. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Ms. O’Connor, do you have an opinion on 

that in terms of why they would do that and what implication that 

might carry? 

Ms. O’CONNOR. I find it completely perplexing. I have no explanation. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Mr. Moran, can you describe to me the 

base burden of proof Customs and Border Protection Agents have 

when they encounter an illegal immigrant—are there magic words 

that immigrants are basically trained to say to get a certain adjudication? 

Mr. MORAN. I think illegal aliens that we encounter know our 

authority. They know the loopholes that they can exploit. And, just 

recently, the surge we saw in South Texas, we had people that we 

had apprehended that had scripts on them where they would recite 

it and say that they claimed credible fear—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, that is the magic word currently. You 

claim credible fear, and then what happens? 

Mr. MORAN. Eventually, they will most likely be released. As 

your chart showed, we are removing approximately 2.5 percent of 

them. So, their end goal of what they wanted, which was to come 

to America, is now fulfilled at taxpayer expense. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Have you been given training in terms of 

how you are going to handle illegal immigrants now with the 

DAPA? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes, sir, we have. There is going to be an additional 

layer of checks. There is a checklist and we will now be screening 

people to see if they qualify for DACA or DAPA. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Will the magic words now be, ‘‘I have been 

a permanent resident for more than 5 years,’’ and then will that 

imply lack of action? 

Mr. MORAN. I believe it will be—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Will that tie your hands? 

Mr. MORAN. I think the claims will be made. I do not know if 

Border Patrol Agents or CBP Officers will be the ones that are 

then adjudicating whether or not a document is authentic and 

whether they qualify under this program. That is a concern we 

have. 
19 

Chairman JOHNSON. What will you do as a Border Patrol Agent 

when an illegal immigrant says, ‘‘No, I have been here 6 or 7 

years’’? How will that affect your actions? 

Mr. MORAN. Well, Senator, we have a checklist and it is pretty 

simple and it is a yes or no checklist. I am sorry. I have to find 

here—it says, has he or she resided continuously in the United 

States since January 1, 2010? If we check ‘‘yes,’’ I do not know if 

that means they qualify. Personally, I do not feel it is my decision 

to make. I think somebody above my pay grade needs to make that 

decision. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Will you just let them go? 

Mr. MORAN. Personally, I would not. I would put that decision 

on one of my supervisors. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you very much. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, our thanks to all of you for your willingness to stick 

around to answer our questions. 

A long time ago, I was a Naval Flight Officer (NFO) and I served 

in the Navy for about 23 years, all in, and I remember being in 

Southeast Asia on one of our tours and to the office of my Commanding Officer and he had on the wall a cartoon that he had enlarged. It was a cartoon, and you may have seen this in your own 

lives, where a guy is on a desert island, or what looks like to be 

a desert island, by himself. There is one tree on the island. He is 

surrounded by alligators trying to get him and he is trying to climb 

up the tree to get away. And, the caption under the cartoon was, 

‘‘It is hard to remember that our job was to drain the swamp when 

we are up to our eyeballs in alligators.’’ Think about that. 

I have had the privilege as Chairman of this Committee the last 

couple years to go down, not just to the border of Mexico—the 

Chairman and I, and I think Senator Sasse, are going to go down 

there very soon again—but, I have also had a chance to go to Mexico, to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, to Colombia to try to understand why people would literally risk life and limb to try to 

travel 1,500 miles through Mexico for an uncertain future here. 

Why would people do that? And the reason why is because they are 

living in hell holes in many cases in Honduras, Guatemala, and El 

Salvador. 

Let me just tell you one quick story. We have a number of Guatemalans who have come to the Delmarva Peninsula over the years 

to be part of the poultry industry, and when we had an influx of 

new young people into our country a year or so ago, a few more 

came into Southern Delaware from Guatemala and they were 

helped, in part, by Catholic Charities and by an outfit called La 

Esperanza, which means ‘‘hope.’’ Among the young people I talked 

to, I talked to a guy who is 15 years old from Guatemala and his 

13-year-old sister, and he ended up here, and here is how he ended 

up here. 

He was asked by a gang in Guatemala in his community to join 

the gang and he said, ‘‘No, I am not interested.’’ They asked him 

again a little while later and he said, ‘‘I am not interested.’’ They 

asked him again and he said, ‘‘I am not interested.’’ They said, ‘‘If 

you do not join, we are going to kill somebody in your family.’’ He 

joined the gang. Part of his initiation requirement was to rape his 
20 

13-year-old sister. He told his parents. The two of them a week 

later were with a coyote on their way to our country. 

Most of the people coming into the border these days are not 

coming from Mexico. There are as many people, almost, last year 

going from the United States into Mexico as coming from Mexico 

into the United States. The reason why so many people are coming 

from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to this country is because they lack hope, they lack opportunity, their businesses are 

shut down by extortion, gangs, and a lot of the crime that we inspire by virtue of our dependence on drugs. We are a big part of 

the cause of that. And, most of the people that are coming from 

those three countries who are coming to our border, they are not 

slipping through. They are basically turning themselves in and saying, ‘‘I want to have a safe place to live and to work.’’ 

We spent a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars in the last 10 years 

beefing up our border security. Is it more secure? You bet, it is. Is 

it perfect? No, it is not. Rather than continue to spend another 

quarter-of-a-trillion dollars over the next 10 years, we have only 

spent 1 percent, not even 1 percent of that to try to say, how do 

we help make the lives of the people in Guatemala, El Salvador, 

or Honduras durable, something that they can endure so they have 

some hope, rather than just feel they have to go to someplace else. 

Why can they not be comfortable and say, ‘‘I want to live here.’’ ‘‘I 

want to raise my family here.’’ 

Fortunately, the presidents of those three countries have put together, something like Plan Colombia, and it is a good blueprint 

and it calls for addressing the root causes: lack of rule of law, the 

cost of energy, workforce, any number of things where they need 

to do a better job. And it is like in Home Depot. What do they say 

in Home Depot, ‘‘You can do it, we can help.’’ Well, they can do it, 

but we need to help—not just us, Mexico, Colombia, Inter-American 

Development Banks, all kinds of people, nonprofits. We can all 

help. 

And, if we spend the next 10 years saying, yes, well, you have 

to strengthen the borders more, we have to do more to strengthen 

the borders, and we do not address the underlying and root causes, 

we have wasted a lot of money and we will end up, as one of you 

said, I think, Shawn, I think it was maybe you who quoted Albert 

Einstein, keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect the same result. Well, that applies to this, as well. So, I would 

ask that we keep that in mind. 

The other thing I want to do, in terms of a question, we talked 

about the economic impacts of the deportation programs, GDP 

growth, that sort of thing, the reductions in the cost of spending. 

I want to ask a couple of questions, one for you, Mr. Goss, and then 

maybe one for Mr. Cooper. 

But, I think in your testimony, Mr. Goss, your testimony addresses some of these economic effects we mentioned earlier. You 

calculate that the program will boost GDP by, I think you said, $43 

billion for 2024 and more after that. What is driving that growth, 

please? 

Mr. GOSS. Well, driving the growth in the Gross Domestic Product itself—and, an important distinction here. As the numbers are 

developed for estimated Gross Domestic Product by the Bureau of 
21 

Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce, GDP is not dependent on people working in the above-ground economy. People 

who are undocumented and people who are working in the underground economy, whether they are documented or not, also contribute toward the estimated GDP. 

So, we do estimate that the Gross Domestic Product as affected 

by our population as a whole, and as I mentioned, people even who 

are undocumented, we assume that they will, at any given age and 

sex, be as likely to be working and contributing toward the Gross 

Domestic Product. Our estimates of the implications of these executive actions as a whole would be that it will grow our population 

of working age to a greater extent, and there are especially some 

features here which we do not focus on that much, like the entrepreneurs that are expected to be about 10,000 per year additional 

coming in, which would significantly contribute toward the extra 

workforce and the extra people that are working and contributing 

toward our GDP. 

Senator CARPER. Let me ask a follow-up to it. You studied the 

financial impacts on the Social Security system specifically. I think 

you told us you concluded that the deferred deportation programs 

would have a modest, but a net positive impact on the system. Just 

explain to us, why is that so? 

Mr. GOSS. Well, the reason for it is because the large majority 

of the people who would be additionally coming in and being covered under Social Security would actually be newly paying taxes. 

We estimate that of the people who would be paying into the Social 

Security system in addition, that only about 15 percent initially of 

those who would be newly covered workers under these deferred 

actions and the other features would be people who were going to 

what we call our suspense file, that is people who had, in effect, 

maybe made up a nine-digit number and were paying taxes in already, that about 85 percent initially would be people who were 

working in the underground economy or would be new people coming to the country like the entrepreneurs and would be paying additional taxes. 

By the time we get up to 2050, we estimate that the implications 

will be at more like 10 percent of the additional workers will be 

people who would be from where they would already have been 

paying taxes through some other means. 

So, the bottom line is that the additional people coming at relatively young ages will, for two to three decades, be paying taxes 

into the system. That will be to the plus. I think the CBO estimates indicated the same in their 10-year projections. Following 

that, of course, there is the other side. As this group ages, they will 

have then earned the right to get benefits and we will pay out benefits that translate to be a very close call, and essentially a wash 

with a very small positive. It is basically neutral over the 75-year 

projection horizon. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you so much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Baldwin. 
22 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Carper, and I want to thank the witnesses today for sharing your 

perspectives and expertise. 

I believe that the deferred action programs that we are discussing today constitute an important step in trying to address our 

broken immigration system. It will give individuals, families, and 

employers greater certainty, ensure that more workers are paying 

taxes and paying into Medicare and Social Security, and allow individuals who contribute to our communities and our economy, in 

many cases, people who have been doing so for years, even decades, 

to come out of the shadows. 

But, make no mistake, these programs, in my opinion, are, at 

best, a short-term step because Congress must act. We must act on 

a comprehensive, permanent reform to our immigration laws, and 

we have talked already about the fact that the Senate passed such 

a measure during the last Congress. And, while it was not perfect 

by any means, I voted for it because it is critical to our Nation and 

our economy that we fix the broken system. 

It is because of that belief that I am frustrated by my colleagues 

who have chosen to play politics as we consider the Homeland Security Department’s funding bill. It puts critical national security 

programs on the line in order to play out this attack on the President’s actions on immigration. And, we are having this important 

hearing today in which we can learn more about making DACA 

and DAPA work best for our country and our economy while at the 

same time Republican leaders of this chamber are trying to undo 

these very programs on the Senate floor this week. 

This is a very important conversation about the economic benefits of making our immigration system work and I am glad we are 

having it, and I hope that all of my colleagues will listen closely 

so that we can get back to working together to advance real and 

lasting reform that our economy and our communities desperately 

need. 

I want to turn to the panel to help us further that discussion. 

I wanted to start with Mr. Cooper. In your testimony, you outline 

some of the estimates from the Council on Economic Advisors and 

the Congressional Budget Office on the fiscal impacts of these deferred action programs. We heard from Mr. Goss regarding the Social Security Administration’s estimates on the impact on the Social Security Trust Fund. From your review of these and other assessments of the potential impact of these programs, have you 

found sources that indicate that they would have a negative impact 

on our economy? 

Mr. COOPER. There certainly are economists who take varying 

positions on immigration in general. The sources that I have seen 

indicate a positive result. 

Senator BALDWIN. Did not the Congressional Budget Office actually conclude that eliminating these programs would be a fiscal 

negative? 

Mr. COOPER. Absolutely, a very large scale fiscal negative, to the 

tune of an increase in the Federal deficit by $7.5 billion over the 

coming 10 years. 
23 

Senator BALDWIN. Mr. Cooper, you have seen the implementation 

of the original DACA program, which has been in place now for 

more than 2 years. The Department of Homeland Security has outlined the new resources and personnel that it will put in place to 

administer DACA and DAPA. I am wondering, in your opinion, do 

you believe that the Department of Homeland Security and the 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will be able to effectively administer these new programs? 

Mr. COOPER. I do believe that. The immigration agencies are 

built to have a capacity to scale, because immigration flows and immigration policies evolve, and so that is a dynamic that the agencies have had to contend with always. And, as I mentioned before, 

it is a dynamic that they are especially well equipped to contend 

with because they get more resources as more applications come in. 

Resources are statutorily required to match adjudications demands. 

In addition, there are technological sophistication and there are 

technological relationships, database, data sharing information, 

data sharing relationships with law enforcement elsewhere in the 

Federal Government and at the State level, it is far more sophisticated than it ever was. And, their anti-fraud abilities are far more 

sophisticated than they have ever been. I understand that FDNS 

is very much engaged in the planning of DACA expansion and 

DAPA implementation, that they have been involved in interactions with other governments to get document templates, with 

schools to get exemplars for enrollment materials and all similar 

kinds of documentation that would be analyzed to evaluate eligibility. 

I think they will face some challenges, of course, but, yes, I think 

they are well equipped to implement these changes. 

Senator BALDWIN. You just mentioned the ability to focus in on 

fraud, and by that, I interpret somebody trying to defraud the U.S. 

Government. 

Mr. COOPER. Right. 

Senator BALDWIN. One of the things I have heard from immigration groups is a concern for potential unscrupulous lawyers and 

notarios who take advantage of the people who are going through 

the application process. Can you tell me what your experience was 

in addressing that type of fraud at the INS and what advice you 

would have to help us prevent applicants for these programs from 

being taken advantage of? 

Mr. COOPER. Yes. That is actually an issue that has, I think, a 

couple of related dimensions, one with respect to notarios, representatives here in the United States, and the other with respect 

to smugglers and the issue that Officer Moran and the Chairman 

were discussing, and they are very closely related. 

With respect to fraud and unscrupulous representatives, that is 

an issue that the agencies have been focused on, including the Department of Justice. They bear a very strong role in trying to attack representative fraud for years, and it has gotten better and 

stronger. There are more significant requirements to qualify as a 

representative. There are increasingly strict representations that 

you have to make as a preparer of materials. And, there is increased law enforcement vigilance against notarios, and there is a 

very strong ability, as well, for the community to report informa-
24 

1The chart referenced by Senator Heitkamp appears in the Appendix on page 104. 

tion about this kind of misuse. So, I believe that that is a very important problem to keep focused on, but one that the Departments 

of Justice and Homeland Security do have a strong focus on. 

They also have a lot of anti-fraud measures in place along the 

lines that we discussed before, the standard of proof, someone who 

comes forward and requests deferred action has to demonstrate 

their eligibility and the standard of proof is, more likely than not, 

the same standard that would apply if any of us sued each other 

in the courts. And, there are criminal and other penalties in place 

for people who make misrepresentations to the government in 

order to gain advantages under the immigration statutes. So, the 

tools are there. Again, it is a large-scale program. It will pose challenges. But, the tools, I believe, are there. 

If I could just mention briefly the related issue of abuse, not just 

by representatives but also by smugglers. I understand Officer 

Moran’s front-line experience and I agree with the concern he expressed that there are people who are engaged in facilitating unlawful migration to this country that are very sophisticated in their 

ability to help people game the system. And, there is no question 

that there are smugglers who try to take advantage of that. 

But to take, for example, the scenario that we were concerned 

with before, that someone appears at the border and says, ‘‘I have 

been here for 5 years.’’ First of all, in my experience, Border Patrol 

members tend to have highly refined experience and instincts in 

these situations and would be able to see through false statements 

and examine them. But, even if they were to take such a statement 

at face value, the way the programs are structured, DAPA relief is 

unavailable to anyone who falls within any of the enforcement priorities, and in the very highest tier of the removal priorities is the 

category of people who are apprehended while crossing the border. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to just for a moment examine the chart that the Chairman released, if somebody could put that up.1 And, my question is 

for anyone on the panel. As we look at the increase in undocumented children across the border, what percentage of those in 

2014 would be eligible for the relief in this program that we are 

talking about? Mr. Bellocchi. 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. I am sorry, the—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. You may not, and I just want to kind of better understand, because I think the implication is that DACA was 

announced and, obviously, that led to a 2014 increase in the unaccompanied minors. Now, I could make an argument that might 

have had more to do with conditions that Ranking Member Carper 

talked about and also the anti-trafficking laws that were passed 

that gave free entry to people from Central America. But, is it not 

true that no one who crosses the border in 2014 is eligible for this 

program? Is that not true? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. I understand that is correct, yes. 
25 

Senator HEITKAMP. And, it might be driven by false knowledge 

of what is happening or an impression about what is happening, 

but no one crossing the border in 2014, who is caught crossing the 

border in 2014, would be eligible, is that correct? Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes, unless they fell under a DAPA program if they 

were a parent of a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident, they 

might be able to qualify, but—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. Not children. 

Mr. GOSS. Could I just offer that I think the rules for the new 

DACA are that people have to have entered the country before 

sometime in June 2010. So, people who have entered after June 

2010, which are these people, would not qualify under the extension of DACA. 

Senator HEITKAMP. That would be correct, and also if we drew 

a line in November when the President announced the expansion 

and then took a look at when most of those unaccompanied minors 

crossed the border, it would be early in the spring during the civil 

unrest in El Salvador and Honduras, is that not correct? Anyone? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Well, I will just mention that the regulations for 

DAPA have not actually been issued yet, so the thresholds and requirements we are not too clear on what they are yet. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I have no doubt, and I think we saw that in 

the spring, that there is a combination of issues that drive this 

kind of rush to the border, one of which I share, Mr. Moran, your 

concern about updating border strategy and taking a look at what 

actually is going to work. I have had a fair amount of opportunity 

to spend time on the border, some officially, some unofficially, meet 

with ranchers, meet with farmers, who are encountering this every 

day, and are very concerned about the safety of their family. We 

know that. Very concerned about the safety of your officers as we 

move forward with border security. 

And, I will say that this is the wrong way for Congress to adopt 

policy. I do not think any one of you on this panel can say this is 

the right discussion to be having, whether it is politicizing the Department of Homeland Security because of an Executive Order, or 

whether it is ignoring true, honest to goodness border concerns and 

border issues that we have, and taking a look at doing the right 

thing that is going to discourage policy to cross the border illegally 

long-term. 

And, so, the frustration that I have is that there are tons of challenges in all this, and comprehensive immigration reform, comprehensive border security analysis is what we need, not politicizing this issue. 

And, if I can just, Ms. O’Connor, you may not know this, but I 

used to be the Tax Commissioner in North Dakota and I spent a 

lot of time dealing with tax fraud and schemes, and during my 

time, it was all those horrible people in prison who were filing false 

returns and, actually, IRS was issuing refunds to people who were 

felons and had been locked up for 20, 30 years. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. They still do. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right. So, as we are analyzing this, the concern that I have about the IRS goes way beyond the potential for 

abusing the Child Tax Credit and the potential for abusing the 
26 

Earned Income Tax Credit. It goes to an antiquated system that 

should immediately be able to indicate and catch when you are 

mailing a refund to one address that numbers in the millions. That 

should not happen in any kind of automated system. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. Twenty-four-thousand checks to a single address 

in a single year should have raised somebody’s suspicion. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right. And, so, we are talking about this in 

the context of border security when I am saying we need to take 

a look at what the IRS does not do in terms of automating their 

system to prevent that from happening, whether it is checks to 

prisons, whether it is unmatched Social Security numbers and Tax 

Identification Numbers, to actual work product. I mean, these are 

issues that the IRS could solve with the right amount of resources 

and the right amount of attention. I question whether we should 

be just focusing on the challenges that these kinds of frauds 

present as a result of illegal immigration. 

Mr. Moran, it looked like you wanted to—— 

Senator CARPER. Would the Senator from North Dakota yield 

just for a quick clarification? The problem that has been raised 

here, 24,000 checks sent to a single address, IRS has changed the 

rules to allow only three checks to a single address or account, so 

message heard. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes, but I will tell you this, that for every 

time you think you have closed this kind of opportunity, another 

opportunity will open, and the IRS needs to be more vigilant as we 

look at a system that, I think, encourages a rapid refund. We are 

getting more and more automated and we are very proud that we 

can turn around refunds and get them in people’s bank accounts, 

but maybe we ought to take a pause and take a look at what we 

are giving up in terms of security of the system for rapid turnaround. 

Mr. Moran, you looked like you wanted to offer a comment. 

Mr. MORAN. When you were asking, Senator, who qualifies for 

this, I think one of our concerns is that the messaging on the training from CBP has been inconsistent, at best. It says that the Presidential priorities, level one, aliens apprehended at the border or 

ports of entry while attempting to unlawfully enter the United 

States. And then in the same document it says, the impact of 

DACA and DAPA on CBP, it says, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP are instructed to immediately begin identifying persons in their custody as well as newly encountered individuals who meet the above criteria and may thus be eligible for 

deferred action to prevent the further expenditure of enforcement 

resources with regard to these individuals. 

If we are encountering people, the vast majority of people that 

Border Patrol Agents encounter are newly arrived in this country 

illegally. Our concern is that this will be watered down and that 

these people who should be ineligible will somehow be made eligible. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And if, in fact, that happens, I would share 

your concern. But, at this point, based on what I understand the 

program to be, those folks currently crossing would not be eligible. 

If I could just ask one additional question for Mr. Moran, because 

I believe that the officers’ voices at the border should be heard. I 
27 

agree with your points of view in terms of training. Really appreciate that you mentioned the Northern Border, being from North 

Dakota, being understaffed. And, I just want to explore a litte bit 

about the one thing that you did say that was you think that there 

should be Border Patrol Agents in Phoenix. Where do you see the 

boundary between ICE and Border Patrol, and I mean, I could 

make an argument that at the Phoenix location, that is ICE’s responsibility, correct? 

Mr. MORAN. It is a very difficult line to demarcate. Our former 

Chief, David Aguilar, had delegated that authority in an memorandum of understanding (MOU) to ICE, that they would have the 

primary interior enforcement capabilities. We both have the same 

authority. Our opinion is that both agencies should be working to 

secure the United States, whether that be at the border or at the 

interior. 

Unfortunately, in the past several years, policy within CBP has 

restricted the ability of Border Patrol Agents to work at these 

transportation hubs, and it seems that any enforcement activity 

that is successful is restricted and we are now looking at the possibility of our checkpoints disappearing, for lack of a better term, because they have been successful, and that would basically cede the 

egress routes from the border into the interior of the United States. 

So, to answer your question, I do not know where the line is, but 

somebody needs to be working in the interior, and in our opinion, 

ICE does not have the resources or the institutional priorities to go 

after that, and I think that is very evident in the rebranding of 

some of their agents from ICE Agents to Homeland Security Investigations. Immigration seems to have been forgotten in their title. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Before I call on Senator Lankford, I think 

at least twice, maybe three times now, we have heard the charge, 

and I want to add a little balance to the conversation here, that 

somebody is politicizing the defunding of DHS. The fact is, yesterday, we held a vote to proceed to debate on the DHS funding bill. 

I think every Democrat voted against proceeding to that debate. I 

mean, if we want to have an honest debate, I think that is the way 

to do it, on the floor of the Senate. Allow an open amendment process and let us actually debate the issue. But, the Democrats denied 

that cloture vote. So, if there is a charge of politicization, I think 

we need to at least look at the facts. Senator Lankford. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here, as well, and for the conversation. 

I was in Central America last September, and to go back to this 

chart, as well, and some of the conversation, I led a bipartisan delegation there, met with individuals from the government, from our 

government, from resident governments, from embassies and others to be able to visit and ask some specific questions. Why did we 

see this big surge? Was it in Guatemala? Was it in Honduras? Was 

it in El Salvador? 

In all three countries, we heard the exact same thing. There are 

push and pulls. The push are the gang violence and the lack of jobs 

and all those things. But, all of them came back and said the 
28 

spark, the pull, was DACA, that when DACA went through, the 

coyotes in Central America spread the word that if you get to the 

United States right now and you are a minor, you can stay. And, 

the reality of the number of adults that were already here and the 

connection that we have with the children that are crossing unaccompanied connecting with a parent, typically—in some statistics, 

80 to 85 percent of the children that were coming already had a 

parent in the United States—that when they came and were connected, those children, I heard over and over again, when they got 

to the United States were posting on their Facebook page a picture 

of them holding up their notice to appear in court saying, ‘‘I have 

legal papers,’’ telling all their friends, ‘‘Come.’’ 

Now, my question is, to follow-up on Senator Heitkamp’s, how 

many of those individuals that we have seen from 2012, 2013, and 

2014 have been returned back to their home country? We talked 

before about how many were eligible. How many of those folks 

have been returned? They came illegally across the border. They 

were moved to the interior. Does anyone know the percentage of returns there? 

Chairman JOHNSON. James, it is actually on the bottom of the 

graph here. Again, it is not certain, but we got this, I think, from 

an L.A. Times report. 

Senator LANKFORD. Correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. It is very difficult to get the information. 

Senator LANKFORD. It is very difficult because no one is answering back and forth on it from any of the agencies. I can tell you, 

when I have talked to the different agents, the different folks, the 

numbers that I get are no higher at any time than 5 percent, that 

80 percent-plus do not show up for their notice to appear, and 

those that do often are given some sort of deferred ability to be 

able to stay. 

And, so, while we can debate about are they going to be returned, do they have legal status, they are here. They are not being 

returned. And, so, they are back into what Officer Moran was talking about before. They are living in the shadows, knowing if I stay 

here long enough, as has already been seen—the previous DACA 

was only for 2007, and then a year later it was extended to 2010, 

and the assumption is from every coyote in Central America, get 

there as fast as you can. They will keep moving the target. 

So, that is the challenge that we face at this point. I understand 

what it says. That is not what is happening. And, everyone in Central America is telling us that over and over again, and we have 

to be able to resolve this and what do we do here. 

So, let me ask just a couple of quick questions. Does anyone 

know what data we are getting for background checks for these individuals going through DACA and through DAPA from Central 

American countries? When we do a background check, are we getting information on that individual from El Salvador, from Honduras, from Nicaragua, from Panama, from Venezuela, on the activities of that individual while they were in that country? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. I interviewed a number of people regarding 

background checks when I prepared for this testimony and I asked 

that question, how many background checks, or will the background checks really check foreign country criminal background, 
29 

and the only answer I got was that the FBI does have a relationship with Interpol. They may have red flag notices and things like 

that. But, that really is talking about mainly Western European 

countries and high-profile criminals. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, if we have an individual coming to the 

United States from Venezuela, if they have stayed here long 

enough, at this point, we are not checking Venezuelan records to 

find out what happened, what they did in that country, to be able 

to have some sort of legal status here? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator LANKFORD. Does DHS require in their new guidelines 

the processing or payment of taxes before they can go through this? 

Is DHS requiring before you get legal status that they pay back 

taxes? 

Mr. BELLOCCHI. Well, with DAPA, again, the regulations are not 

out, but I understand that is one of the requirements. Perhaps my 

colleague can answer that better. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. It is not a requirement under DACA, and as my 

colleague says, the DAPA regulations are not out yet. But, no, 

there is no requirement that taxes already have been paid. 

Mr. COOPER. Senator, my understanding is that if anyone is 

given deferred action under the program, then they will be able to 

get a Social Security number and then tax compliance can be enforced, and that previous tax behavior can be a positive or negative 

discretionary factor, and that discretion is something that the officers are instructed to observe. 

Senator LANKFORD. But, at that point, they already have other 

legal paperwork. So, you are saying they get legal paperwork and 

they are told, you should pay back taxes. 

Mr. COOPER. I think their past tax behavior, whether they paid 

taxes or not, is something that can be considered discretionarily up 

or down in the process of deciding whether to give deferred action, 

but that once you get deferred action, then you have a Social Security number and tax compliance can be fully enforced. 

Senator LANKFORD. But, DHS does not require, before they give 

deferred action to an individual, that they pay back taxes before 

they get that deferred action. 

Mr. COOPER. I do not believe so. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is not a requirement. 

Mr. COOPER. I do not believe that is a requirement. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, it is not a requirement that they do a 

background check in a home country. It is not a requirement that 

they pay back taxes before they get deferred action. 

Mr. COOPER. DHS would have to supply you with the more precise information about what happens between the law enforcement 

authorities and other governmental authorities of the sending 

countries and ours, but my strong understanding is that, especially 

ever since these spikes, that there has been a great deal of interaction in those countries with law enforcement there between not 

just the Department of Homeland Security, but the Justice Department and other law enforcement authorities—— 

Senator LANKFORD. No, the spike, as I can tell you from being 

in Central America and asking some of those questions, the spike 

is for the individuals that we are returning that we are trying to 
30 

verify before they return to their home country, who this individual 

is, and those are typically adults. Obviously, adults typically, as 

the Border Patrol Agent can tell us on that, that have said, ‘‘I want 

to voluntarily return,’’ because if you get to the border and you are 

picked up and you are apprehended and you say, ‘‘I want to voluntarily return,’’ it cleans your record up. 

The coyotes in Central America, as we talked to everyone there, said they are now doing a three-for-one deal. You pay $4,000 and 

they will give you three attempts to be able to get in the United 

States. If you are picked up the first two times and say, ‘‘I want 

to voluntarily return,’’ they will bring you back. Literally, they 

meet you at the bus station when you return and start the return 

trip again. So, for one amount, they can do three times there. As 

long as you keep saying, ‘‘voluntarily return,’’ there is no strike on 

your record. You just keep coming until you actually penetrate the 

system. So, that is part of the challenge. It is getting us off-topic 

on this, though. 

The individuals that come in to register for DACA and DAPA 

and DHS determines they are not eligible for this program, what 

happens to those individuals? They have come in and said, ‘‘I am 

not legally in this country. I would like to get some sort of deferred 

status.’’ For whatever that percentage may be, what happens to 

those individuals? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, one thing that happens is, at that point, DHS 

has all their information under circumstances where they did not 

before, and then I think the second is that applying the removal 

priorities that were set out in revised form in November, DHS 

would then make a decision whether or not to add that person to 

the—— 

Senator LANKFORD. So, they may say they are not eligible to 

have deferred status, but they also may say you can also stay here 

just in the shadows? 

Mr. COOPER. That is correct. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is up to their discretion. So, they have 

already said, ‘‘I am in this country illegally. I am not eligible for 

deferred status.’’ That has just been determined. But, it is also, 

‘‘You can stay.’’ It is also under their purview to be able to do. 

Mr. COOPER. It is not, ‘‘You can stay.’’ It is, rather, I am going 

to spend my enforcement efforts on higher priorities, according to 

the—— 

Senator LANKFORD. And you stay. 

Mr. COOPER. That is right, but the nature of the determination 

is a different one. 

Senator LANKFORD. But, the result for that individual is the 

same. 

Mr. COOPER. Then they would be part of the millions of people 

who are subject to removal, but not within the removal resources 

of the Department of Homeland Security, which is, I think, one 

more argument in favor of legislative reform. 

Senator LANKFORD. And one more argument why Agent Moran 

and his counterparts have such tough morale issues in trying to 

face the issues of what they try to do. 

I yield back. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Booker. 
31 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOOKER 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I just, as Senator Baldwin had said, I just want to express my 

frustration and concern. Whether it is politics or not, the reality is 

last year, we passed a spending bill for every other Department 

agency in the United States of America, but separated one out, the 

Department of Homeland Security, and the stated reason was over 

immigration issues. 

But, as a guy who has stood in my city and watched the terrorist 

attacks across the river, as a guy who has the third-busiest port 

in my State, as a person who has seen Hurricane Sandy sweep 

through and kill people in my State, the fact that now, for whatever reason, politics or not, we did not include last year as part of 

the omnibus funding for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Our inability to pass a bill has now put at risk many of the issues 

and concerns that we are briefly touching on here, which is the 

safety and the security of our Nation, whether it is the nuclear detection equipment that needs to be upgraded at my port or whether 

it is issues related to coordination of personnel. 

All of this right now is in jeopardy, and we would not do this to 

the Department of Defense, but somehow, the Department of 

Homeland Security, which is our buffer and often the preventative 

agency for our safety and security, whether it is from natural disaster—and, by the way, I am concerned because the funds necessary to respond to wildfires, to floods, to hurricanes, is now in 

jeopardy because we are not moving forward. Whether it is politics 

or not, I do not know, but I know we have the leadership that 

should be able to address what are the common concerns of our 

country. 

These issues are really important, and Shawn Moran, I want to 

thank you, not only for having the best haircut on this panel—— 

[Laughter.] 

But I want to thank you, sir. You and the people you represent 

do this country a great service. You are honorable, and from my 

experience, courageous in what you all face every day, and your 

testimony, I think, in some ways is the most important testimony 

here. 

We are not doing enough to support you, to give you the resources you need. And, as a guy who oversaw a municipal law enforcement agency, when you do not support your officers in the 

proper way, you put them at risk. A lot of the things that you 

brought out in your written testimony and your spoken testimony 

really was important for my staff, and things that I know are important, like the ratio of supervisors. You guys have a lot of supervisors, it seems, but not enough folks that are actually doing the 

work in the field. And, these are things that we should pay attention to and react to. 

So, I want to thank you and just compliment you on the record, 

because I know from personal experience how important the work 

you do and you stand out there. 

The only small issue—and for me, it is not a small issue—and 

I think that Senator Lankford, who I really appreciate actually 

having gone down to Central America to see for himself what was 

going on, he talked about the push and the pull factors. You really 
32 

do not have the resources to know if somebody is telling the truth 

or not. And, the one thing you said about these folks having written scripts before them about what to say, just because a person 

has a written script and has practiced that script, kind of like the 

five of you have done preparing for this, does not mean that they 

are not sincere people and really facing a threat, is that correct? 

Mr. MORAN. That is correct. We do spend a lot of time when we 

apprehend people, because, obviously, when it is busy it is going to 

take quite a bit of time to transport them, so, obviously, you are 

going to talk with them, and we have even had our intelligence 

people interview them, and I believe it was six or seven out of ten 

claimed it was because of DACA, rumors of immigration reform, 

amnesty, and the like that they were coming here. There were 

those that claimed violence, economic conditions, but by and large, 

the majority was because they had heard from somebody else that 

was released into American society. 

Senator BOOKER. I really appreciate that, and I imagine what 

you are saying, there is a lot of voracity to that. But, there are people that are escaping violence and rape and torture and—— 

Mr. MORAN. Absolutely. 

Senator BOOKER [continuing]. As we see with—and have encouraged other people to do, right now, Jordan, we are telling them, 

hey, take people into your country that are coming from Syria, and 

the way that Canada has stepped up to help. This is a nation that 

has a history that when people are being persecuted, that we do 

something for them. You understand that, correct? 

Mr. MORAN. I do. I would add, though, that the incentive for people to come here to this country puts our members at risk. We have 

had 120 agents die in the line of duty. The majority of them have 

been since I became a Border Patrol Agent. So, the trend is definitely increasing, that it is more dangerous—— 

Senator BOOKER. And just because I am losing time, I agree with 

that point very well. 

Real quick, Mr. Cooper, you talked about the tremendous economic benefits that have been put forth by a non-political organization called the Congressional Budget Office, the boon to our economy. You talked about $90 billion. You talked about money off of 

the national debt, which concerns me. You talked about the improving of the social safety net, greater contributions. The one 

thing you did not mention is jobs, jobs for Americans. If you are 

driving an economy, increasing GDP, if you are having more entrepreneurs, is there a job benefit to expanding job opportunities for 

the United States, for Americans, as well? 

Mr. COOPER. I think that the Council of Economic Advisors also 

concluded in its report that with the economic expansion that 

would come with DACA and DAPA, there would also be a job expansion, and their conclusion was that these programs would help, 

not harm, American workers in searching for jobs. 

Senator BOOKER. Right, and you get more entrepreneurs in our 

country under a legal pathway. You are increasing a lot of economic benefits. One is job creation, as well. 

Mr. COOPER. Right. 

Senator BOOKER. I appreciate the law enforcement aspects you 

said. As a guy, again, who was frustrated as mayor that I could not 
33 

get undocumented immigrants to come—there is fear coming forward and reporting crimes, cooperating with the police. It was very 

difficult. And, they are also victimized by crimes because people 

singled them out. I appreciate you speaking to law enforcement. 

The last question I just want to ask, to be respectful of the time, 

and I am still trying to get in good with the new Chairman, real 

quickly, is about the Child Tax Credit. The idea is that if you have 

a child, right, that is a U.S. citizen, you may not be a documented 

immigrant, you may not have citizenship, but the idea is that for 

an American child to claim that credit, right, we do not want to 

punish a child just for having undocumented parents, right? And, 

the way this is structured, the claim of the Child Care Tax Credit 

is really to get money and have a more stable household for that 

child, is that correct? 

Mr. COOPER. It is to benefit the child. My understanding is that 

that tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit effects were 

taken into account in the CBO’s estimate of the effects that elimination of DACA and DAPA would have on the Federal deficit. 

Senator BOOKER. So, you still get the economic benefits. It does 

not diminish that, as the estimates of the CBO was doing, and 

American children, who may have undocumented parents, have 

more food on the table, are better prepared to go to school, and 

have the benefits of the resources that a tax credit is intended to 

do and have a better start in life, is that correct? 

Mr. COOPER. Correct. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I appreciate your stylish haircut, but you 

still went over time—— [Laughter.] 

But we will not write it down. 

Senator BOOKER. I assert to you, I will try to get better, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank the Chairman and I want to 

thank all of our witnesses that are here. 

First of all, I would like to follow-up, Ms. O’Connor, on the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) issue, because I know that Senator 

Booker just made the point that if you are an American child but 

you are the child of an illegal immigrant, that this is something 

that you should receive. But, as I understand it, the Treasury Inspector General (IG) has done a lot of looking at not only the Additional Child Tax Credit, but the Earned Income Tax Credit, and 

one of the issues is that, right now—some people did some individual work and studies on that tax credit, as well, and there are 

people being claimed for that tax credit, children that do not even 

live in this country. In other words, because right now, you can 

seek that tax credit whether or not you have a Social Security 

number for the recipient or the child, so can you speak a little bit 

about some of the fraud we have seen in the Additional Child Tax 

Credit. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. Certainly. You are exactly right. The studies 

have shown that—the Inspector General’s studies have shown that 

tens of billions of dollars are paid every year with respect to children who might not exist at all, and if they do, they might live in 
34 

a foreign country. One of the requirements is that the child is supposed to live with the person who is claiming the credit, but the 

IRS does not really have the wherewithal or maybe the motivation 

to confirm that that is the case. So, while it is very nice to think 

that the Additional Child Tax Credit is going to give some worthy 

kid more Cheerios in the morning and make sure he gets to school 

on time, that is not necessarily the way it is working out. 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes, and I think that most Americans would be 

very troubled to think that we are giving refundable tax money 

that is all of the taxpayer dollars to fraudulent situations. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. If I might just emphasize, as you said, we think 

of a refund as getting something back that you have paid, but this 

is not that. This is getting something back that you have not paid. 

Senator AYOTTE. Correct, because based on what you are eligible, 

you have not paid it, but because it is an income eligibility issue 

and you get that—and it is $1,000, I believe, or more per child—— 

Ms. O’CONNOR. Right. It is a welfare program operated through 

the Internal Revenue Code. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, one of the questions I also wanted to followup on—so, under DACA and DAPA—and, let me just say for the 

record, I am someone who supported the immigration reform bill. 

I want to solve this problem. But, as I look at these Executive Orders, we are in a position where some of the things that I thought 

were very important in that bill, like the people that were patiently 

waiting in line getting—the individuals that were here illegally getting to the back of the line as a matter of fairness, the back tax 

issue as a matter of fairness, a whole host of provisions on securing 

our border that were incredibly important in that, and as I look at 

these Executive Orders, we are in a situation, just we have talked 

about the Additional Child Tax Credit, but I want to put in perspective for people how much money that is to the Treasury. 

As we got the last figures which we were able to get, which were 

actually 2011, $30 billion going out each year on the Additional 

Child Tax Credit. The other big refundable tax credit that we all 

need to understand is the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the 

Earned Income Tax Credit is also a refundable tax credit, like the 

Additional Child Tax Credit. Right now, to receive that tax credit, 

you have to have a Social Security number, is that right, Ms. 

O’Connor? 

Ms. O’CONNOR. Yes, Senator. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, so, these individuals under this Executive 

Order, as far as I can see, are immediately getting Social Security 

numbers, and with that immediate receipt of Social Security numbers, do we have any sense of the numbers—we are already paying 

out $65 billion a year on this Earned Income Tax Credit. How 

many more billions are going to go out on the Earned Income Tax 

Credit for people who, by the way, are immediately getting Social 

Security numbers, who are, of course, not getting in the back of the 

line of the people who are diligently waiting here, and, so, do we 

have a sense of what those numbers are? 

Ms. O’CONNOR. I do not have that number. Maybe one of my colleagues at the table does. But, I will also remind everyone that the 

Internal Revenue Service interpretation of these provisions is that 
35 

you get the credit not just this year, but you can file amended returns for the prior 3 years. 

Senator AYOTTE. Wow. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. So, everybody who gets a Social Security number 

now, multiply that by four to get the total impact this year. 

Senator AYOTTE. Oh, I had not appreciated. So, if I get a Social 

Security number immediately, these millions of people that will receive this, then you could file back, presumably, for 3 years? 

Ms. O’CONNOR. That is how the IRS interprets the rule, right. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, by the way, we have talked about fraud 

in the ACTC. As I understand it, we have an improper payment 

rate overall even in the Earned Income Tax Credit of 22 to 26 percent. 

Ms. O’CONNOR. That is right. That is what the Inspector General 

says. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, I want to make sure that as we look at all 

of this, we think about the prior 3 years. One of the things I see 

in the Executive Orders is it is not clear. it says that you would 

be eligible for Social Security benefits, Mr. Goss, with 10 years of 

work history, as I understand it. Do we know what counts for work 

history? So, if someone was here illegally and working, could they 

use that work as their 10-year history and then immediately be eligible for Social Security benefits, as well? 

Mr. GOSS. That is an extremely good question and many people 

have raised this issue, that people who have—and the primary potential source for that would be people who have been here in an 

undocumented form, but have been working with their employer 

and have been paying in the taxes, but not with a match between 

their name and a Social Security number because they have not 

been issued a Social Security number. In theory, if they can come 

to our offices and prove with pay stubs or whatever that, in fact, 

those were their earnings in the past, they could reclaim those 

earnings. 

In practice, this is a rare event. We estimate that about 7 percent of all of the earnings that go to our earnings suspense file, because names and SSNs do not match, only about 7 percent is ever 

reclaimed, and the vast majority of that could be any one of us 

where an employer might have messed up our SSN when they submitted the numbers. So, very little of that, we expect, will be going 

out as benefit credits in the future, as very little has gone out in 

the past. 

So, our estimates of the number of people receiving benefits, and 

from what I understand CBO has done mostly the same, is based 

largely on earnings that people will have going forward, developing 

their insured status. 

And, Senator Ayotte, you are exactly right. For retirement benefits, you have to have 10 years’ worth or 40 quarters of coverage. 

You can gain insured status if you are younger for, if you were to 

die, a survivor’s benefit or disability benefit with less work time 

than that. But, again, relatively few people, we expect, will be actually achieving that in the relatively near term, and we have estimates in our testimony that show you, year by year, how many. 

Senator AYOTTE. There are, I think, a lot of questions that are 

raised by all this on how it is going to work, and Mr. Moran, thank 
36 

1The document referred to by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 105. 

you for your work, and many questions raised for those who do 

serve and defend our Nation and help us with the borders. So, I 

think this is one of the issues and challenges you face when something is done by Executive Order versus laws that are in place, and 

also for these individuals who are going to be in this status, what 

is the permanency of it. I think that that is why legislation is the 

way that we should do these things and why I have been someone 

who has been trying to solve this problem and I am very disappointed that the President has decided to take executive action 

on this. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

I have just got a couple other questions. And, again, just to 

quickly bring balance to some of the comments made. 

We would not be discussing DHS funding today had President 

Obama not taken the unilateral executive action. We would have 

probably passed an omnibus through the end of this fiscal year. So, 

that is the reason DHS funding is up in the air at this point in 

time. 

And, again the way to address this DHS funding would actually 

be to put a bill on the floor and open it up to debate. We were denied cloture on that, not Republicans, that was basically Democrats 

who decided not to allow us to proceed to debate on the bill. I am 

not quite sure why, but that is just a fact. 

Mr. Goss, I have an actuarial note1 that you issued in April 2013 

to kind of answer the question that I was asking Ms. O’Connor 

about how many of the immigrant population, what percent is actually in the underground economy. Back then, you were saying 

about 3.9 million of 8.3 million, so less than half were actually in 

the underground economy. More than half, then, actually were paying into the system in some way, shape, or form, either with an illegal Social Security number or through the ITIN. Is that about 

what your estimates were in this current—— 

Mr. GOSS. That is correct, yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. 

Mr. GOSS. It is actually a little bit higher than that at this point, 

because our estimates back at the time of 2009 and 2010, had a 

significant number of people in the undocumented population who 

had, prior to 2001, when things were really tightened up about 

being able to get issued an SSN after birth, prior to that time, people could come in with perhaps not legitimate documentation and 

relatively easily get an SSN. After a specific time in 2001 that we 

all too well remember, especially Senator Booker, that has been 

tightened up and we see a much diminished number of people getting SSNs illegitimately. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, there are more people or less people in 

the underground economy versus 2013? 

Mr. GOSS. We would say a larger share of the workers who are 

in the undocumented population now are in the underground economy. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. 
37 

Mr. GOSS. And, if I might just add on that one little thing, so 

important in terms of tax policy, one of the biggest issues I would 

hope that you all would pay attention to would be the fact that, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of 

Commerce, one-half of all of the compensation to independent contractors and self-employed individuals in this country is not reported for tax purposes. That is obviously not all from undocumented individuals, but there is an awful lot of non-reporting—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Right. 

Mr. GOSS [continuing]. Of income, and that would make a big difference if all of that income was reported for payroll taxes to Social 

Security and Medicare as well as for income taxes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Oh, yes, and that is kind of a side view—— 

Mr. GOSS. That is a different thing. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, I do want to explore the assumptions 

and the estimates in terms of this being a boon to our GDP. Now, 

I certainly understand, because I come from the private sector, that 

what makes up an economy is human capital combined with financial capital and that is what drives an economy. When you increase 

the supply of human capital through births and through immigration, that will increase the size of GDP. 

What puzzles me about the estimates coming out of here is we 

have already got this population of 11 to 12 million people in this 

country illegally. Many of them are working either in the formal 

or underground economy. So, I do not know what this temporary 

deferred action, how that all of a sudden causes this surge in economic activity. It just really makes no sense to me whatsoever. Mr. 

Goss. 

Mr. GOSS. Thank you very much. Excellent question. Actually, 

the component of the very small extra increase of only about 0.15 

percent increase in the level of GDP in 2024, relatively little of that 

is from the DACA–DAPA. The only extent is because we assume 

that once people gain this status, they will be less likely to leave 

the population. If they remain in the population, as you indicate, 

they will be part of our population and our base for employment. 

The biggest share of increased GDP that, really, is the other net 

flows, the entrepreneurs coming in by 2024. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, that should occur through a legal 

process, and there is no denying that. If we have more entrepreneurs coming through legal immigration process—— 

Mr. GOSS. Exactly. 

Chairman JOHNSON. By the way, I am supportive of if we get the 

smartest minds in the world, we want them here in America. If we 

educate them, we want them to stay to produce those innovations 

and grow our economy. But, again, that is a legal immigration system versus an illegal one, which creates all kinds of problems from 

the standpoint of national security, public health and safety. And, 

again, it is a broken immigration system, which I am all for fixing. 

But, my final comment is, until we secure the border it is never 

going to be perfect, but until we do a better job—and I think Americans are way ahead of us, the public is way ahead of the political 

process here in terms of wondering why we have not done that— 

until we do that, any part of our immigration law, tax law, that 

creates an incentive for illegal immigration—I would say DAPA 
38 

and DACA have created that incentive—as long as we create those 

incentives for illegal immigration, we will have more of it. It will 

create higher pressure on the border, give Mr. Moran and his compatriots real fits, make their job far more difficult. 

So, this really, from my standpoint, is the top priority of this 

Committee: to craft an effective and a workable border security bill 

combined with an immigration enforcement bill that really does 

take a look at our current immigration laws and try to eliminate 

or at least drastically reduce the incentives for illegal immigration, 

because as long as those incentives remain and we have not secured the border, it is going to be right back to 1986. I mean, you 

can do whatever you want to do to grant amnesty or take executive 

action, but as long as we have those incentives in place without a 

secure border, we are just going to make the problem worse. 

But with that, that kind of concludes my participation. Senator 

Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to go back on a couple of issues that were raised just 

to try to provide some clarity, and Mr. Goss, if I am misstating, 

just let me know. But, I think in instances where formerly undocumented immigrants now have Social Security numbers and can 

now claim Earned Income Tax Credit retroactively, they have to 

have paid taxes. They have to have gone back and also filed tax 

returns for, I think, at least 3 years, is that correct? 

Mr. GOSS. That would be my assumption for—— 

Senator CARPER. That is correct. 

Mr. GOSS. Yes—— 

Senator CARPER. That is correct. Thank you. 

Another point, just for clarification, I think, also, in 2012, I am 

told that the IRS reformed the ITIN application process and far 

fewer people apply today. As a result, we have, probably, I expect 

we have a lot less fraud. 

So, some of the concerns that have been raised, it is important 

that they have been raised. Some of them have been addressed, 

and those that have not, we need to address them, so thank you 

for doing that. 

I am just reminded of a couple of thoughts here as we come to 

the end, and one of those is—it is unfortunate that we are having 

this conversation. It is unfortunate that we are having this hearing, because it is unfortunate that we did not pass comprehensive 

immigration reform in the last Congress. We should have. We 

would not be having these questions, these battles, and spending 

your time and our time dealing with this. That is what we should 

be doing. 

And, to the extent that our Republican friends have concerns, 

and I appreciate those, over what the President, what the Administration has done, they have recourse in court. They are doing that. 

But, I sure as heck hope that we do not shut down the Department 

of Homeland Security on February 27 when they have a heck of a 

lot to do. That would be tragic. 

Mr. Moran, I want to also thank you and the folks that you represent for your continued service, to our country. And, there is 

plenty we can do, and when the Chairman and I and Senator Sasse 
39 

are down on the border, we will hear about some of the things that 

we ought to do and I think your input is appreciated and helpful. 

But, one of the problems in the immigration reform bill that was 

passed was I think we doubled the number of people on the Border 

Patrol on the border. We do not need to do that. Do we need some 

extra people? Yes, we do. But, we especially need people at the 

ports of entry to do the job there, and we need what I call force 

multipliers, force multipliers that are actually between the ports of 

entry that will enable your folks to be more effective in the work 

that they do. 

I will continue to make this point to my grave—I have always 

been a big believer in addressing not just the symptoms of problems, but root causes for problems. That is the key. We are really 

good around here at addressing symptoms of problems. We are not 

so good at going at the underlying causes, and we need to do both. 

Do we need to strengthen our defenses on the border? Of course, 

we do. Do we need some more people? Yes, we do. Do we need better technology? We do. The idea that we put drones up in the air 

and fixed-wing aircraft in the air without advanced radar systems 

which can actually from 25,000 or 30,000 feet see exactly what is 

going on on the ground in all kinds of weather, day or night, and 

the fact we just send aircraft out, maybe with the guys or gals with 

binoculars looking for people coming to the border, that is crazy. 

I spent a lot of time in my life in airplanes, some of it overseas 

and over the water around the world and looking for people in 

ships, in wreckage from ships, people in life rafts with binoculars 

from 500 feet or 1,000 feet. It is hard to do. And, when we have 

the technology and we are not using it, shame on us. That is the 

kind of thing we should be doing. I call them force multipliers. 

But, the other thing that is imperative as part of the, on all of 

the above, is thoughtful policy to better strengthen our borders. A 

key element of that is to make sure that in places like Honduras, 

Guatemala, and El Salvador, which is where we are getting most 

of the illegal immigration across the South Texas Border, where 

they have police that do not police, where they have prosecutors 

that do not prosecute, where they have judges that do not administer justice, where they have correctional institutions that do not 

correct behavior, where they have school systems where, in Honduras, grades one through six, that is it. Half of the kids only make 

it to grade six. Of those that make it to grade six, only half can 

read at a sixth grade level. Only 5 percent can do sixth grade 

math. 

In these countries, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, they pay 

two or three times more for energy than they ought to be paying 

because they use petroleum. They use oil. Meanwhile, they have 

low-cost natural gas from Mexico, and that ought to be made available to those three countries to help create a more nurturing environment, lower their energy costs. 

So, while we do all the stuff on the border that we are talking 

about, we need to help them restore the rule of law. We need to 

make sure that they are doing the kinds of things that they ought 

to be doing—they want to be doing—with respect to their workforce. 
40 

Hurricane Mitch came through Honduras in 2007, destroyed half 

of the secondary roads. And, you have folks in Honduras, one part 

of Honduras would like to be able to export to a neighboring country and the roads do not even let them go 10 miles to make that 

work. 

It is not for us to fix all these things. It is not all on America. 

We can be part of the solution and we need to be. Again, they can 

do it. We can help. And the other countries, including Mexico and 

Colombia, the Inter-American Development Banks, they need to be 

a part of it. 

The last thing, the last question I want to ask is this, and I want 

to go back to security implications, if I can. Secretary Johnson and 

some others have cited several security benefits from deferred deportation initiatives. First, these programs will prompt many of the 

people living in the shadows to step forward and undergo background checks and enter biometrics into our systems. 

Second, it will help DHS and others focus limited enforcement resources on the highest priorities for deportation, those with criminal backgrounds or national security risks, and recent arrivals 

without ties to the community. 

Third, it will facilitate better trust and communication among 

immigrant communities and local law enforcement, improving the 

safety of communities nationwide. That is why a number of law enforcement organizations have endorsed the deferred deportation 

initiatives. 

A question for you, Mr. Cooper. You dealt with some of these 

issues of prioritization while at INS, I believe, which included the 

immigration functions of what is now CBP and ICE, as well as 

USCIS. Do these arguments make sense to you based on that experience and your work since? 

Mr. COOPER. They do. I think the abilities of the Department 

have improved since that time, but that makes entire sense to me, 

and I think that that helps focus on the key question that is before 

the Committee, is comparing a world without DACA and DAPA to 

a world with DACA and DAPA and does that enhance the ability 

of the Department to carry out its law enforcement responsibilities 

more effectively. And, it seems to me to take the two scenarios that 

have been raised. 

One, why would DAPA and DACA expand economic activity, and 

my understanding is that the answer to that is that with DAPA 

and DACA, there is going to be more people moving into the taxpaying category. There will be more people who are able to work 

lawfully and, therefore, able to get better paying jobs, consequently, 

wage growth pressures and so forth. That would not be the case 

without the authorization of employment for these people who are, 

after all, here in the country already, and in most cases working 

already, just in the shadow economy. 

On the law enforcement side, with DAPA, there is the scenario 

that the Senator was raising before about what happens when 

someone is not eligible but has presented themselves. I agree that 

it is counterintuitive that you might just decide not to try to remove that person when they are right there in front of you. On the 

other hand, what you have which you did not have without DAPA 

is all that person’s information in the law enforcement database 
41 

which allows for better enforcement if they become a removal priority, or if the resources roll around, or if there is a criminal issue 

later. And, if that officer has made the decision, well, you are someone who does have a U.S. citizen child but cannot prove that you 

have been here for 5 years, you are not eligible for DAPA, but I 

have bigger fish to fry, I think most people would regard that as 

a reasonable exercise of discretion given the finite resources that 

are facing the Department. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. 

Mr. Chairman, I think it has been a good hearing. Let us work 

on comprehensive immigration reform. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Coming from a manufacturing background, root cause analysis is 

just in my DNA. I am hoping this was kind of that first step in 

trying to develop that root cause analysis. 

I want to thank all the witnesses again for your thoughtful testimony, both written and oral here. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until February 

19 at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(43) 

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(165) 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 209. 

VISA WAIVER PROGRAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR 

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY 

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Carper, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON1

Chairman JOHNSON. Good morning. This hearing will come to 

order. I want to welcome all the witnesses here. We have some excellent people here to describe the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), 

both the benefits and the potential vulnerabilities. I do not want 

to spend a whole lot of time because we have two panels, but just 

basically point out this is a program that dates back to 1986. 

The first countries that entered into this cooperative type of arrangement with the United States was the United Kingdom and 

Japan, and currently we have 38 different countries that participate in this program. It obviously was designed to ease travel, to 

promote commerce, and I think it has done a really good job. Today 

19 million visitors enter the United States using this program for 

a period of under 90 days. It is about 40 percent of everybody that 

comes to America, so you can see the significance of this program. 

Unfortunately, with the threats we face today, particularly with 

the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one number being used 

is 3,400 foreign fighters that are from the West. We have to review 

this program for potential vulnerabilities. But I think it is safe to 

say that the standards have been created after September 11, 

2001. When we took a look at this and tried to strengthen the security standards with our participating partner countries, I think 

there is a great deal to be said in terms of enhancing security. 

So, again, the purpose of this hearing is to lay out that reality, 

to fully explore the benefits, and to look at potential vulnerabilities 

caused by these new and emerging threats. Also we want to consider if there is anything we can do to help Secretary Jeh Johnson 

in his efforts of keeping this Nation safe, see if there is something 

we need to do legislatively. 
166 

1The prepared statement of Senator Carper appears in the Appendix on page 210. 

On that end, I appreciate Senator Ayotte’s dedication to this and 

joining in the letter with myself and Ranking Member Carper, 

again, offering our willingness to work with the Secretary to 

strengthen this program. 

So, with that, I will end my comments and turn it over to our 

Ranking Member, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER1

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and, Kelly, thank you 

for suggesting that we have this hearing. 

Mr. Secretary, nice to see you again. I would be interested to 

know how many times you sat at this table, but we are grateful 

you are willing to do it again today. And to Marc and to Brian, 

thank you all for joining us today. 

As the Chairman said, this is an important hearing, and the Visa 

Waiver Program, which has been around for actually quite a while, 

continues to evolve and to hopefully be improved. It is a valuable 

economic and security tool for our country. 

Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 

which you once led, have worked hard to balance the natural tension in the Visa Waiver Program between the need to facilitate, on 

the one hand, international travel and, on the other hand, trying 

to make sure that we are going to be safe in this country from the 

evolving terrorist threats that we all face. 

When travelers from Visa Waiver countries visit our country, 

they spend more than $80 billion every year. That is a lot of 

money. They stay in our hotels, they buy our goods, they visit our 

parks, they visit our national parks, they visit our five-star beaches, they eat at our restaurants, and do a lot of other things as well. 

They do a lot of those things in Delaware, I might add. All in all, 

the Visa Waiver tourists support more than a half million American jobs. 

But the Visa Waiver Program is more than just a revenue generator. It also serves as an important national security tool for our 

country. When countries participate in the Visa Waiver Program, 

they must implement and maintain strong travel screening measures. More importantly, these countries must share robust amounts 

of traveler information with the United States—information that 

we would likely not otherwise get. This valuable information has 

proven to be essential to our counterterrorism officials as they seek 

to prevent foreign threats from crossing our borders. 

With that said, the threats that we face from terrorists have 

evolved during the life of this program. When the Visa Waiver Program was enhanced in 2007, the preeminent threat to our homeland was from al-Qaeda’s central branch led by Osama bin Laden. 

As we know, today bin Laden is no more. al-Qaeda’s core branch 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been severely weakened. But in 

their place, al-Qaeda splinter groups in places like the Middle East 

and in Africa have arisen and adopted new tactics that pose new 

threats for our country. 

Today, we face the threat posed by ISIS and its determination 

to use social media to rally recruits and to incite attacks against 
167 

the West, including attacks by individuals who live in Visa Waiver 

countries. Moreover, conflicts in Syria and Iraq have attracted 

thousands of foreign fighters from all across the world who have 

now joined the ranks of those who wish to do us harm here at 

home. According to reports, more than 3,400 foreign fighters have 

traveled from Western countries to join in these conflicts. Many of 

these countries have Visa Waiver privileges with the United States. 

As the number of foreign fighters grows, so do the concerns that 

the fighters from Western countries may use the Visa Waiver Program to bypass our screening efforts at consular posts abroad, 

where State Department officials have the first opportunity to identify dangerous travelers. Late last year, the Department of Homeland Security took steps to enhance the requirements of the Visa 

Waiver Program to directly address the new threats that we face. 

I commend the Department for proactively taking these measures. 

This hearing is an opportunity for us to examine the Visa Waiver 

Program more closely and to see if there are some additional steps 

that we can and should take to improve the program and to ensure 

that it continues to evolve and adapt as our enemies and their tactics do the same. We will never make the program perfect, but our 

goal should be to see if we can create, to paraphrase our Founding 

Fathers, a more perfect program. 

This hearing is also an example to remember that the Visa Waiver Program does not exist in a vacuum. There are many layers to 

the Department of Homeland Security’s system for securing our 

borders. That includes robust intelligence collection and analysis, 

passenger prescreening, and inspections by Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP) officers at our ports of entry (POE). Each of these 

layers contributes to our overall security. 

But we should strive for smart improvements where we can. 

With each of the Department’s key programs, however, we must 

strike the appropriate balance between security and commerce, between risk and opportunity. 

Again, we appreciate you holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman, 

and for all who have joined us here today. And, again, thank you, 

Kelly. 

Chairman JOHNSON. It is the tradition of this Committee to 

swear in witnesses, so if you will stand and raise your right hand. 

Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I do. 

Mr. FREY. I do. 

Mr. JENKINS. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. You may sit. 

Our first witness will be the Honorable Michael Chertoff. Mr. 

Chertoff served as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009. Currently he is the executive chairman and 

co-founder of the Chertoff Group. 

Mr. Secretary, please proceed. 
168 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 212. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL CHERTOFF,1 COFOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, THE CHERTOFF 

GROUP 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Carper. It is a real privilege to be back in front of this 

Committee again, and I am delighted to be of assistance here. I 

would just observe that my views here are based on my experience 

as Secretary of Homeland Security as well as the experience I have 

had since I left, and as the Chairman pointed out, I do chair a security and risk management company that advises on a wide range 

of security matters, including some of those that are touched on 

here. 

I think as both the Chairman and the Ranking Member pointed 

out, we obviously are at a dangerous period of time now. And to 

go back to the Visa Waiver Program, at the time it was first created, it was when we were mainly focused on the issue of people 

coming into the United States and overstaying their visas. And we 

were looking to find out a way to maybe expedite for those countries where the risk of overstays was considered to be low. 

After September 11, 2001, obviously the issue of terrorists and 

violent actors coming into the country became a much more important feature of what we do with our border security program. And 

certainly now with the spread of Islamist terrorism in other parts 

of the world and the issue of foreign fighters, it is a very opportune 

time to look at the program and make sure that it is operating 

robustly. 

I think the good news is that the program, as Senator Carper 

said, is part of a series of layers. While we do not have the interviews you have when you typically give visas out, we have many 

more tools that we put into place since September 11, 2001 that 

give us good visibility into who comes into the country. And, in particular, there are three tools I would want to talk about. 

One is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), 

which we put into effect when I was Secretary of Homeland Security. Secretary Johnson recently added some additional information 

to be collected, and the purpose of this is to allow us to get some 

advance notice of people who are eligible to come in under visa 

waiver, but as to whom with some biographic data we can run 

against various intelligence databases. And that gives us a little bit 

of early warning and an ability to triage with respect to people that 

need a closer look. 

In fact, just earlier this year, somebody seeking to come across 

the land border who was a person of interest was able to be observed and detained because we had that advance word from the 

ESTA Program. So that has worked as an effective tool in giving 

us some advance warning for our intelligence analysis. 

Added to that is the collection and analysis of Passenger Name 

Record (PNR) data. That is data that is collected by the airlines. 

It includes information about contact, telephone numbers, residence, past travel, method of payment, and how payment is executed. And, again, these data items, although they are not particular intrusive, when added to the intelligence we collect from a 
169 

wide variety of other sources, give us an ability to show linkages 

between people coming into the United States and others who we 

know to be terrorists. 

In fact, we ran an experiment when I was Secretary looking back 

at the 9/11 hijackers to see whether we would have been able to 

establish links among them had we had the PNR program in effect 

at the time that they were coming into the country. And at least 

11 of them we would have seen connected to each other and connected to potential terrorists. So this is a program that works, and 

it creates an additional layer of defense. 

Finally, as members of the Committee know, we have the US 

Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US–VISIT) 

Program. We now collect biometrics when people arrive at the port 

of entry. We have very skilled Customs and Border Protection inspectors who use their ability to question people as an additional 

way of ferreting out risk. And these layers taken together I think 

have been quite successful, if we look back historically, in keeping 

dangerous people out of the country. 

I should observe, of course, this does not address the issue of 

U.S. citizens who might be coming back from other places in the 

world. They obviously do not have to give their fingerprints. We do 

get their Passenger Name Record data, and that also gives us at 

least some ability to screen them as well. 

There are a couple of other things we are in the process of doing 

and can do to, again, further shore up our security. One is to expand preclearance overseas. Currently, preclearance is available in 

15 foreign airports in 6 countries, and that, just for the record, is 

a system in which people essentially go through the customs and 

immigration process before they get on the airplane. That not only 

gives us more time to evaluate people, but it actually enhances 

aviation security because we can use some of the tools we use at 

the border before people get on the airplane. 

I also have to say that it is critically important to continue to 

support our intelligence collection measures, which are a very important tool in doing what we do to secure the border. 

Let me conclude by just making two observations. Senator Carper rightly pointed out the economic benefits that accrue from the 

Visa Waiver Program, but there is also a national security benefit. 

I have had the occasion to be over in Eastern Europe and in Central Europe over the past year, and it is no secret that Vladimir 

Putin is putting on a very big push to try to woo Eastern and Central Europeans away from the alliance with the United States. And 

there is a lot of anti-Americanism now which he is propagating in 

the region. 

One of the best tools we have to keep the hearts and minds of 

the Central and Eastern Europeans oriented to the West and to the 

United States is the Visa Waiver Program. Every time I go over, 

I hear from people how grateful they are and how much it means 

to them to have been admitted to the program. To them it is the 

final badge of having joined the West. And for us to undercut that 

program would be giving Putin maybe the best gift he could get 

from a propaganda standpoint. And so I think from that perspective as well, this is a very important program for the United 

States. 
170 

1The prepared statement of Dr. Frey appears in the Appendix on page 219. 

Thank you very much. I am happy to answer questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Our next witness is Marc Frey. He is the Senior Director at 

Steptoe & Johnson LLP and former Director of the Visa Waiver 

Program. Dr. Frey. 

TESTIMONY OF MARC E. FREY, PH.D.,1 SENIOR DIRECTOR, 

STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP 

Dr. FREY. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the Committee. It is an honor to be here today, 

in particular to be on this distinguished panel. I was at the Department directing the Visa Waiver Program during the time we implemented many of the reforms that the Secretary just talked about, 

and so I want to spend a few minutes this morning talking in a 

little bit more depth about those reforms, because as you both 

noted, this is a timely hearing, and it is our responsibility to continually evaluate security programs like the VWP to see what we 

can do better and make sure that they are adapted to the current 

threat environment. 

I think the good news in this case is that there is a history of 

Congress and the Executive Branch working together with the 

VWP to do just that, most notably in 2007, and that led to some 

of the enhancements like ESTA and a few others, which I want to 

spend a few minutes talking about, because, in my view, education 

about the VWP is critical. How it works, it is often misunderstood. 

Perhaps that has something to do with the name. People think 

‘‘waiver,’’ and the view is, well, you can just wave a passport and 

get on a plane and come to the United States and security requirements are waived as part of the program. 

As the Secretary indicated, and as I am sure we are going to 

hear from other panelists, that is precisely the opposite of the case. 

The Visa Waiver Program does waive a consular interview, but it 

puts a number of other security measures in its place to compensate for that. And it puts requirements on both individual travelers and, equally important, on the countries that they come from. 

So I just want to spend a minute or two talking about what those 

additional security requirements are so we can fully understand 

what the Visa Waiver Program does and use that as the basis to 

think about common-sense improvements to it in today’s environment. 

So the first security component I would mention is ESTA. The 

Secretary already pointed to this Electronic System for Travel Authorization that allows individualized prescreening of travelers, so 

we know when they are coming, they have to go online and submit 

information, and DHS runs that against a number of security and 

law enforcement databases. 

The Visa Waiver Program also mandates information and intelligence sharing with participating countries, and that is good on its 

own, but it is equally—or it is even better, I should say, in part 

because DHS is able to use that information to inform the ESTA 

vetting, the idea being that the United Kingdom or France, for example, would have a better idea of the bad guys in their country 
171 

than we would, and they are required to share that information 

with us, and we use that to improve our vetting and screening 

processes. 

The third element that I think is important to talk about is the 

secure travel documents, in particular the electronic passports incorporating biometric elements—fingerprints and digital photographs—that help assure identity of travelers under the Visa Waiver Program. If you are coming from a non-visa waiver country, you 

do not have these same documentary requirements to ensure secure passports. 

And the final thing—and this often gets lost—is the Visa Waiver 

Program mandates audits and assessments of participating countries, both prior to designation and then continuously during—at 

least every 2 years to maintain eligibility. And having participated 

in quite a number of these assessments, they are in-depth. A DHSled interagency team goes to the country for perhaps as long as a 

week, meets with counterterrorism officials, security officials, views 

aviation security procedures, border security procedures, passport 

production and issuance procedures, and that not only gives us visibility into how member countries operate these systems; it also 

gives us the opportunity to suggest improvements if the audit finds 

things that are lacking or that are not up to U.S. standards. And 

that is an extraordinarily powerful tool to ensuring that these 

standards in these countries and global travel standards more 

broadly are up to our standards. 

So with that as a background, I would say there are things that 

we can do with respect to the Visa Waiver Program. We have already talked about one of them. DHS last fall added new data 

fields to ESTA to help with the screening. I think that is a good 

idea and something that can continually go forward as we find we 

need more information to improve the vetting. There are other 

things that can be done such as tightening some passport security 

requirements. There is a small loophole in the current program 

that allows an increasingly small number of travelers in the program not to have these electronic passports. 

We can take some measures that were formerly discretionary in 

the law but which are, in fact, implemented by DHS in practice 

and make them mandatory to increase DHS’ leverage over these 

countries if we find something. And we can talk about more of 

those during the question-and-answer period. I would just reiterate 

what the Secretary said in particular. There are ways to reform the 

program sensibly, but we should not lose sight of the fact that it 

works, and we should not lose sight of the fact that steps to end, 

suspend, or terminate the program would have security consequences that would really undermine our security, to say nothing 

of our diplomatic relationships and our economic security as well. 

So with that said, thank you again for letting me testify today, 

and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. I mispronounced your name Dr. 

Frey. I apologize. 

And I have also been made aware of the fact that the Ambassador of Poland, Ambassador Schnepf, is in the audience as well, 

and I realize that Poland has certainly an interest in this hearing 

as well, and I think we are sensitive to that. 
172 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins appears in the Appendix on page 228. 

Our next witness is Brian Jenkins, a Senior Adviser to the 

RAND president at the RAND Corporation. Also, he is a Research 

Associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute, where he directs 

the continuing research on protecting surface transportation 

against terrorist attacks. Mr. Jenkins. 

TESTIMONY OF BRIAN MICHAEL JENKINS,1 SENIOR ADVISER 

TO THE PRESIDENT, THE RAND CORPORATION 

Mr. JENKINS. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you very much for 

the opportunity to address this important subject today. 

The written testimony I have provided addresses two fundamental questions: One, what is the threat posed by Western fighters who have joined jihadist fronts in Syria and Iraq? And, two, 

what can the United States do to enhance its ability to identify and 

intercept returning foreign fighters with passports from European 

and other countries that are currently covered by the Visa Waiver 

Program? 

Let us begin with the threat. Syria’s continuing civil war, the 

military victories achieved by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and, above all, ISIL’s announced re-creation of the Caliphate have attracted would-be jihadist warriors from around the 

world. 

According to the latest estimates, 20,000 foreign fighters have 

gone from other countries to fight in Syria and Iraq. Most are believed to have joined ISIL. If that number is close to correct, then 

foreign fighters now comprise a large portion of ISIL’s total 

strength. Most of these are volunteers coming from other Arab 

countries, but more than 3,000 come from Europe and other Western countries and, therefore, may be eligible to enter the United 

States without a visa. 

This is a dangerous bunch. ISIL recruits individuals who are not 

repelled by graphic images of mass executions, beheadings, burnings, and who indeed may be attracted by the opportunities to participate in that kind of violence. And that is going to pose a longterm terrorist threat. 

For now, rather than sending fighters abroad, ISIL appears more 

focused on the expansion and defense of the territory it controls as 

the Islamic State. However, ISIL may at some point alter its strategy and, of course, its defeat could shatter the enterprise into a 

host of small, desperate groups bent upon revenge. 

Some ISIL fighters will migrate to other fronts. Western volunteers may try to come home. Fortunately, the number of individuals coming from the United States to jihadist fronts is low, between 100 and 150, according to the most recent estimates. They 

add a layer of threat, but given they are still modest numbers, it 

is manageable, I think, within existing law and resources. And as 

our focus here is on visa waiver, returning Americans are a separate problem, although one that should be part of an overall strategy. 

As Secretary Chertoff has pointed out, there are several lines of 

defense, each of which offers opportunities to intercept foreign 
173 

fighters. The first consists simply of all international efforts, here 

and abroad, to reduce the number of volunteers going to jihadist 

fronts. Second, the United States could also and is pushing to increase international efforts to prevent their return, not come back 

here but simply to come back to their countries of origin. Right 

now, Turkey is key to stemming that flow. 

Meanwhile, intelligence sources may identify groups engaged in 

planning terrorist attacks against the West and try to disrupt their 

plots there instead of here. 

Lists of names derived from intelligence sources are currently the 

primary mechanism for identifying returning foreign fighters. We 

need to be sure we know who has gone and who has come back. 

Now, America’s visa waiver partners do share our concerns. In 

the wake of the recent terrorist attacks, European nations have 

taken steps to reduce radicalization, improve intelligence, increase 

criminal penalties, impose administrative measures to prevent 

travel, and enhance information collection and sharing. 

The Electronic System for Travel Authorization offers the rough 

equivalent of a visa application, and information through ESTA, as 

the Secretary has mentioned and Dr. Frey has mentioned, is 

checked against terrorism databases. Matches have been found, 

preventing potential terrorists from entering the United States. 

Pre-boarding passenger screening also offers possibilities. We 

currently rely on matching names with current watchlists. What 

about the instances where we do not have a name on a list? 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has invested 

in a number of measures aimed at screening and behavioral detection training. There are a number of new technologies based upon 

detecting subtle physiological responses to prompts. These are in 

development, but we still do not have an X-ray for a man’s soul. 

Instead of flagging those who may pose higher risk, we can try 

to identify populations of passengers who pose minimal risk, thereby allowing security officials to more efficiently focus their efforts. 

Preclearance procedures, which the Secretary has mentioned, 

allow passengers to complete immigration and customs formalities 

before boarding. They provide opportunities for observation and 

interviews. 

Arrival screening and secondary interviews by U.S. immigration 

and customs officials offer the final line of defense before entry into 

the United States. And if all else fails, arriving terrorists would 

still have to acquire weapons or explosives here, which would increase their risks of exposure to domestic intelligence efforts. 

Now, no doubt many of these elements, as has been mentioned, 

are already being examined by those in government. But from the 

perspective of congressional oversight, it is worth asking whether 

such examinations are, in fact, occurring, and the challenge for us 

will be to integrate them into a national strategy. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. 

I will start with the questioning. We are comparing a Visa Program versus a Visa Waiver Program. I would like whoever thinks 

they are best to answer this question. I want that exact comparison. Mr. Jenkins, you talked about lines of defenses. Compare, for 

example, what happens today in Poland where they do not have a 
174 

Visa Waiver Program in terms of one of their citizens trying to get 

into the United States. What are they going through versus what 

is a citizen of the United Kingdom going through? And where is the 

enhanced security versus where are the vulnerabilities of going 

through the actual visa process versus the visa waiver? Let us start 

with you, Secretary Chertoff. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I would say, Mr. Chairman, the main difference 

is in the interview. What ESTA does in effect is it collects the same 

basic information you would normally collect in a visa process, but 

you will have an interview with a consular official if you are in a 

visa country. That often tends to be, from a scheduling standpoint 

and a distance standpoint, a little bit of an impediment, which is 

one of the reasons countries like to be in the Visa Waiver Program. 

Now, does an interview at the time of the visa add something? 

Yes, although we do interview people when they come into the 

United States, and if we do preclearance, we interview them before 

they board the plane. 

Is the interview foolproof? No. I mean, if you look back to 9/11, 

some of the hijackers got into the country with visas. They were 

obviously interviewed. 

So I would say the marginal value of the interview, at least as 

it relates to terrorism issues, is to my mind not great. And remember, the process of having these kinds of interviews originally 

began at a time we were focused on people who were going to overstay. They were going to come to the United States and not leave, 

and they did not have a job at home, although, I do not want to 

understate the value of the interview, particularly in some countries. And I know we have, for example, DHS personnel in some 

of the Middle Eastern countries who do some interviewing and 

some work with the local intelligence agencies. I think at least as 

it relates to Western Europe, it is of marginal value. But the measures put in place since then coupled with our better intelligence 

analytic capabilities I think largely closes that gap. 

Chairman JOHNSON. During those in-person interviews, basically 

do we fill out an ESTA application so that the result of that is you 

basically go into the exact same process, exact same security system as we have with the Visa Waiver Program but you just have 

that additional in-person interview? Is it the exact same way that 

way, or are there differences? Dr. Frey, you are shaking your head. 

Dr. FREY. Yes, I am sorry. I am nodding. Yes, Chairman, that is 

generally right. I would say a couple of points to that. 

One, the VWP deals with one particular category of visa, the socalled B visa for business or tourism purposes up to 90 days. So 

even in visa waiver countries, if personnel are coming for other reasons, they still have to go through the visa process. Just so we are 

clear on the scope of what we are talking about. And ESTA gives 

us and gives the government enough information to run the vetting 

against the same databases that the visa applicants are run 

against. There are other questions on the visa form, but most of 

those related, as the Secretary noted, to economic issues, do you 

have a job at home, do you have a house, things like that. And so 

the vetting is precisely the same. And then once you are done with 

that process, the layers that we have been hearing about that CBP 

performs, the PNR vetting, the airline information vetting, the vet-
175 

ting done at the ports of entry, that is precisely the same for all 

travelers, whether they come with a visa or with a Visa Waiver 

Program. 

And I guess the final thing I would add, for an apples-to-apples 

comparison, is the interview, which, again, you should not discount 

the interview, but that happens the first time you apply. And many 

of these citizens from these countries get 10-year visas that are 

good for multiple entries during those 10 years. 

So after that first time, it is essentially like VWP anyway without the additional ESTA every 2 years. 

Chairman JOHNSON. With 40 percent of travelers going through 

the Visa Waiver Program, with that statistic, with that reality 

right now, are we already having backlogs in certain embassies in 

terms of the non-visa waiver countries where there may be pressure on embassy and consulate personnel to quickly do an interview and not be as thorough as what might be required with the 

Visa Waiver Program? Is that a possibility? And if we were to move 

away from a Visa Waiver Program, would we start overwhelming 

the system and potentially reduce security? Mr. Jenkins. 

Mr. JENKINS. In all of these matters of the screening processes 

and intelligence processes, volume is an issue. And if we were to 

take the statistics that were cited at the introduction to this hearing, if we were to take the 19 million people currently traveling to 

the United States on the Visa Waiver Program and dump them 

back into the consular interview process, we would either have a 

tremendous backlog or we would end up really overwhelming the 

consular capability to handle that kind of volume, and then you 

worry about an erosion of performance. 

So while I agree that the interview process is an important component to expand its capacity to deal with the kinds of volumes 

that it would be faced with, it would not guarantee us necessarily 

an improvement in performance. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I am concerned right now. Are there countries where there is such a backlog? Have you heard reports where 

people are not being thoroughly interviewed, where even just the 

visa system itself might create a greater security risk than having 

a Visa Waiver Program? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I think probably the State Department is best positioned to answer this, but I have certainly heard over the years 

in certain countries complaining about long wait periods, the lack 

of availability of consular offices in remote areas. I think they have 

moved to some degree to doing it via, telepresence of some kind. 

But all these things do wind up—there is a risk of eroding the 

value of the interview. And, again, the more skilled the person trying to get in is, the harder it is to detect it. 

So there is no question that dumping more people into the system would run the risk of actually affecting even those interviews 

that continue to operate in visa waiver countries because, as Dr. 

Frey said, we do interview for visas other than the quick tourist 

or business visa. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, Mr. Secretary, I went a little over 

time. I know you have to leave for a plane. Having been the Secretary—boy, I just lost my train of thought in terms of what I 
176 

wanted to ask you. I am not kidding. I will come back right after 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Where are you going on the plane? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I am headed to the Midwest. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I do not need a visa to go there. 

Senator CARPER. Good. I just want to follow-up on the Chairman’s question. Folks on our Committee here and my staff hears 

me say ad nauseam, find out what works, do more of that; find out 

what does not work, do less of that. And I like to quote the former 

football coach for the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, who 

used to say, ‘‘If we are not keeping score, we are just practicing.’’ 

So I want to talk about keeping score. I want to talk about how 

we measure success and how do we know that this is a successful 

program, and that would be just for you, Dr. Frey, and Mr. Jenkins. How do we know this is working? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Well, I guess the best measure is we have had 

very little penetration into the country by people who have been 

able to evade our current systems and come in and carry out terrorist acts. I lived through the 2006 aviation plot, which, as you 

will recall, involved efforts to blow planes up, I guess a dozen 

planes going from Heathrow to the United States. That was foiled 

in Great Britain. But we were able to use the data and the information that we had collected using these kinds of systems like 

PNR to assure ourselves there were no people operating in the 

United States and to allow us to restore the aviation system very 

quickly. 

To be honest, the cases we have had here where people have carried out or attempted to carry out terrorist attacks have largely 

been U.S. citizens or people who are permanent residents who do 

not go through that system. 

So I think that is the best measure of success. As I indicated earlier, I had a recent example this year of somebody caught from this 

system. I think the PNR data has generated our stopping people 

or preventing them from coming in. I do not have the most recent 

statistics, but I do know that we monitor those things very carefully to make sure that the program is effective. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Dr. Frey, do you want to add anything or take away anything 

there? 

Dr. FREY. Thank you, Senator. I guess I would just add that if 

you are looking to measure success, let us think about examples 

over the last few years or perhaps even decade of people abusing 

the Visa Waiver Program and posing a security threat. And, frankly, I cannot think of one except going all the way back to Richard 

Reid, the so-called Shoe Bomber. When was that? December 2001, 

well before any—not any, but most of the security enhancements 

we have been talking about today were put into place. And, in fact, 

it was incidents like that which led to precisely these security enhancements. 

So I would say that the measure is that it has now been a decade 

and a half or so since we have had at least a public issue with respect to someone trying to abuse the Visa Waiver Program. 

Senator CARPER. Good. 
177 

Mr. CHERTOFF. And I would actually add one thing, because we 

did have the so-called Underwear Bomber in 2009, but he came 

from a non-visa waiver country. He was based in Nigeria. So, 

again, even getting a visa is not a foolproof system. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Mr. Jenkins, do you want to add anything, just briefly? 

Mr. JENKINS. No, just the analytical problem here. It is always 

difficult to measure success because we cannot count things that do 

not occur. But the fact is if we do look back at the history, let us 

say, going back to 9/11, No. 1, most of the events that have occurred here have been carried out by U.S. citizens, and it has not 

been—with the exception of the one event that Dr. Frey talked 

about, we have not had people coming in on visa waiver that have 

carried out attacks in this country. 

Senator CARPER. OK. This program has been around for a while, 

as we said earlier, and each of you has mentioned enhancements 

that have been made to it. This is not our grandfather’s Visa Waiver Program. It is quite different. 

In addition to the enhancements that have been made, each of 

you has mentioned—one or two of you have mentioned enhancements that perhaps could be made or should be made. One of the 

things I like to do in a hearing of this nature with smart witnesses, 

experienced witnesses, is to see is there any consensus among the 

three of you as to what further we should do or the Department 

should do to make it even better? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Well, again, I think from a legislative standpoint, 

I think Dr. Frey pointed out that there are some things that are 

discretionary on the part of DHS that putting into law has some 

particular value, and that is because particularly when we require 

other countries to cooperate with us, supply information or things 

of that sort—and I spent a considerable amount of time when I was 

in office negotiating with other countries—sometimes having a legislative requirement as opposed to an administrative requirement 

gives you a little bit more leverage to say, look, we have to do this, 

it is a matter of law. 

So to me, I think it is a great area where the Department can 

cooperate with the Committee and say, look, here are some areas 

that we would like to pursue; if they can be embodied in an authorization bill, that will give us a better ability to work with countries 

overseas and make sure they cooperate with us. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Dr. Frey, same question. And you can agree. You can just say, 

‘‘I agree with him.’’ 

Dr. FREY. Well, of course I do. [Laughter.] 

I do think that is right. I think there are some things DHS can 

do and has done on their own, and we have talked about the 

changes to ESTA, and I think they can continue to do things like 

that, and should. 

But, for example, one of the things where they probably could do 

it by themselves but where legislative backing would be useful is 

closing this passport loophole that I mentioned. And just to discuss 

that very briefly, all Visa Waiver Program travelers for the most 

part are required to use these electronic passports. There is a small 

percentage who have a passport issued prior to October 2006 that, 
178 

because of the way the law was implemented, were grandfathered 

in. That number is decreasing every day because those passports 

are expiring, and once you have to get a new one, you must get an 

electronic passport. But there are still people who potentially have 

one of these older-style passports. 

DHS could probably decide to change that policy on its own, but 

that may be—because it will affect a number of people, may be 

something that legislation helps. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Mr. Jenkins. 

Mr. JENKINS. First would be fully exploiting the PNR data that 

we get. I served on the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, and we had recommended the introduction of the 

Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, which worked 

for a while, but it has been changed over the years. It depended 

primarily on information from the PNR. 

The PNR itself is being changed in Europe. They are adding 

fields to it, and they are looking at longer periods of retention, and 

we should make sure that we are able to take advantage of the improvements that they are making, and that we look at how we can 

tweak or develop algorithms that will enable us to focus on the specific issue of returning foreign fighters, not simply those, as we 

used it before, who might sabotage an aircraft or hijack an aircraft, 

but looking specifically at that issue. 

The other thing is that the United States is a big, complex government, and it has all of these bits and pieces. You really have 

to think of how we can take all these pieces and incorporate them 

into a national strategy focused on this specific issue. So making 

sure all of the components are working together to contribute to an 

overall strategy of intercepting foreign fighters I think is something 

we need to look at. 

Senator CARPER. Great. I am going to slip out. We have a Finance Committee hearing going on right now on tax reform, and 

it is an ongoing hearing. It has been going on about 20 years, so 

I want to be a part of that. But I will be back in. So if I miss you 

before you leave, thanks a million. Thanks for your service to our 

country. Good to see you all. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. My senior moment passed almost immediately. The reason I wanted to catch the 

Secretary before he leaves, coming from a manufacturing background, I am familiar with ISO certification, and that occurs—I 

think the full audit is once every 2 or 3 years, but then you have 

6-month surveillance audits. In testimony in prior meetings, these 

evaluations, these audits, occur every 2 years. Would it be much 

of a burden to go in with a skinnied-down team, at least doing a 

surveillance audit every 6 months just to keep things up to date? 

Would that have value or would that be too great a burden on the 

Department? Would that be a good idea? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I think in terms of the Department’s current resources, you will have to ask them in terms of, obviously we are 

all living in a time of budget discipline, and all these things cost 

money. I think, within reason, increasing the frequency at least of 

light surveillance audits always adds value. The challenge is, of 

course, if you are overseas and dealing with host countries, they 

have their own issues. But I think in principle, at least asking the 
179 

question and saying what additional could be done between 2-year 

periods is a good way of remediating problems that may be cropping up that you are not aware of. And I would say that after what 

happened in Europe in the last few months, the Europeans may be 

more in a mind-set to work with us on that than would have been 

the case perhaps a couple of years ago. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank the Chairman for holding this 

hearing, and I want to thank all of you for being here today. And 

I wanted to get your thoughts on the issue of the roughly 3,000 estimated so-called Western foreign fighters that would include even 

countries, like France and others in the European context. The 

issue that troubles me I do not think goes directly to the Visa 

Waiver Program, but I think all of you can help me understand 

how it fits with that and what we can do about it, and that is the 

issue—if you look at, for example, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, you 

have individuals in France, but the allegations are that some of 

them traveled to Yemen to get training with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. 

So those borders are relatively porous. Whether you are trying 

to go into Syria through Turkey or some other means or you are 

slipping into Yemen, how do we get at information and how does 

the Visa Waiver Program assist us or not assist us overall in not 

only, where is your country of origin, where is your home, what are 

you doing right now, but to indicate whether they have country 

hopped and whether they have traveled to other countries and received training? 

Now, to me, that goes to the heart of intelligence, and I will tell 

you, Secretary Chertoff, in having in both classified and unclassified settings asked our intelligence officials about this issue, we are 

not getting full information. They cannot tell me—they know more 

about the American citizens than they do necessarily about the Europeans. And so if you can help me understand, how do we in the 

context of the Visa Waiver Program look at that particular countryhopping issue, to have the information, to ensure that we know 

what someone’s history is when they come in? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. This is a challenging area, and I think you are 

quite right to focus on it. Part of it is, of course, what the Europeans themselves collect. Part of it is the fact that, we in the 

United States have an advantage that at some point if you want 

to get to the Middle East, you are going to have to cross an ocean. 

And unless you swim, you are going to need to get on an airplane. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. So that is going to be data somewhere. Not true 

in Europe, and there are—not only Turkey but, for example, Greece 

I think does not have a particularly robust system. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. So I would say there are a number of measures 

that need to take place. One is the Europeans need to raise their 

game a little bit, and we need to have not only more exchange of 

information about the kind of travel you are describing, but we 

need to help them collect better. Now, that is only going to deal 
180 

with part of the problem. The other parts of the problem will deal 

with people who transit, let us say, by getting on a boat, which you 

can do in a place like Greece and Turkey and going someplace else. 

But that is where financial data, communications data, things like 

that give you additional granularity. 

Now, that plunges us into this big controversy about the collection of meta data, and I must tell you that the ability to collect 

meta data is a huge advantage, and efforts made to prevent us 

from doing that in Europe is really a problem. 

Senator AYOTTE. And that is in the wake of the Edward Snowden 

revelations. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Correct. And part of the problem is people ask 

the wrong question. They say, well, does the collection of this data 

lead immediately to the disruption of a plot? That is not what the 

data does. What it does allow you to do is exactly what you are 

talking about: look at communication, finance, and travel arrangements that are held in databases and see whether these indicate 

that somebody has an unexplained absence, a disruption of behavior, or some indication that money or communications are emanating from a place like Yemen. It does not mean that the person 

does not have an innocent explanation, but that is exactly what you 

need when you are looking for a needle in a haystack. 

And I guess my bottom line is if you are looking for needles in 

haystacks, you have to make sure you have the whole haystack. 

And that is an area where I think we and the Europeans need to 

make sure we are not handicapping ourselves because of the 

Snowden stuff. 

Senator AYOTTE. Other thoughts? 

Mr. JENKINS. A couple of things. Some of the problems that were 

illustrated in the Charlie Hebdo attack, first of all, the French authorities in particular—and there is a handful of countries in Europe that are just sending tremendous numbers of foreign fighters. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. France happens to be one of them. 

Mr. JENKINS. Right. And they are really being overwhelmed to a 

degree by volume. Indeed, there was a public statement most recently by the Prime Minister of France that said he would not be 

surprised to see the number of fighters from Europe going to the 

so-called Islamic State increase to 10,000 by the end of the year. 

So these are just huge numbers, and it is difficult to keep them 

under surveillance and keep track, effectively monitor all of them. 

The second problem that they have that was apparent in the 

Charlie Hebdo attack is persistence. I mean, the Kouachi brothers 

had been on the French radar for more than 10 years before this 

attack. They had been arrested. One of them had served time in 

jail. They had been under surveillance for years, and—— 

Senator AYOTTE. And I believe one or more of them were also on 

our no-fly, so that is a good thing. 

Mr. JENKINS. Yes. They were on our list as well, and so the problem is, as I say, this persistence. This is a long-term issue, and because somebody does not necessarily do something for 6 months 

does not necessarily mean they should fall off the radar. Now, that 

creates some dilemmas for civil liberties, I realize, but it is an 

issue. 
181 

The second thing—and Secretary Chertoff referred to this—in 

terms of land borders, we can be of assistance to a number of our 

European allies, particularly those who are on the front line, 

Greece and Bulgaria, who have land borders with Turkey, and help 

them deal with this issue. We are, I understand, providing some 

training now to some border security issues in Bulgaria. We can 

also work with Turkey, because, as I say, they are on the front line. 

And I understand that the cooperation there is improving recently. 

The third area is in terms of these roundabout, indirect travel 

ways. The young man who carried out the attack on the Jewish 

museum, killing people in Belgium, he had gone on a roundabout 

way of travel, and so this is not simply looking at trying to plug 

these gaps by looking at visa waiver countries, but being able—and 

this is where PNRs become helpful; this is where intelligence sharing becomes helpful—to be able to pick up people who may fly from 

the Middle East to Southeast Asia back to another country and 

then up into yet another country, not necessarily their home European country. And so we want to be able to pick that up. 

And then, finally, this issue of sharing, this is always a complicated business in the area of intelligence, the sharing arrangements, but the Europeans are having some difficulty sharing information with each other on this issue. Intelligence is one of the last 

bastions of sovereignty, and in some cases, because of visa waiver, 

it is easier for them on a bilateral basis to share with us than it 

is to join a common 28-nation European sharing system. And so we 

have to be able to help out in this. 

Senator AYOTTE. I am sorry. I know my—go ahead. 

Dr. FREY. I am sorry, too. I just wanted to elaborate on two quick 

points, particularly with what Mr. Jenkins said. 

No. 1, information sharing and intelligence sharing is a requirement of visa waiver countries, and that gives us potential leverage. 

For example, if the intelligence community or if DHS is reporting, 

well, we are not getting everything we think we should be getting, 

the VWP allows you to use that tool to say, well, you are required 

to do so, please give it to us. 

And the second thing I would add quickly is the inspections and 

the audits we talked about give our government much greater visibility into which of these countries do this well, identify and track 

foreign fighters, and which do not, which then leads to, OK, we 

need to help Greece with additional training or we need to help 

Belgium put in a system to help track fighters. So we would lose 

that visibility into how these countries do this work without the insight the Visa Waiver Program gives us. 

Senator AYOTTE. I know my time is well expired, but I hear two 

things from asking the three of you these questions. 

No. 1, to Secretary Chertoff’s point that perhaps we can put legislatively the intelligence-sharing requirement rather than just 

through the Department rulemaking, and a way we can work with 

the Department on that to allow them to sort of say here is the 

teeth of what we need to do to fulfill our responsibility. 

And, second of all, I think perhaps working together better on 

the PNR information and sharing among countries and our own 

gathering of that information as we look at the challenge of people 

kind of traveling around in different areas. 
182 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. Senator Booker. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOOKER 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, 

Senator Ayotte, for initiating this very important discussion. It is 

great to see the panelists, and I appreciate your testimony so far. 

I just want to hone in on one issue around illegal immigration 

and the problem we have in this country. So much of the focus is 

border crossings on our Southern Border, but the reality is about 

40 percent of the illegal immigration population is due to visa 

overstays. 

So, again, being a little bit new here, I know there have been lots 

of congressional committees that have requested individual overstay rates for VWP countries. However, the Department of Homeland Security has not provided this data, citing a lack of confidence 

in the collection figures. 

Mr. Chertoff, I understand you are leaving, and you would not 

need a visa to come back to Jersey, either. But could you maybe 

shed some light on this for me? You are no longer with the agency, 

obviously, but can you speak to why it is so hard to collect this, 

what I consider very critical data? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. This issue has been discussed for years now, and 

it has to do with the exit process. How do we record when people 

exit the country? 

Right now we have the biographic process for exit as opposed to 

a biometric process for entrance. So if you come in from a foreign 

country by air or by sea, you have to give your fingerprints. If you 

come in by land and you are not a Canadian or a Mexican, you 

have to give your fingerprints. But there is no exit requirement. 

There is no requirement to give your fingerprints when you leave. 

In the air domain, if memory serves me, we get it biographically, 

because the manifest will tell you who leaves. But there is always 

the potential that there will be a mix-up with respect to the name 

or it will not correlate with the entrance. 

If you leave by the land border, we do not really record your exit, 

and we have not built an exit facility. We have talked over the 

years about cooperating with the Canadians and the Mexicans so 

that they could exchange who is crossing the land border there, 

and we could get a better picture. 

In terms of putting US–VISIT biometrics in departure, the obstacle has typically been money, and the fact that the airlines have 

often resisted it on the ground they think it is going to be cumbersome. 

I will tell you, traveling around the world quite a bit, almost 

every other country I am in does have some exit process where you 

have to leave. So, again, if we had the willpower and the money, 

we could get a better sample of who leaves. 

The one thing I will, however, underscore is this: For understandable reasons, the emphasis has mainly been in preventing 

dangerous people from getting in. Once they are in and they have 

90 days, let us say, legitimately to be here, they can do a lot of 

damage in 90 days. So it is perhaps to be expected that, to the extent that there has been an investment of resources, it has been 
183 

largely on the preventing bad people from coming inside and not 

so much worrying about the overstays who are not causing harm 

but maybe violating the terms of their admission. 

Senator BOOKER. And ‘‘not causing harm’’ is, I guess, a relative 

term. Obviously, we are concerned about terrorism. But there are 

folks who come here legally and stay here for years and years and 

intend not to leave. One could say that is a violation of the law, 

obviously. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Yes. 

Senator BOOKER. And it is problematic. And so I am wondering— 

and maybe, Mr. Chairman, you can comment, and also Dr. Frey 

and Mr. Jenkins as well—is there a legislative role for us with the 

Visa Waiver Program? Could Congress add a requirement for low 

visa overstay rates to be a part of the program and drill down more 

deeply in what we as Congress require to be a part of the program? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I may be mistaken about this, but my recollection 

is that actually there was legislation at the time we expanded the 

program that requires visa exit, US–VISIT exit to be implemented, 

and the obstacle has been that money has not been appropriated 

for it. So if Congress wanted to actually authorize it and appropriate the money for it, I think that you could get it over a period 

of years. 

Senator BOOKER. Dr. Frey, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Dr. FREY. Yes, Senator. I think the Secretary is right. There are 

a number of requirements in current law both for DHS to publish 

overstay rates and for the Department to implement an exit system, both biographic and, then particularly with respect to the 

VWP, biometric. I am not sure what another requirement would do 

because the problem is one of resources primarily than it is meeting a particular congressional mandate. 

I do think it has been a difficult problem. There have been steps 

working with Canada, for example, to record entries into Canada, 

obviously as exits from the United States, and that has been kicked 

off in the last couple of years to help us improve our data. 

For Visa Waiver Program travelers, obviously 99 percent probably plus are by air. People do not come here via the land border 

for visa waiver. That gives us a better sense of who is coming and 

who is leaving, but the airline manifests, some have problems. 

Some airlines do a better job than others is getting us complete 

manifests or manifests without errors. But I think that is slowly 

improving as well. 

Senator BOOKER. Mr. Chairman, I will let Senator Ernst go, but 

I just have to say it seems with great alacrity we seem to appropriate a lot of money for the Southern Border. But when we have 

40 percent of our illegal immigration coming through air travel, especially through air travel, through places like LaGuardia and this 

great airport in New Jersey called Newark, that we should be focusing some of our resources where the actual problem is. And I 

just would like to note for the record I hope it is something that 

this Committee can focus on to deal with that problem. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, I do not want to leave this moment 

pass here. Does anybody know what the estimated cost of that exit 

system would be? Have we had Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 

estimates of that or Department estimates? 
184 

Mr. CHERTOFF. I am sure someone knows; I do not. What you 

would need to do is—and it depends on how you want to implement 

it. The good news is nowadays biometric recording devices are less 

expensive and more capable. We have those, for example, with 

global entry when you come in. So the question is you would have 

to construct a system architecturally at the airport that basically 

led people, maybe when they were boarding, to give their fingerprints so there would be a record of that for international flights. 

Then you get into issues about who actually makes sure that gets 

done. Is it the airline employees? They do not want to do that. So 

it is probably a little more complicated than I can give you here, 

but I would suspect the cost is actually going down, of the infrastructure, because there is simply—biometrics are now becoming 

more ubiquitous, and it may be pretty soon you will be able to do 

it on your phone. So it is worth looking at. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. And we will start getting that 

information. It could be possibly part of our hearings on border security and immigration as well. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Ernst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important meeting today. I think this is a great discussion to have, 

very timely. I want to thank the panelists for being here today as 

well. 

I just left our Armed Services Committee hearing, and actually 

the topics really do dovetail quite nicely today because we were 

speaking with the NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM commander. 

And as Senator Booker mentioned, we are talking about the Visa 

Waiver Program. A lot of the infractions are not necessarily caused 

by those that are traveling by land. But we have so many issues 

right now with illegal immigration, with human trafficking, with 

drugs coming in from really an open or porous border. So the discussion there was there are great concerns with this. Well, maybe 

not so much by air, some of these same types of issue, but we do 

have people that are overstaying. 

There is a great concern, though—I want to follow-up with what 

Senator Ayotte was visiting with you about—in the security measures that are put in place by those members in Europe. There was 

a Washington Post article in January that talked to some of the 

failures in Europe, and, I will cite one example. There is no European No Fly List. We have a No Fly List here. They do not have 

that. And in Belgium, their law enforcement, all they do is use an 

honor code. All you have to do is say, ‘‘Oh, I am not in any trouble,’’ 

and it is OK. They do not really follow-up on anything. 

So I have real concerns that we have perhaps terrorists that are 

coming in from these European nations that have very little security or very little method of tracking. Could you maybe just speak 

a little more to that on some of these European—like the honor 

code that Belgium has or the No Fly List that is non-existent in 

Europe? Could you please give your perspective on that? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Well, the good news is we do not have an honor 

code. I mean, we get the data, and you give fingerprints, and we 
185 

do vet everybody who comes in. But I will agree that I think in Europe there is an uneven level of security. Some of it is a resource 

constraint issue. Some of it has to do with laws in terms of data 

protection and data privacy that differ among the European countries. 

One of the challenges they have under the Schengen Agreement 

is once you are in Europe, you can move freely without a border. 

That is understandably a great benefit economically, but what it 

means is your ability to protect the population within Europe is essentially subject to the lowest common denominator of who guards 

the particular border. 

Now, I do know from talking to colleagues and friends in Europe 

that they are focused on this, and they are trying to raise their 

game, so to speak, in terms of both their perimeter security and 

their ability to monitor what goes on inside. But they are contending with a very strong impulse, maybe understandable from a 

historical basis, against collecting and maintaining and retaining 

data about their citizens. And I can tell you, again, when you are 

looking for the unknown terrorist, whose name you do not have, 

the ability to correlate what I consider to be relatively trivial 

data—it is not deeply personal. But the ability to correlate that 

really does give you insight into what are the anomalies that require a closer look. 

I do think, however, that we have built the visa waiver system 

and the protections that we talked about earlier with the understanding that there are going to be unevennesses in terms of what 

the Europeans do internally and that, therefore, we are not going 

to take it on faith. We are going to make sure that everybody who 

comes in who is a citizen of a visa waiver country is going to be 

scrutinized through the processes we have talked about. 

Senator ERNST. Dr. Frey? 

Dr. FREY. Thank you, Senator. I think I would, as I guess I have 

a habit of doing during this hearing, generally agree with what the 

Secretary said. Some of the practices in Europe are uneven. Certain countries do a better job of these things than others. Some of 

that is cultural; some of it is political and otherwise. And I am 

searching my memory in part—I do not recall reading the article 

about the Belgian honor code, but having participated now several 

years back in a review of Belgium for the Visa Waiver Program, 

I do not recall that coming up or hearing about that. But that has 

been several years now. 

But what I would say is that if something like it is the case, if 

we find that a particular country’s standards are not up to our 

standards, are not up to what they need to be for Visa Waiver Program participation, the program gives us the ability and the leverage to work with those countries to help fix the problem, whether 

that is giving them our expertise, whether that is giving them some 

training, whether that is showing them how we do business successfully so that they can try and replicate it. And I think that is 

one of the real values of the program, because without that and in 

places the program does not exist, we are blind to those failures. 

So, in my view, it is better to at least know about them and then 

have the opportunity to either fix them or know that, you know 

what, for Belgian travelers, maybe we ought to institute additional 
186 

restrictions—again, hypothetically, if that happens to be the case 

for Belgium. 

Senator ERNST. Yes, thank you. 

Mr. JENKINS. Just a few things. First of all, as I mentioned before, there are difficulties in Europe in getting agreement among 

all of the nations of the EU, and so we see a number of initiatives 

that either will affect only those countries that are in Schengen or 

in some cases smaller groups of nations, some of the recent initiatives are being pursued by the Group of Nine as opposed to the 28 

European nations, because there are just historically and continuing, there are strong civil liberties-based resistance to these 

things that deal with records and data and papers and things of 

this sort. 

There is change going on, and this change is very recent, and it 

is being propelled by the events currently in Syria and Iraq. If we 

look at the time frame here, this exodus of people going from Europe to Syria and Iraq really took off in 2012, 2013. Some went earlier than that, but at the beginning stages, it was as more innocent 

thing; that is, people going to Syria in response to the brutal repression of the Assad regime. 

As that has changed, it has a more malevolent component to it, 

and so the Europeans now are just catching up with this and putting into place a number of changes that we see taking place in 

terms of all of them have new legislation in place or administrative 

procedures to try to deal with this, because they are far more 

threatened than we are. I mean, our numbers are tiny; their numbers are big. 

But, finally, to underscore the point made by Secretary Chertoff, 

it is that we, the United States, do not depend on the levels of cooperation among the European nations. Our basis is their cooperation with us on the Visa Waiver Program and other things on a bilateral basis, on intelligence exchanges, and so on. 

So whether or not Germany and Belgium and France and another country can all get together on one thing is less important 

to us—it would be nice if they could, but—and I am not even sure 

I want to say that, because, as the Secretary points out, these 

things, when you get 28 nations that have to agree, tend to go 

down to the lowest denominator, and I do not think that is necessarily the acceptable level of performance that we would accept. 

So we have our own set of demands which we can enforce and 

achieve unilaterally. 

Senator ERNST. Certainly. Thank you so much, gentlemen. I appreciate your perspective. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do believe this is an important program. I want to emphasize that. This 

is an important program. But it is critical that we are protecting 

our folks here on our own homeland. So thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ernst. 

And as Mr. Jenkins was talking about, we do have the mechanism for enforcement. We maybe ought to take a look at should we 

strengthen those enforcements. But we have suspended the Visa 

Waiver Program three times. With Argentina and Uruguay, those 

suspensions are still in effect. We did suspend the program for Belgium from 2003 to 2005. So I think that is part of the purpose of 

this hearing, should there be greater enforcement? Should we do 
187 

some things legislatively to strengthen the hand of DHS to negotiate with those countries? That is very thoughtful testimony. 

Just before I let the Secretary go to his plane, I do want to give 

you all the opportunity—if I were in the witness chair, there would 

be things I would just be thinking about, ‘‘I have to say this,’’ you 

do not necessarily get the opportunity with the questions, so I will 

just give you all the opportunity to, if there is one final comment 

you would like to make prior to being dismissed. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 

hearing. I think it is terrific that the Committee is focused on this. 

I think the one thing I would reiterate is on the positive side. We 

have spent most of the time, understandably, talking about making 

sure the security element is properly embedded in the program. 

But what is striking to me when we are strategic about our national security is the national security benefit we get from the relationships that we form here, and I am frankly dismayed by the 

level of anti-Americanism that you now find in certain parts of Europe, and that is not accidental, because I think it has been reported in the papers and my own experience is that the Russians 

really are quite systematic in using all of their levers to try to drive 

a wedge between us and certainly the Central and Eastern Europeans. They use their economic levers. They use Russia Today television. And our inviting countries into the program has been a 

major positive element in a couple of ways. First, it has sense a 

message that we view them as natural friends and allies and as 

part of the ‘‘West.’’ It has also increased travel and trade, and that 

has bound them closer to us. 

So this is not just a question of making it easy for Europeans or 

giving them a gift. This is really about advancing geopolitically 

what our interest is in terms of dealing with what is unfortunately 

an increasing threat of aggressiveness coming from Putin’s Russia. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Dr. Frey. 

Dr. FREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I would reiterate 

two things. 

First, what I said at the beginning, which is that I think in the 

visa waiver context, education is critical. It is important to understand what this program does and how it works, and, in particular, 

as I think you will hear from the next panel, how it fits into what 

DHS in particular does as part of this layered approach we have 

talked about. It cannot be viewed in isolation. It needs to be put 

in context and understand the security elements it brings and how 

those elements interact with other countries. And so I think hearings like this are excellent for that purpose. 

And the second thing I would add, actually following up on something the Secretary just said, there are very positive security benefits not only for the countries in the program, but holding the program out as an incentive for countries who want to be in the program. They begin to take steps well in advance of the program to 

elevate their security standards, to increase the security of their 

passports, to increase their information sharing with the United 

States, all with the hope of, as the Secretary said, becoming a 

member of the club and joining us. So I think that aspect is often 

missed as well, and it is valuable to keep in mind that it has prov-
188 

en to be a powerful incentive, both for our foreign policy and for 

elevating security standards. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Jenkins. 

Mr. JENKINS. In today’s conflict, there is no distinction made between the homefront and the front line anymore. So these measures that normally are not considered as part of a national security 

strategy in fact do become part of our national security strategy. 

And while clearly the Visa Waiver Program has been the focus of 

this specific hearing, nonetheless that has to be viewed within the 

context of a broader national strategy, both to deal with foreign 

fighters, but also to achieve other national security goals. And as 

I say, sometimes because of the nature of our government, we tend 

to look at these in isolation and to lose that national security sense 

of it. And that is where the Senate can be extremely helpful in ensuring that the agencies of government look at it in that fashion. 

The second point is that this conflict is going to go on. It has 

gone on for years, and it will continue in some form, morphing into 

different variations for the foreseeable future. We are going to be 

dealing with the effluent of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq for the 

foreseeable future. So this is really a long-term challenge, not 

something we are simply going to fix this year and get past it. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, thank you all for your thoughtful 

testimony. Just for the record, I want you thinking about the requirements to qualify for the Visa Waiver Program, are there any 

of those that are too high, in light of your comments, Secretary 

Chertoff? But, again, thank you for your thoughtful testimony, and 

could the next panel—— 

Senator CARPER. Could I—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Before you all leave, just one last quick one, if 

you could. I am going to give you a question for the record. We 

spend so much time, money, and energy focusing on symptoms of 

problems. We do not do a very good job drilling down on the underlying causes, the root causes of problems. And one of the good examples is the migration of folks from Honduras, Guatemala, and 

El Salvador to our border. 

I am going to give you a question for the record and ask you just 

to think for us out loud about some root causes here in this regard. 

That would be very helpful. 

The other thing, I want just a clarification, if I could, before you 

all leave. My understanding is that on the consular interviews that 

take place in other countries, they actually collect fingerprints. I 

think you have all said that they collect fingerprints as part of the 

visa project. The ESTA process, as I understand it, does not collect 

fingerprints. Could somebody clarify that for me? 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Well, you get your fingerprints collected when 

you arrive in the United States. 

Senator CARPER. Right. 

Mr. CHERTOFF. Or if you have a preclearance, you get them collected for preclearance. So they are run against a database through 

the US–VISIT program at the latest when you appear at the port 

of entry. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. 

Do you guys agree with that? Do you approve that message? 
189 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Koumans appears in the Appendix on page 239. 

Dr. FREY. I do. Yes, I think it is a question of timing. For Visa 

Waiver Program travelers, the biometrics, the fingerprints and 

photograph are taken upon entry. They are not taken as part of 

ESTA, and, frankly, it is hard to imagine, at least in the current 

technological environment and logistical environment, how it could 

be taken as part of ESTA, at least without really completely changing the way the program operates. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks so much. Good to see you all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, thank you all, and we will welcome 

the next panel. 

[Pause.] 

Again, welcome to everybody. Thank you for taking the time and 

for your testimony. We will start with Mr. Mark Koumans, who 

serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs 

at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Koumans. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK KOUMANS,1 DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF POLICY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. KOUMANS. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for your 

steadfast commitment to and support of my Department as it carries out its duties to protect the American people. 

Thank you as well for the opportunity to testify on the Visa 

Waiver Program, an important vehicle for enhanced security cooperation as the United States faces new threats. I have submitted 

a longer written statement for the record. 

Nearly 20 million travelers visit the United States each year 

without visas thanks to the three pillars of the Visa Waiver Program. Those three pillars are data, partnership, and layers of security—data about travelers and data from foreign governments, 

partnership with United States and foreign law enforcement and 

security agencies, and multiple layers of border control. 

Concerning the first pillar, data, under the appropriately named 

Secure Travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Act of 2007, DHS 

requires several different kinds of data from travelers and their 

governments. Via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, 

travelers provide information about themselves and their travel 

plans. Customs and Border Protection conducts interagency vetting 

to verify the eligibility of these travelers and their documents. Tens 

of millions of ESTAs have been approved within seconds since 

2008. Also during these years, tens of thousands of ESTAs have 

been denied for security and document reasons. 

Last November, we strengthened ESTA by adding a number of 

data fields, an effort that has identified travelers of concern. Furthermore, we require VWP countries to share terrorist information. 

Thousands of potential terrorist identities previously unknown to 

the United States have been made available to us thanks to the information sharing under these agreements. We also have criminal 

information-sharing agreements that also strengthen our ability to 

unmask unlawful travel. 
190 

Another form of data sharing is that VWP countries must report 

lost and stolen passports so that DHS can prevent the use of those 

passports for travel to the United States. 

Now let me turn to the second pillar, partnership. The agreements and the vetting I have already described are only possible 

thanks to DHS partnerships with VWP countries and also with the 

Departments of State and Justice, including the Federal Bureau of 

Investigations (FBI), as well as the intelligence community. Let me 

describe other ways that exhibit our partnership. 

DHS leads intensive interagency reviews at least once every 2 

years of VWP countries, focusing on five core areas: counterterrorism, law enforcement, border security, immigration, and travel 

document security. In between those reviews, DHS monitors all 

VWP countries to ensure compliance with program requirements 

and to collaborate to address challenges. We could not do this without our international partnerships. We seek to enhance our security as well as the security of our partners. 

European VWP countries, as well as others, share our concern 

about the threat posed by foreign fighters. These nations have 

taken steps to strengthen their abilities to detect and prevent the 

travel of these fighters, steps such as those called for under U.N. 

Security Council Resolution 2178. Countries are adopting border 

security measures that DHS already uses. Secretary Johnson has 

urged them to do so. We want them to continue, and we want to 

strengthen those moves. 

Last, let me turn to the third pillar, our layers of security, because whether travelers have an ESTA or a visa, by the time travelers arrive at U.S. airports, DHS will have had three opportunities 

to review their information: 

First, when a traveler applies for a visa or an ESTA, the United 

States conducts multiagency vetting. 

Second, when a traveler makes a flight reservation, DHS obtains 

the data from the airline and conducts additional vetting. 

Third, when a traveler checks in for a flight, now DHS obtains 

that passport swipe information and has the ability to deny boarding, and checks the names again. 

In addition, CBP has personnel stationed at key airports around 

the globe, and TSA deploys air marshals for additional layers of security. 

So those three pillars—data, partnerships, and layers of security—underpin the Visa Waiver Program. 

In closing, let me emphasize that, as Secretary Johnson has said, 

DHS continues to review the safeguards of the VWP. We are prepared as threats change to consider additional administrative and 

legislative steps to achieve our goal of even stronger security for 

the United States. We will continue to partner with Congress to explore ways to enhance the program security requirements while 

promoting travel to the United States. 

Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, other distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity 

to appear before you today. It will be my pleasure to answer your 

questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you for your very well organized 

presentation. 
191 

1The joint prepared statement of Ms. Dugan appears in the Appendix on page 239. 

Our next witness is Maureen Dugan. Ms. Dugan is currently the 

Deputy Executive Director of the National Targeting Center at U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection. Ms. Dugan. 

TESTIMONY OF MAUREEN DUGAN,1 DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL TARGETING CENTER, U.S. CUSTOMS 

AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. DUGAN. Thank you. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 

Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you 

for the opportunity to discuss the role of U.S. Customs and Border 

Protection in securing international travel and the Visa Waiver 

Program. 

CBP continually adjusts and aligns our resources to address the 

evolving nature of terrorist threats to the homeland. Our ability to 

rapidly leverage information and respond to emerging threats is 

key to our intelligence-driven counterterrorism strategy and one of 

CBP’s greatest strengths. 

In response to a broad spectrum of threats, CBP has extended 

our border security measures outward to address risk at the earliest possible points. Every day CBP inspects more than a million 

international travelers at our Nation’s ports of entry, approximately 300,000 of these arriving at airports. 

We have developed and strategically deployed our resources to 

detect, assess, and mitigate the risk at every stage along the international travel sequence, including when an individual applies for 

U.S. travel documents, reserves or purchases an airline ticket, 

checks in at an airport, is arriving en route, and applies for admission at a U.S. port of entry. 

In general, before foreign nationals travel to the United States, 

they are first required to apply for a non-immigrant visa with Department of State or, for eligible Visa Waiver Program travelers, a 

travel authorization from CBP through the Electronic System for 

Travel Authorization. Before issuance, visa and ESTA applications 

are vetted against the terrorist watchlist and law enforcement 

holdings and assessed for risk and eligibility. After issuance, they 

are continually vetted against new derogatory information that 

may arise subsequently. 

Before a U.S.-bound flight departs, CBP’s National Targeting 

Center obtains and analyzes traveler data to assess the risk of all 

passengers, regardless of citizenship or visa status, and applies intelligence-driven targeting rules. If derogatory information or other 

data indicating a risk is discovered, CBP is able to take a number 

of actions overseas to mitigate the issue prior to travel or to prevent travel altogether. 

For example, the CBP Immigration Advisory Program deploys 

CBP officers in plainclothes at 11 strategic foreign airports in 9 

countries to work with air carriers and foreign authorities to identify and address potential threats. These officers can question travelers, recommend additional security screening, coordinate with air 

carriers to prevent passengers who may pose a security threat, 
192 

have fraudulent documents, or would otherwise be inadmissible 

upon arrival from boarding flights to the United States. 

At all points in the travel continuum, even while a flight is en 

route to the United States, CBP continues vetting passengers and 

traveler information, including visas and ESTA authorizations, to 

ensure that any change in a traveler’s eligibility are identified in 

real time and appropriate actions taken, such as recommending 

visa revocation, revoking travel authorization, preventing travel, 

coordinating with other agencies for further investigation or enforcement action, or requiring secondary inspection upon arrival. 

Upon arrival in the United States, all persons are subject to inspection. To determine a traveler’s identity, intent, and admissibility, CBP officers review entry documents, conduct personal interviews, and run appropriate biometric and biographic queries 

against law enforcement databases. 

CBP also conducts outbound operations, leveraging all available 

advance travel information and using targeting rules specific to the 

outbound environment to identify and, when appropriate, interview 

and/or apprehend travelers for law enforcement or security-related 

reasons. 

CBP, in conjunction with our investigatory partners, has longstanding protocols for identifying, examining, and reporting on encounters with persons on the terrorist watchlist or of law enforcement concern. As the foreign fighter threat grows, CBP works in 

close partnership with the Federal counterterrorism and intelligence communities, State and local law enforcement, the private 

sector, and our foreign counterparts to develop greater situational 

awareness of emerging threats, leverage each other’s capabilities to 

disrupt threat networks, and coordinate enforcement actions. 

CBP has implemented a rigorous targeting program, placed officers in strategic airports overseas, and build strong liaisons with 

carriers to improve our ability to address threats as early as possible and effectively expand our security efforts beyond the physical 

borders of the United States. 

Thank you for the opportunity to join my colleagues to testify on 

this important subject, and I am happy to answer any questions 

you may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Dugan. 

Our next witness is Edward Ramotowski. Mr. Ramotowski is the 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the Department of State. 

That is a pretty big title, but thank you, Mr. Ramotowski. You 

have the floor. 
193 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Ramotowski appears in the Appendix on page 246. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD J. RAMOTOWSKI,1 DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR VISA SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

STATE 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you 

for calling this hearing today and for your strong commitment to 

the Department of State’s twofold mission to keep America safe 

while welcoming legitimate visitors who grow the U.S. economy 

and create jobs. The Visa Waiver Program is a vital part of our 

strategy to safely and effectively achieve both of those objectives, 

and I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate how this is done. 

DHS is the lead agency for determining a country’s eligibility to 

join the Visa Waiver Program. Our role in that process is to nominate a country for participation once all the statutory requirements 

for the program are met. 

After admission into the program, a country’s continued participation is subject to the biennial DHS-led review of country conditions, including the security of its travel documents, border controls, immigration and nationality laws, and other national security 

concerns. Our diplomatic missions abroad work very hard to assist 

our DHS colleagues with these reviews and with any necessary follow-up actions. 

The Department’s visa screening policy is founded on a riskbased approach focused on greater and more effective information 

sharing. This approach enables the United States to channel more 

resources toward the prevention of high-risk travel while simultaneously increasing the number of legitimate visitors who come to 

our country. 

As my colleagues have testified, all intending VWP travelers 

must first receive DHS approval through the ESTA system. If an 

ESTA authorization is denied, that individual is barred from boarding a U.S.-bound air carrier without first applying for and obtaining a U.S. visa. Any foreign national denied an ESTA clearance is 

referred to the appropriate U.S. embassy or consulate for additional 

review, which would include a visa interview as well as biometric 

screening. So DHS always has an alternative whenever a potential 

visa waiver traveler raises any possible concerns. 

The cooperation between State and our interagency partners is 

a dynamic process which is constantly refined to adjust to today’s 

realities and real-time security information. Most recently we collaborated on an enhanced list of questions for VWP travelers 

through the ESTA program. These questions help to identify possible threats attempting to travel through the program without introducing an onerous administrative burden or raising privacy concerns. 

We also work very closely with DHS and other agencies on the 

continuous vetting of foreign travelers, including visa holders and 

VWP participants, to ensure that we can revoke a travel benefit if 

derogatory information surfaces after the adjudication of the case. 

The Department of State embraces a layered approach to border 

security screening. The data we obtain through information-sharing agreements required by the Visa Waiver Program comprises a 
194 

key element of that approach. To date, the Department has negotiated over 40 arrangements with foreign partners to exchange terrorist screening information. With our interagency counterparts, 

the Department of State has engaged numerous VWP countries to 

better identify and counter terrorist foreign fighter threats between 

Europe and Syria. 

Our efforts also go beyond visa and travel screening. The Department has also focused on an initiatives and programs to counter 

violent extremism abroad and prevent the radicalization and recruitment of individuals by terrorist organizations. In particular, 

State works with DHS to both design capacity-building activities 

and to share the benefits of DHS’ domestic experience with our 

international partners. 

The Department recognizes that the United States’ long-term interests in security are served by protecting our country from those 

who seek to do us harm while continuing the flow of commerce and 

ideas that are the foundations of our prosperity and security. The 

Visa Waiver Program is a key component of that effort. We have 

built strong relationships throughout the U.S. Government and 

with our international partners to ensure the real-time flow of information necessary for keeping our borders secure. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I am happy to answer any 

questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Ramotowski. I think I will 

start with you. The question I was asking the last panel based on 

Secretary Chertoff’s comment about how important this Visa Waiver Program really is in terms of our outreach to certain Eastern 

European countries, in light of that, are there any requirements 

within the program for qualification that are either too high or too 

low? In other words, are the hurdles set at an appropriate level? 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Mr. Chairman, I think some of the countries 

that wish to join the program might say that the statutory requirement for a 3-percent visa refusal rate is their most difficult hurdle 

to cross, because that is one thing that they cannot directly affect 

through their own actions. 

When we are interviewing applicants for U.S. visas, we make our 

decision on a case-by-case basis on that applicant’s individual circumstances. And it is the aggregate of those decisions that determines the overall visa refusal rate. And current law requires a rate 

of 3 percent or less to join the program, and that is a difficult hurdle for some countries to meet. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So I understand, those countries have a 

problem with it. Does the State Department or does this Administration think that maybe is too high a hurdle? And should that be 

potentially revisited? 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. The Administration has endorsed proposals 

made in Congress to consider a 10-percent refusal rate, and in the 

past the rate has been at 10 percent for a period of time. And so 

the Department of State would support those efforts. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you. We did have a couple of 

suggestions in terms of potential legislative initiatives to help 

strengthen the program. One by Secretary Chertoff talked about 

maybe we could increase the requirements for information and intelligence sharing. 
195 

Mr. Koumans, would you agree with that? Would that help 

strengthen the Department’s hands in trying to negotiate better 

compliance? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that we actually have a pretty robust system in place with respect to that kind 

of information sharing, and I just want to emphasize, in preparation for this hearing, in collaboration with our interagency partners, information about 5,500 known and suspected terrorists has 

been provided to us by our Visa Waiver Program partners already. 

So those agreements are in place. Those agreements are working. 

I think what was discussed in the first panel was also their own 

abilities, and we are working with them to improve some of their 

abilities, and I think that that is something we want to continue 

to focus on as part of that partnership that we have with them. 

Now, they know more about their citizens than we do, and so 

that is something that we continue to work on to improve. I am not 

saying that it is perfect, but I think the agreements that we have 

in place in that area I think are quite strong. And as they build 

their systems, the PNR that was talked about in the previous 

panel, I think they will be in an even stronger position to share lessons learned, knowledge about the kinds of travel patterns that 

they are seeing, and, of course, the particular suspicious and criminal and terrorist individuals that they are encountering and preventing from traveling. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Now, it is the Department of Homeland Security that is charged with doing these audits every 2 years, correct? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, having come from the business 

world, with the ISO certification, with 6-month surveillance audits, 

that was one of the questions I asked the last panel. Is that something that you think would be helpful? Again, not a full-blown 

audit but just a skinnied-down—with fewer personnel, just checking in on a more frequent basis. 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just so that it is clear 

about what we do, what we do now when we say we make the biennial assessments, we already have the capability—and there is one 

country that I will not name that is under a provisional status, so 

they are getting more frequent reviews. We already have the capability to do more frequent reviews, and do that when it is warranted. And it is important to mention that these biennial reviews—because in many cases, in most countries, it is every 2 

years. It is not as if we do the 2-year review and then we do not 

look at them. The reviews take from 6 to 9 months. It is a pretty 

intensive period of information collection from our interagency 

partners and working with the host government, working with the 

embassy there overseas, learning from other agencies how they are 

cooperating with their counterparts, then compiling the data, vetting it, checking it, then writing the reports. That is a pretty intensive period. 

But then in that year, year and a half, when we are not in the 

active cycle, they are still subject to continuous monitoring. On a 

daily basis we are hearing the statistics, a daily, weekly, monthly 

basis from CBP, what is CBP’s experience with respect to people 
196 

arriving at the port of entry? Are we starting to turn around a larger number of them? We would see an uptick there. Or from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are they starting to see 

any issues with removal of people? Because VWP countries are required to accept the return of their citizens. 

From Interpol, the lost and stolen passport database, are there 

any problems? Are these countries still reporting as they are supposed to on a regular basis, many 20, 30 times a month? 

Chairman JOHNSON. So you are saying there is really continuous 

monitoring already. 

Mr. KOUMANS. There is continuous monitoring. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, that is comforting. 

Senator Booker was talking about the exit system, and the response was we do not have the money. Have there been cost estimates on kind of a layered basis, maybe biometrics, an exit system 

for airline travel? Does the Department have any of those estimates prepared? Or is that something that you will have to work 

up? 

Mr. KOUMANS. I may turn to my colleague on specific estimates, 

but I might just want to mention one thing to highlight because it 

was discussed in the previous panel. We do have currently an operation with Canada so that a land entry into Canada from the 

United States counts as an exit from the United States. Two and 

a half million records we have already gotten in this project, and 

we would like to do the same with Mexico. A little bit more of a 

challenge there, but to have that capability, Canada has been very 

valuable in order to help us get a better understanding of those 

leaving the country. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. I was looking for a cost. Ms. Dugan. 

Ms. DUGAN. Mr. Chairman, there have been costs associated. I 

think the issue is that the idea of what the solution would look like 

is really something that we are testing. So what is feasible without 

causing a great deal of difficulty on the departure? So we are very 

excited about a number of pilots that we are going to be running 

this year with regard to biometrics, and this spring we are going 

to have a pilot program in Otay Mesa with a biometric exit and the 

pedestrian environment. We are also running a biometric mobile 

pilot in Atlanta this spring and a facial recognition pilot in Dulles 

starting in April. 

So we have a number of environments we would like to test possible solutions and where we can go that is going to be feasible and 

still facilitating for the traveling public. We have a test facility in 

Landover, Maryland, that we in partnership are working with the 

Science and Technology Group, and it is very exciting. As the panelists mentioned, there are so many changes with biometrics. I 

think that solution is viable. We are just looking for what is feasible, and it may not be the same solution across all environments. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Again, the other panel said the problem 

was a cost problem, and I realize that with technology those costs 

should be declining. But, again, have there been cost estimates? Is 

the Department aware of that? Is that something that has to be developed? I realize you are testing different systems, but are there 

cost estimates? Just give us some kind of ballpark of what we are 

talking about here in terms of appropriations? 
197 

Ms. DUGAN. Well, the reason the resource implication has been 

high is really with regard to the officer involvement. So when we 

did tests several years ago, the requirement would be to increase 

the number of officers that would have to be doing those outbound 

inspections. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, are there cost estimates or not that 

we can get from the Department? Just a quick answer, just yes or 

no. I want to move on. 

Mr. KOUMANS. Mr. Chairman, I am more than happy to take 

that question and—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Do it for the record. Thanks. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. A yes or no answer. Were you all present for 

the testimony of the first panel? 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Yes. 

Ms. DUGAN. Yes. 

Mr. KOUMANS. All three of us, yes. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Did you hear anything you agreed 

with? Yes or no. 

Mr. KOUMANS. I heard very much that I agreed with, yes, sir. 

Senator CARPER. Ms. Dugan. 

Ms. DUGAN. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Yes, absolutely. 

Senator CARPER. Hear anything you disagreed with? 

Mr. KOUMANS. I am not sure if I would say disagree, Senator. I 

just tried to clarify that one point concerning Canada. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. KOUMANS. There are a few things, just being a little bit more 

close to the program, more immersed in it, as we are on a day-today basis, there might be a few things that we could explore further if you would like, sir. 

Senator CARPER. Ms. Dugan. 

Ms. DUGAN. With regard to the use of PNR, Senator, we have a 

very robust system, as you know from your visits to the NTC. From 

our position we work closely with our foreign counterparts to try 

to build that capacity with their use of travel information as well 

as targeting. So those are areas to explore. But the gentleman from 

RAND Corporation, as far as U.S. Government use of travel information, I think that we have a very robust program. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Ramotowski. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. I think Secretary Chertoff did an excellent job 

characterizing both the security value of the program and its favorable diplomatic impact for U.S. interests abroad. So I fully support 

what the first panel said. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. 

The Ambassador from Poland was here at the beginning of the 

hearing. I do not know if he is still here. It is not every day that 

an ambassador pops in. We are always happy when that happens. 

I looked down the list of visa waiver countries, and Poland’s name 

does not appear, I do not believe, and I think there are 38 nations 

whose names do appear. 

Give us some idea why—and in a case like Poland, Poland by all 

accounts has been very successful at the the breakup of the Warsaw Pact, the end of the Iron Curtain and all that, and they have 
198 

been integrated very nicely into the economy of the rest of the 

world. Why may they not be included? And what kind of criteria 

is used to decide who is and who is not? Please, Mr. Ramotowski. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Yes, thank you, Senator. You are quite right; 

Poland is one of our strongest and most closest allies. With respect 

to the Visa Waiver Program membership, however, they have to 

meet all of the statutory requirements. And the one that they have 

had the most difficulty with is the mandated 3 percent or less visa 

refusal rate. The refusal rate in Poland has been coming down. It 

also declined from 2013 to 2014 from over 10 percent to about 6.7 

percent just now, but it does not meet the statutory requirement 

of 3 percent or less, and that is the obstacle. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Fair enough. Thank you. 

Let us talk about lost or stolen passports. A question, and this 

would probably be for you, Mr. Koumans. Are countries admitted 

into the Visa Waiver Program required to report lost or stolen 

passports to Interpol? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Yes, they are, Senator. And actually I think that 

is a real success story. I can give you just a couple of details on 

that, if you would like. 

Senator CARPER. Please. Just a couple. 

Mr. KOUMANS. Just a couple. Since 2008, we have refused 35,000 

ESTAs as a result of people going online and attempting to get that 

ESTA using a passport that was previously reported lost or stolen 

to Interpol. So we check that Interpol database for every person applying for an ESTA, every person making a flight reservation, 

every person coming to the United States. So we are a very heavy 

user of that Interpol database, so that has been a real success 

story. And not only has this been a powerful—I mean, one other 

way to look at it is if you ask Interpol, so 190-some-odd countries 

in Interpol, how many of their records—how are the rest of those 

countries doing, 70 percent of Interpol’s records— nearly threequarters—come from the 38 countries in the VWP. So the best reporters of lost and stolen passports are our VWP partners, providing the data to us so we can use it and prevent the entry, as 

I said, of 35,000 people. 

Senator CARPER. Let me get just some further clarification. 

Those countries that are admitted into the program, are they required to regularly check Interpol’s lost and stolen database 

against their own databases of travelers? And if it is not required, 

do you think it ought to be? 

Mr. KOUMANS. You are asking now the second layer of question, 

which is, Should we require or should we encourage other countries, our VWP partners, to do the same thing that we do? In other 

words, we check that database for people coming into the United 

States. Should they do the same? I think it is something—— 

Senator CARPER. What do you think? 

Mr. KOUMANS [continuing]. That they should strongly consider. 

I think the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, I believe it was, 

and it came to light that there were a number of passengers on 

board who were traveling on documents, travel documents that 

were known to Interpol to have been reported lost or stolen, they 

were allowed on that plane. They were allowed to be flying to 
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China, and that is not something that would have happened in the 

United States because we check that database. 

And so I think it is something that other countries should consider more strongly, and Interpol has encouraged them to do the 

same as well. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. 

This will be, Ms. Dugan, for you and for Mr. Koumans. I believe 

that the State Department has a division within Diplomatic Security that investigates potential visa fraud. And since the Department of Homeland Security manages the Visa Waiver Program, is 

there any comparable office or entity within the Department of 

Homeland Security that focuses on fraud within the Visa Waiver 

Program? 

Ms. DUGAN. We do have an ESTA Program Management Office 

that looks at fraud trends and fraud schemes that they see within 

the ESTA applications. We also at the National Targeting Center 

will look for smuggling schemes and through visa free travel as 

well as with visas and misuse of visas and other types of fraud. But 

the Program Management Office specifically monitors the use of 

those applications and red flags where there are particular issues 

or trends. For example, let us say a travel agency that has been 

linked to a particular fraud or mala fide travelers. 

Senator CARPER. Do either of you have any idea how many instances of visa waiver fraud DHS may have found? 

Ms. DUGAN. I can take that back, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Would you? And I will ask you to answer that 

question for the record, if you would, please. It is good to know that 

somebody is thinking about it. It would be interesting to know how 

many instances of fraud have been found. 

All right. Thanks. We appreciate very much your being here and 

your service. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Ayotte. 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to again thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for holding this important hearing, and I thank all of 

you for what you do for the country. 

I wanted to follow-up on a couple of different things. First of all, 

on the passenger name records, the issue on the passenger name 

records, as I understand it, we are requiring that for advance passenger information for inbound flights to the United States of 

America. Is that true? 

Ms. DUGAN. For inbound and outbound. 

Senator AYOTTE. Inbound and outbound. OK. And so how do our 

European counterparts deal with this? Do they? And why do we not 

require them also to do the same? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Senator. The picture in Europe, and 

wider than Europe, with our other VWP partners, is mixed. This 

is their own sovereign decision. A number of VWP countries in Europe have PNR systems where they collect and analyze, and there 

is a first step before PNR, which is, as it is called, Advance Passenger Information (API). That is the passport swipe, the manifest. 

So this is name, date of birth, nationality, passport number. That 

is sort of the basic level of information, and that is collected when 

people check in for a flight, and across Europe there is a requirement actually that countries collect and check API information. 
200 

The second step is PNR. So this is when you make a flight reservation, you might also be providing your e-mail address, your 

phone number—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Right, it is more detailed. 

Mr. KOUMANS. More detailed, a richer source of data, and a 

handful of European countries have such a system. The European 

Commission in Brussels is funding the creation of PNR systems in 

14 EU countries, which we think is a welcome step, and the European Parliament is grappling with this issue, as was discussed in 

the first panel. There are privacy interests at play here. But they 

have talked about the end of this year being their deadline for an 

EU-wide PNR directive that would set the stage for all 28 EU 

member States having a PNR system. 

Ms. DUGAN. And I just wanted to add a couple comments. We 

frequently meet with our foreign counterparts on building that capacity. They are very much aware of the foreign fighter issue and 

are looking for ways to build a more robust vetting system. And so 

we offer technical expertise as well as expertise on the legislative 

requirements of whatever is dependent in their particular country 

to build that. In some cases, they need to pass a law in order to 

require the carriers to provide that information to them. 

Senator AYOTTE. It strikes me as we think about this idea of, one 

of our challenges which I mentioned to the earlier panel on this foreign fighter issue, it is not just a matter of ingress and egress. If 

I am a European and then I travel and go to Syria or I go to 

Yemen or I find another way to get there, the more information we 

are able to gain gives us better information to be able to prevent 

that person that had gone, for example, to Yemen and trained with 

al-Qaeda to then be traveling at some point to our country or vice 

versa. 

So, obviously, I think this is an issue we should be pressing our 

counterparts to do more on, and when it comes to information sharing, Secretary Koumans, I was very interested in your comment 

based on what the earlier panel had said. And did I hear you say 

that we have 5,500 agreements or something like that? So help me 

understand how it is done now. We have agreements, whether they 

are bilateral or multilateral, with these countries, and are all 

agreements the same? In other words, are we requiring the same 

kinds of conditions on information sharing with every country in 

this program? Or are there different terms with different countries? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Senator. I am happy to try to clarify 

that. Under the Visa Waiver Program, as was required under the 

Secure Travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Act of 2007, part 

of the 9/11 Act, the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act, they are 

required to provide us with information about those who could pose 

a threat to the United States. And that has been implemented via 

criminal information-sharing and terrorist information-sharing 

agreements. And so each of the VWP countries has been obliged to 

meet that obligation and to sign those agreements. 

I will give one example. You have Andorra, San Marino, you 

have some small countries out there, and you have different legal 

regimes in the different countries, and so we have made—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So we have negotiated different terms with different countries, essentially. 
201 

Mr. KOUMANS. Very analogous. There is a template, and so there 

are minor tweaks for each country. But the bottom line is they are 

all required to provide us with terrorist information, and that is 

what the 5,500 comes from. That is the data that we have gotten 

from the implementation of those agreements. 

Senator AYOTTE. It strikes me as one of our biggest 

vulnerabilities in the sense that the information that we have and 

the willingness of countries to share amongst themselves is critical, 

and with us is really critical as we think about the foreign fighter 

challenge, which goes beyond the Visa Waiver Program. Obviously, 

the Visa Waiver Program is a component of our system that is important, and we want to make sure that whatever improvements 

we can help with you to have the tools that you need, you have for 

this program. But ultimately it is going to come down to information sharing, and I think that is why when I heard Secretary 

Chertoff say in the prior panel that perhaps rather than just an 

agreement, making sure that in statute we are clear, I understand 

you are going to have to still negotiate with some countries, but we 

are clear about what our intent is to make sure that, you are, as 

you negotiate these agreements, are quite clear about what we are 

expecting of people. I appreciated that, and I would love to have 

more feedback from all of you on that recommendation that he 

made. I know you just heard it today, but I would like to hear, if 

you can follow-up with us on it, about how you think we could help 

with that and work together. We want to make sure you have the 

tools that you need. 

I wanted to follow-up on Senator Carper’s question about 

Interpol and lost and stolen passports and the database. How often 

or at what interval are countries required to submit to Interpol 

when they have lost or fraudulent passports? So, in other words, 

is there a requirement that as soon as I know I have a fraudulent 

case, I have to get it to Interpol? Is it a periodic requirement? Do 

we have a variation among countries? And while we are quite 

proud, obviously, of the success of it, any lost or, obviously an 

fraudulent passport that is made or lost creates a lot of vulnerability. So how often are they required to do it? And what is the 

consistency among countries? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Senator. I am happy to try to clarify 

that. The way that it is stipulated and as we explain it to countries, they are required to comply with Interpol’s best practices. 

Interpol’s best practices call for basically daily reporting. 

Senator AYOTTE. So as soon as you know. 

Mr. KOUMANS. As soon as you know. And so we tell them you 

need to have an infrastructure in place so that if you say you take 

Italy. All of the police stations throughout Italy domestically need 

to be reporting centrally, to Rome, presumably, and all of the 

Italian consulates and embassies throughout the world need to be 

reporting back to Rome—and Italy’s is just an example—so that 

that can be reported daily to Interpol. 

Now, I can tell you that if a country—and there are many, and 

as I mentioned, in the monitoring that we do, we follow this, and 

there are many that do, in fact, report daily. Weekends, national 

holidays, they are reporting daily, even if it is to report that they 

have nothing today. 
202 

Now, are we going to really ding them if they get down to 29 or 

28 a month? We may give them a couple of weekends off. But anything under, when you start to get under that it is not as if we 

have a firm number, but, yes, we basically expect reporting on all 

work days but daily is what they are held to. 

Senator AYOTTE. I know my time is up, but it was actually quite 

shocking to me that these other countries are not checking 

Interpol’s database on their flights. It seems to me it is a real vulnerability for them. It is also less information for us to be able to 

stop among travel among other countries, not just our own people 

who are using fraudulent documents. So I hope that is something 

that internationally we are focusing on as well, because it seems 

like a vulnerability. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 

our panelists for your discussion today and the previous panel as 

well. 

I think the Visa Waiver Program is a very important program for 

encouraging travel to the United States and promoting economic 

development. In fact, in Michigan, in my home State, tourism is a 

$17 billion industry, and it supports about 200,000 jobs in the 

State. Our award-winning Pure Michigan brand promotes the State 

both in the United States as well as countries all across the globe, 

and as an international destination and it is a leading place to do 

business and it has been successful bringing people from all over. 

Allowing preapproved citizens of participating countries to easily 

travel to the United States to visit our landmarks, attend our conferences, or do business serves as an important economic engine for 

the country. And since September 11, Congress and the U.S. Government have implemented recommendations from the 9/11 Commission, and the evidence seems to support the notion that the 

Visa Waiver Program’s focus on enhancing security is indeed working. 

In fact, I am told that earlier this year we had a German citizen 

who applied for authorization to travel to the United States via the 

ESTA system, and during the vetting process, the individual was 

connected to a subject with a national security concern, and the 

CBP was able to deem the applicant ineligible for admission to the 

United States and was denied ESTA. 

Five days later, that same German citizen arrived at the DetroitWindsor Tunnel in a taxi attempting to enter into the country, and 

the CBP identified the individual as a match to the ESTA denial, 

and they denied this person entry into the United States, which 

was a success, obviously, of the system. 

DHS denied over 50,000 applications last year out of the 13 million applicants that came in. The Visa Waiver Program allows us 

to provide additional security to a small number of select travelers 

while encouraging the vast majority of citizens from friendly countries to more easily visit our country. 

And now while I recognize that there are concerns about the Visa 

Waiver Program—and this hearing has allowed us to discuss some 
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of those concerns—I would like to focus on how this program can 

strengthen our security as well as move us forward. 

Ms. Dugan, the National Targeting Center has certainly played 

an important role in the program’s expansion to focus on security 

concerns. Do you believe that the Visa Waiver Program and our national security are mutually exclusive? 

Ms. DUGAN. Senator, we are constantly working for ways to improve the security of international travel while also making it facilitating for the travelers who wish to come here. We know that 

the vast majority of travelers are bona fide, valid travelers, and 

that is played out with the percentage of ESTA applications, the 

vast majority are approved within seconds, so not mutually exclusive. It is two sides of the same coin. We are always segmenting 

risk so that when we know someone is of low risk, we can expend 

our resources on those individuals who require additional scrutiny. 

Whether that means a secondary inspection, whether that means 

referring to the embassy for a more targeted interview because 

they are not immediately approved for an ESTA, we want to take 

that extra time with those individuals that we have specific information or through our rules we believe maybe has some derogatory 

information. So until that is resolved, we will not allow them to 

travel to the United States. 

So there are a number of options we can take, but it is always 

a matter of segmenting those of low risk; for example, with our 

Trusted Traveler Programs, they go through a rigorous vetting program, and they can go through global entry at our major airports. 

They are segmented as low risk. Again, that allows us to employ 

our resources on those areas that need it most and require additional scrutiny. 

Senator PETERS. Great. This next question is really to any of the 

panelists that want to answer, one or all of you. Basically my experience is that any system is only as good as the information that 

you put into it, and we have heard quite a bit of discussion about 

that today. Our allies want to participate in the Visa Waiver Program because of the economic benefits they receive from American 

travelers who can now easily visit their countries. And because of 

the value of this program, we are able to require stronger, better 

information-sharing agreements. And, Mr. Koumans, I know you 

talked about that just recently on that issue. But how does our security cooperation with the Visa Waiver Program countries compare to non-participants? Some kind of feedback from one or all of 

you. 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Senator. I would say that our cooperation with VWP countries sets the standard for what we aspire to 

reach with other countries, and it also sets—as was also discussed 

in the previous panel, it is a powerful incentive, and we have seen 

countries that hope one day to qualify and meet the dozen criteria 

that they have to meet begin the information sharing and begin 

issuing higher-quality passports and signing the agreements with 

us and reporting data to Interpol, so that incentive is there to have 

the higher level of security cooperation with us. And so it increases 

border security even in countries that are not yet in the Visa Waiver Program. But, yes, visa waiver countries set the standard for cooperation. 
204 

I have to give a word to Canada. Canada is in a separate category, we have an extremely close security partnership with them 

as well. 

Senator PETERS. And we are happy about that in Michigan. 

Mr. KOUMANS. We are very much. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Senator, I would just add that the Department 

of State and our interagency partners work with all countries to 

encourage good border security practices, and so we are not exclusively focused on just visa waiver countries. We encourage all countries to report lost and stolen passports, to exchange antiterrorism 

information, and to work with us to meet those threats. 

Senator PETERS. Great. Thank you so much for your answers. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Lankford. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I do want to return back to the conversation that the Chairman 

initiated earlier about the exit program. We are getting better and 

better and more and more efficient at checking people in. I want 

to know our progress of checking people out to know when people 

leave, leaving on time, status of their whereabouts while they are 

in the country and such. Give me a progress update. We talked a 

little bit about some of the budget issues. Give me a progress update. Where are we in that process? 

Ms. DUGAN. Senator, we are rolling out a number of pilot programs this year to test what options might be viable for the solution to biometric exit, so we are very excited about the potential. 

And as I mentioned earlier, the solution may not be the same 

across all environments. We may be able to provide a number of 

different solutions. In terms of outbound operations, we have very 

targeted operations where we can employ an inspection where warranted. So we do vet all outbound travelers as well. We are not 

necessarily doing an inspection or an examination, but we are looking at all of that information going outbound as well as inbound 

travelers. 

Senator LANKFORD. So give me an idea on time frame. We have 

some pilots going. Those pilots are how long? 

Ms. DUGAN. The pilots are this year, and I believe fiscal year 

(FY) 2016 they will begin to realize what those solutions would be 

as well as provide to Congress the estimated cost for a full solution. 

But it would be phased in in terms of all environments. 

Senator LANKFORD. So pilots finished by this year, Congress gets 

the recommendations around, let us say, a year from now, 18 

months from now, whatever it may be. All that data is compiled. 

We get it, we look at it, we gripe about the cost, figure out how 

to be able to do it anyway, and then to be able to start implementing that, start rolling it out 2017, 2018, in key areas, have it 

done by 2020. What is the goal here? 

Ms. DUGAN. Well, I think there are some statutory requirements 

where we are looking at airports first. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Ms. DUGAN. Major airports, and then a land border solution, 

which, of course, is much more challenging. But as far as time 
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frame, I can take that back as a question. I cannot say specifically, 

but I believe it is phased in, and at the major locations first. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Then let us talk about this: We have a 

million visitors come in, let us say, over a month. We are tracking 

to see how many actually left, and then somehow I would assume 

at the end of this we are going to have a list of here are the people 

that had a tourist visa, they have been here 46 days now, and we 

do not know where they are. Is that list—and tell me how that— 

the hope is to be able to progress that? 

Ms. DUGAN. We already have that list, so what happens now is 

a biographic matching of inbound and outbound and overstay list 

that gets prioritized for ICE and their compliance unit for response. 

So it is prioritized by the most critical issues, and those of national 

security interest or of a criminal nature. So all of that information 

goes through a matching process, and then it is provided on a priority basis, ranking those priorities for the ICE compliance unit to 

take whatever action is necessary. 

Senator LANKFORD. Give me your best—— 

Ms. DUGAN. So that is already being done. The other part of it 

is the biometric exit, but—— 

Senator LANKFORD. So give me your best guess, a month, a year, 

whatever number you want to give on this, and whatever stat that 

you can recall of how many people we have, a month or a year, 

whatever it may be, that overstay that we do not necessarily know 

where they are, we know they came in, we do not know if they left 

or not, maybe they came in by a flight and left by a boat or they 

left by land, we just do not know. How many of those folks are out 

there a year? 

Ms. DUGAN. I will need to take that back as a question. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. That would be great. I would be glad to 

be able to have that as a follow-up. 

Our exchange of information right now with Central America, I 

know the visa waiver nations are different, obviously. El Salvador, 

Guatemala, and Honduras are not in that category of being visa 

waiver States. How is the exchange of information going with those 

countries in Central America where we have a lot of interplay with 

people, period, moving back and forth? What information are we 

getting from those countries? And is it sufficient? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Senator, I am happy to try to answer that in general terms, but that might—because it was not fully within what 

we were—in terms of the Visa Waiver Program. I am happy to take 

that question back. I would say that it is a particular area of priority for the Department of Homeland Security, especially after 

what we saw last summer. 

Senator LANKFORD. Sure. 

Mr. KOUMANS. And we do have ICE and CBP officers posted, 

many of them, not all, and that is the cooperation that we are always looking to strengthen. The Secretary has traveled to that part 

of the world, I believe the Vice President as recently as a week or 

two ago. So I am happy to get you more information on that. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Thank you. I would like just the exchange of information and data on individuals on that. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Senator, if I could add—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Sure. 
206 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Our embassies in Central America all have 

antifraud units in their consular sections that are regularly working with the local authorities in those countries on fraud cases, immigration scams, and crime. So we can get you more details. 

Senator LANKFORD. That would be great. I have actually visited 

in those countries with those embassies. There are some very fine 

folks that are working there doing a good job, but there is obviously 

a lot of gaps in their information. I would like to know the status 

of where things are at this point. 

The other one is we have had an experiment of doing customs 

in other countries basically, so that customs procedure happens 

over there in that airport. They land and then just kind of walk 

their way through, because that part is taken care of on that. How 

many countries are we doing that in? Are there other pilots that 

are out there? And how is that process going? 

Ms. DUGAN. Yes, Senator, the preclearance process, we have 25 

countries additional to the current 16 locations that have asked for 

a look at possibly doing it in those locations, so we are currently 

assessing the feasibility of those interested countries and looking to 

set up those operations in areas that would be the most strategic 

and would be most beneficial for the security of the United States 

as well as facilitating. 

Senator LANKFORD. How do you evaluate its success on that? Obviously, doing it another place, I assume it is a different cost level, 

different staffing level and everything. What metric do you have to 

evaluate if that is a good idea or not a good idea? 

Ms. DUGAN. Well, it is a bilateral negotiation, so one of the 

things that we would currently be looking for is whether that country would be willing to provide for the cost to set up that operation. 

And the other major thing is how valuable as a security location, 

so we would be looking at what type of demographic the travelers 

are. Do we have a large number of watchlisted individuals who 

travel through those locations? And we would have a better chance 

of being able to do that full examination before travel to the United 

States. So those are the types of things. And then technologically 

speaking, whether they would be able to provide all of the technology that is required to set up a port of entry, which is essentially what it would be. It is our full operation, our customs, immigration, and agricultural operation. 

Senator LANKFORD. With our staff or with contractors there on 

that site? 

Ms. DUGAN. No. It would be our staff. It would be CBP officers 

because they are doing the full complement of the inspection that 

would otherwise occur at a U.S. port of entry. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thanks 

for your indulgence on the extra minute. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Good questions. 

I will give you all the opportunity to make a brief closing comment, but I do want to follow-up real quickly on passports, because 

we have talked about pre-2006, we have talked about electronic 

and higher-quality passports. Give me the state of play in terms of 

what you are really talking about, how those are used? How those 

are scanned? And quite honestly, why aren’t they being scanned as 
207 

people exit this country and being matched? So whoever is most 

qualified to just really talk about the state of play of passports, describe them to us, and then I will give you closing comments. Ms. 

Dugan or Mr. Koumans. 

Ms. DUGAN. As far as the electronic passport, as the other panelists mentioned, that requirement was phased in so that it will be 

completely—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Describe it to me, though. Tell me what it 

does. So you have a passport. It is a physical thing. 

Ms. DUGAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman, with the electronic chip in the 

passport authenticates that the holder is the presenter of that document with additional information in that—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So there is a photo on file? Again, those are 

going to be very difficult to commit fraud on, right? 

Ms. DUGAN. That is correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. And so what is the state of play in 

terms of those countries that we have a Visa Waiver Program that 

have electronic passports? Do all 38 have them? Were they issued 

after 2006? 

Ms. DUGAN. The requirement was in 2006, those that were already participating countries were grandfathered in, and typically 

passports will be 10-year issuance, so by 2016, essentially all of the 

countries will have the requirement for the electronic passport. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So fraudulent use of passports is going to be 

very difficult. You would have to actually hack into a system, unless we are not paying attention. Is that basically true? 

Ms. DUGAN. Well, mala fide persons are always trying to attempt 

to get around whatever security requirement we put in place, so 

there is never a foolproof system. But, it is absolutely more secure 

and does combat the potential for that type of fraud. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, again, in light of those electronic passports, are we scanning those as people exit, and are we matching 

at least those? Or is there no system for doing that? 

Ms. DUGAN. What we do is vet the manifest. We do not have officers who are actually doing—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. There is not a whole lot of technology required for that. You could do that at a TSA check-in point, could 

you not? With information systems now, we can match that very 

quickly, could we not? 

Ms. DUGAN. One of the things is you would have to have the person actually demonstrating that they are departing, which is at the 

gateway, essentially. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, when you go through a security checkpoint, that is a pretty good indication. OK. Enough of that, I guess. 

I will follow-up with questions for the record to get specifics on 

that. 

Mr. Koumans, why don’t you start with any kind of closing 

thought, briefly? 

Mr. KOUMANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I will just add, 

if I may, on the passports. As was pointed out, there are countries 

that were grandfathered, so if you have an Italian, French, German, et cetera, passport that was issued say in 2005, the latter 

half of 2005, it is still valid. It is a 10-year passport. As those are 

being phased out, the new higher-quality passports are being 
208 

phased in, the fraud-resistant ones. And so that is something that 

is a diminishing issue as time passes and more and more of those 

are phased out. We welcome the advent of the higher fraud-resistant passports. 

A separate question of the reporting of the passport data to 

Interpol, then it is a question of screening against the Interpol 

records, and we would welcome more countries to screen against 

Interpol to prevent the travel of individuals using passports that 

have been previously reported lost or stolen. 

I want to thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to discuss this program today. I am remembering a phrase that was 

mentioned in the first panel, which was, ‘‘This is not your grandfather’s VWP.’’ When I first started issuing visas in 1991, in the 

Netherlands, which was then a new entrant in the Visa Waiver 

Program, it was a much simpler time. There were simple checks, 

and at that point you could, in fact, as a Dutch citizen go to the 

airport, get on a plane, and the first time we would encounter you, 

the first time that DHS, that CBP would encounter you, Customs 

Service at the time, would be when you landed at JFK or Detroit. 

But now, an entirely different system with the multiple layers and 

the information sharing that underpins it. And so our screening is 

enriched by the data that we get from our partnerships and makes 

it an entirely different system and a much more robust one. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Ms. Dugan. 

Ms. DUGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We work very well with 

our foreign counterparts, and I think they are looking for additional ways to make their entry screening more robust. And we 

routinely work with them to do capacity building and ways for 

them to build their targeting framework and how they get to that 

place with whether they have to pass legislation in their country, 

what type of agreements they would have with the carriers and 

with other foreign counterparts. So I think that the willingness is 

there, and they are looking to us to help build that capacity. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Ramotowski. 

Mr. RAMOTOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps the most 

important lesson of the 9/11 tragedy was the critical importance of 

information sharing, both within the U.S. Government and with 

our international allies. The Visa Waiver Program promotes information sharing. It is probably the single biggest contributor to 

international information sharing that exists. And it also has tremendous economic and diplomatic benefits as well. So I thank you 

very much for your support and, again, for holding this hearing. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, I want to thank all my colleagues for 

attending, all the witnesses for your thoughtful testimony and your 

thoughtful answers to our questions. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until March 27 

at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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1The prepared statement of Chairman Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 351. 

SECURING THE SOUTHWEST BORDER: 

PERSPECTIVES FROM BEYOND THE BELTWAY 

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, McCain, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, 

Sasse, Carper, McCaskill, Heitkamp, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. I do know that our Ranking Member is 

going to be a little late, so he said we could start without him, and 

so we will call this hearing to order. 

Let me first start out by saying this is—well, first of all, let me 

welcome everybody here. Thank you for your thoughtful testimony. 

I have read it all. It was very well prepared. 

This is going to be the first in a series of hearings and, hopefully, 

public roundtables really designed to lay out the reality of the situation. Exactly what are we dealing with in terms of trying to secure this border? 

One thing that is pretty noteworthy about four of the five written 

statements, four of you made a very prominent point that the border is not secure, and I agree with that assessment. I think you 

also laid out in your testimony what is also obvious, that this is 

a very complex problem. There are no easy solutions to this whatsoever because we have a number of factors here. We have the 

nexus between the drug trafficking and drug cartels, and the 

human traffickers and the drug cartels, and illegal immigration, 

and immigration law that incentivizes illegal immigration. 

So, this is an incredibly complex problem, and that is what these 

hearings, these forums, or these roundtables are going to be designed to achieve, is lay out that reality, provide the kind of information policymakers need to solve any problem. And, of course, 

that is one of the problems with border security and immigration 

reform, is it is lacking the information. 

I have a written statement that I just want to include in the 

record,1 without objection, but I just want to read a couple little 
304 

clips from this, because the problem is exacerbated by a lack of information. 

We do not know for sure how many people today are living in 

the shadows. And, most importantly, there is no solid way to track 

illegal flow at our borders. And, how many people here today entered this country lawfully but overstayed the visas? We really do 

not know. 

How many people cross the U.S.-Mexico border undetected? We 

really do not know. Out of those detected, how many were apprehended? We really do not know. Out of those detected and apprehended, how many were let go with just a Notice to Appear? I do 

not know it. We should have the information on that, but it has 

not been supplied to this Committee. 

Out of those that received a Notice to Appear, how many showed 

up for their court date? Again, we should have that information, 

but I do not have it. I do not believe this Committee has it. And, 

out of those that showed up for their court date, how many were 

actually deported? 

So, if we are going to start working toward solutions, if we are 

going to start analyzing this problem, we need a whole lot more information than we currently have. 

And, the fact is, we passed a lot of legislation, and I just want 

to go down a list that is also in my written statement, but let me 

just quick lay it out here. 

In 1986, we passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act 

(IRCA). At the time, the estimate was there were slightly less than 

four million immigrants that were in this country illegally. Of 

course, what happened there, that was the amnesty bill that was 

supposed to solve the illegal immigration problem for all time. 

In 1990, we passed the Immigration Act of 1990, increased the 

number of Border Patrol Agents by 1,000, created an H–1 Visa for 

high-skilled workers. At that point in time, we had about 3.5 million people, supposedly, here in this country illegally. 

In 1996, we passed the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA). It created a pilot program for eVerify and increased Border Patrol Agents by 5,000, and it was the 

first time we required the creation of an exit-entry system. By this 

point in time—again, remember, we passed the amnesty bill in 

1986. Ten years later, now we had six million people in this country illegally. 

In 2001, after 9/11, we passed the PATRIOT Act. It also required 

an entry-exit system that was going to be biometric and it tripled 

the number of Border Agents on the Northern Border. In 2001, we 

had estimated about 9.6 million immigrants in this country illegally. 

In 2002, we passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa 

Entry Reform Act. It once again called for a biometric exit and 

entry system at all ports of entry. Now, the number of people in 

this country illegally had risen over 10 million. 

In 2004, we passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. It increased Border Patrol Agents by a total of 10,000 

and it called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to 

complete once again, the biometric entry and exit system. The 

entry system had been completed by 2004. We still do not have an 
305 

exit system now. The number of people in this country illegally was 

almost 11 million. 

In 2006, we passed the Secure Fence Act, calling for the construction of 850 miles of fence along the Southwest Border. In 

2006, the number of people in this country illegally was about 11.7 

million. 

Now, one interesting thing about the Secure Fence Act is I have 

been diving into this problem. I am trying to get as much information as possible, and I did ask my staff, because I wanted to really 

understand this, so I asked them to print out the Secure Fence Act 

so I could really study it over the weekend, a piece of legislation 

that is pretty hard to comprehend, so I really wanted to spend the 

weekend reading this, what I consider was going to be a pretty 

complex, pretty thick bill. It took me a couple of minutes because 

it is two pages long. 

In 2007, after the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act, once 

again, reiterated the need for a biometric exit system. Now, we had 

almost 12 million people in this country illegally. 

The point of that iteration, that time line, is we have been passing law after law after law, and at some point in time we have to 

ask the question, do these laws work? Are we solving the problem? 

And if not, why not? 

So, again, the purpose of this hearing is to lay out the reality, 

lay out the facts, understand the complexity, realize there is no silver bullet solution, there is no easy solution to this problem. And, 

again, that is why I want to thank the witnesses for some thoughtful testimony. This is the first step. I think, having read your testimony, you are certainly laying out some realities that we certainly 

need to consider here in Congress. 

And with that, I will turn it over to our Ranking Member, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, one and all. It is good to see you. Thank you for spending this time with us today. 

Last month, our Chairman, along with Senator Sasse and I traveled down to South Texas to see firsthand conditions along our border. We met with ranchers. We met with Border Patrol Agents, officers in action at the port of entry (POE), we learned a lot, and 

I am pleased to say that today, some of our friends from the Southwest Border have joined us here in our Nation’s capital to continue 

the conversation that was begun down there. 

I have made a number of trips over the years to both our Northern and our Southern Borders, from the West Coast, the Pacific, all 

the way over to the Gulf Coast, and along the Northern Border, as 

well. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp. [Laughter.] 

Each time, I came away impressed both by the dedication of our 

border security personnel and by the security and technological advances we have made. We have invested a huge amount of resources along our Southern Border, in particular, as you know, a 

quarter of a trillion dollars over the past decade. I do not believe 

it has been wasted. I think it shows. 
306 

In fact, last Congress, we held a series of border security hearings in this Committee. We learned that overall apprehensions of 

undocumented migrants are at a 40-year low. We learned that 

crime rates in many communities near the border have also 

dropped significantly. We also had experts tell us that the border 

is more secure than it has ever been, and many of those I have spoken to during our trip have agreed—not all, but many. 

Having said that, is there more work to do? You bet, there is, 

and one of the great things about this hearing is you can help us 

better focus our attention on what is likely to work and enable us 

to continue to make progress. 

We know that while many border communities are among the 

safest towns in America, the drug cartels are a real danger and are 

growing more sophisticated and oftentimes more violent, as well. 

Ranchers, in particular, face persistent and daunting challenges on 

their own lands. We also know that our ports of entry need to be 

modernized. These border crossings have received far less attention 

and resources than the Border Patrol over the past decade, but 

they are just as important to our security and to our economy. And, 

of course, we are all aware that the Rio Grande Valley last summer 

faced an overwhelming surge of Central American children and 

families arriving at the border. 

While some of these migrants tried to evade our agents, it is my 

understanding that most simply turned themselves in, and based 

on what I have seen and heard, I am convinced that we need to 

take at least three basic steps. 

First, we need to continue to make investments at the border, 

but they need to be smart investments. To me, that primarily 

means innovative technologies that can serve as force multipliers 

for the unprecedented number of agents we have stationed along 

the border. In fact, when Chairman Johnson, Senator Sasse, and 

I were down on the border, we heard repeatedly that, and this is 

a quote, ‘‘Technology is the key to securing the border.’’ 

Of course, what works in Arizona may not work in Texas, may 

not work in San Diego, or may not work along the Northern Border. In some areas, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with advanced 

radar technology or fixed-wing aircraft with sophisticated cameras 

may be what is most effective. In other places, it can mean surveillance systems on tethered aerostats or mobile towers or fixed towers. In others, it could be taming a wild mustang that allows an 

agent to patrol remote or densely vegetated areas along the Rio 

Grande River and do that more effectively. 

We also need to enable our ports of entry to work more efficiently. We need to enable our ports of entry to work more efficiently so that we can better focus our inspections on potential 

threats rather than legitimate travelers. 

But as we make these investments to support our frontline 

agents, we must avoid the temptation here in Washington of being 

overly prescriptive. As smart as we are, we do not have all the answers, and a lot of the good answers, frankly, are at this table, and 

the other people we have met with on these repeated trips to the 

border. 

The second thing we need to do is to get to work on comprehensive immigration reform. This cannot and should not wait until we 
307 

have achieved some elusive, perfect measure of border security. 

Congress needs to begin real debate on a comprehensive and 

thoughtful 21st Century immigration policy for our Nation, a policy 

that is fair, that will significantly reduce the Nation’s budget deficit, that will continue to slow the flow of immigrants to our border 

with Mexico, and it will strengthen the economic recovery now underway. 

Last Congress, two-thirds of the Senate came together and overwhelmingly passed such a measure. Was it perfect? No, but it took 

significant steps to fix our badly broken immigration system while 

reducing our deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next 20 years and 

increasing our gross domestic product (GDP) over that time period 

by 5 percent. And, by creating better legal channels for immigrants 

to come to our Nation, we make it easier for border security officials to focus on the people or things that pose a true risk to us. 

Letting millions of undocumented people already living here, many 

for their entire lives, to step out of the shadows and undergo background checks is also good for local law enforcement. In short, comprehensive immigration reform is good for security. 

Third point: We must address the root causes of the challenges 

we face along our borders with Mexico and not just the symptoms. 

I just want to take a moment, Mr. Buffett, to thank you and your 

family, your Foundation, for knowing that and actually doing something about it. You are a model for us. 

But, in this case, this means helping to address the violence and 

desperation that has caused so many families, children, and others 

to risk their life and limb on a 1,500-mile journey across Mexico to 

come to our country. The leaders of Guatemala, Honduras, and El 

Salvador have embarked on an unprecedented collaboration effort 

called the Alliance for Prosperity to boost security and prosperity 

within their region. They have committed to investing their own 

money in the development of their infrastructure and workforce 

and to make difficult changes to promote transparency, security, 

and the rule of law. We should be a good neighbor and support 

them in this effort, just as we helped Colombia reverse its downward spiral with Plan Colombia in the 1990s. It is the right thing 

to do and the pragmatic thing to do. It is a much better approach 

than continuing to deal with the devastating and costly consequences of vulnerable children and others making the trip to our 

border. 

Finally, I was pleased to see the President’s request of $1 billion 

in next year’s budget to partner with the governments of Central 

America as they seek to address security, governance, and economic challenges. For example, some of this funding would support 

better police training or the expansion of youth centers for those 

at risk of gang violence and recruitment. Some of it will be used 

to attract foreign investment or support efforts to build a stronger 

court system and electric grid. 

Changes in these nations will not happen overnight. It will not 

be easy. But, I believe we have a moral and fiscal obligation to help 

our neighbors in the Northern Triangle. After all and we do not say 

this enough, but I want to say this—after all, addiction in the 

United States to cocaine, to heroin, and other illegal substances di-
308 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Cabrera appears in the Appendix on page 355. 

rectly contributes to their misery in those countries. But, if we 

work together, progress can be made. They can do it. We can help. 

With that, I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to hearing from all of 

the witnesses. Thank you one and all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in witnesses, so if 

you will all stand and raise your right hand. 

Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

Mr. CABRERA. I do. 

Mr. DANNELS. I do. 

Mr. BUFFETT. I do. 

Mr. BRAND. I do. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness is Chris Cabrera. Chris is a Border Patrol 

Agent and serves as the Vice President and spokesperson of the 

National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), Local 3307. Local 3307 

represents more than 2,000 Border Patrol Agents and support staff 

in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Before joining the Border 

Patrol, Mr. Cabrera was a paratrooper with the United States 

Army. He joined the Border Patrol in 2003 and has spent his entire 

career in the Rio Grande Valley, stationed in McAllen, Texas. 

Mr. Cabrera. 

TESTIMONY OF CHRIS CABRERA,1 BORDER PATROL AGENT, 

RIO GRANDE VALLEY SECTOR, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER 

PROTECTION, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL 

Mr. CABRERA. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, 

thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify on behalf of the National Border Patrol Council and the 16,500 Border 

Patrol Agents it represents. My name is Chris Cabrera. I joined the 

Border Patrol in 2003. I served 4 years with the U.S. Army as a 

paratrooper. I have spent my entire Border Patrol career in the Rio 

Grande Valley of South Texas. 

Before I discuss some potential solutions that can be employed 

to increase border security, I want to address whether or not the 

border is secure. If you ask that question of the Department of 

Homeland Security or senior management at Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP), they will tell you that the border is secure. They 

may even point to statistics and metrics showing that the Border 

Patrol is 75 percent effective in apprehending illegal immigrants 

and drug smugglers. 

I want to be crystal clear. The border is not secure. That is not 

just my opinion or the position of the NBPC. Ask any line agent 

in the field and he or she will tell you that the best we apprehend 

is 30 to 40 percent of the illegal immigrants attempting to cross 

into the United States. This number is even lower for drug smugglers, who are much more adept at eluding capture. 
309 

Now, how can this enormous gap exist between what DHS tells 

you here in Washington and what our agents know to be the truth 

in the field? Frankly, it is how you manipulate the statistics. Let 

me give you an example. A key metric in determining the effectiveness is what is known as ‘‘got aways.’’ If we know from footprints 

or video surveillance that 20 individuals crossed the border, we ultimately catch 10, obviously, we know that we have 10 that got 

away. 

Now, when I first joined the Border Patrol, if I saw 20 sets of 

footprints in the sand, there was no argument. We were looking for 

20 individuals. Today, if I see 20 more footprints in the sand, a supervisor must come out to my location and verify the number of 

footprints. I guess they believe that I have lost my ability to count 

after 13 years. Agents who repeatedly report groups of larger than 

20 face retribution. Management will either take them out of the 

field and assign them to processing detainees at the station or assigning them to a fixed position in low-volume areas as a punishment. Needless to say, the agents have gotten the message and 

now they stay below the 20-person threshold, no matter the actual 

size of the group. 

In January 2011, Border Patrol Chief Fisher came to our muster 

at McAllen Station. To his credit, he took questions from the assembled agents. I expressed my concern to him what I perceived 

to be CBP being more interested in border security statistics than 

the actual border security, especially as it pertains to our ‘‘got 

aways.’’ Chief Fisher’s response was, ‘‘If a tree falls in the woods 

and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’’ Now, I do 

not know if that tree makes a sound, but I do know if I see 20 footprints in the sand and I catch five, that I have 15 ‘‘got aways,’’ 

whether or not our official statistics reflect that. 

I raise this issue with you because before we can start to address 

our problems, we have to acknowledge the extent of them. In a moment, I am going to ask you to provide our agents with more resources. I know that times are tough right now and everyone is 

asking for more resources. I know that it is harder to sell for me 

when the head of my agency is telling you that we are 75 percent 

effective and the border is secure. 

To give you a sense of what we are dealing with, not 6 months 

after Chief Fisher made that comment to me, I was involved in a 

firefight with drug cartel smugglers. We were attempting to intercept a drug shipment and we sustained automatic gunfire from the 

Mexican side of the Rio Grande River. In less than 5 minutes, over 

600 rounds were fired. When cartel members are brazenly firing 

automatic weapons at Federal law enforcement agents, the border 

is not secure. This was in 2011, and since then, things have gotten 

worse in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. 

What are some actions that this Committee can take to improve 

border security? Let me give you several of my suggestions. 

Increase manpower. Currently, there are 21,370 Border Patrol 

Agents in this country. We do not need to double the size of the 

Border Patrol to gain operational control. In my opinion, we fall approximately 5,000 agents short of where we should be. The NBPC 

would advocate that 1,500 be sent to the Northern Border, which 
310 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dannels appears in the Appendix on page 358. 

is woefully understaffed, and the remaining 3,500 positions allocated to interior enforcement. 

Supervising staffing levels. The Border Patrol is an extremely 

top-heavy organization with far too many layers of management. 

The average police department has one supervisor for every 10 officers. The Border Patrol has one supervisor for every four agents. 

This Committee should mandate a 10:1 ratio and achieve it 

through attrition in the supervisory ranks. That could easily return 

another 1,500 agents to the field. 

Interior enforcement. Every night, we effectively play goal line 

defense because all of our resources and assets are concentrated 

right at the border instead of having an in-depth defense. You may 

be surprised to learn that even in a border State like Arizona, we 

have no agents in Phoenix, this despite the fact that Phoenix is one 

of the most important illegal immigrant and narcotic transit points 

in the country. 

Better training. During the Bush Administration, the Border Patrol’s academy training was reduced from approximately 20 weeks 

to as little as 54 days if you spoke the Spanish language. This is 

simply not enough time to properly train an agent and weed out 

those who are not up to the challenge. The Committee should require that the academy revert back to the 20 weeks. 

Again, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity 

to testify, and if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Cabrera. 

Our next witness is Sheriff Mark Dannels. He is the Sheriff of 

Cochise County, Arizona. Mr. Dannels began his law enforcement 

career in 1984, after serving a successful tour in the United States 

Army. With 30 years of law enforcement experience, Mr. Dannels 

has been recognized, among other things, to receive the Medal of 

Valor, Sheriff’s Medal, and the Deputy of the Year. 

Sheriff Dannels. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK J. DANNELS,1 SHERIFF, COCHISE 

COUNTY, ARIZONA 

Mr. DANNELS. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you and good morning, for the 

distinct privilege and honor to actually share my experience over 

three decades on the border and seeing how it has evolved. 

My brief statement has been submitted, but I would like to highlight a few points. 

With 83 miles of international border within our jurisdiction, 

Cochise County plays a significant role in combating drug and 

human trafficking organizations and associated violent crime, 

which adversely affects Arizona residents and other areas throughout the United States. With 6,219 square miles, Cochise County is 

the 38th largest land mass county in the United States and is 

home to United States Army base, Fort Huachuca. Violence against 

innocent citizens, public officials, law enforcement, and rival drug 

and human trafficking groups in Mexico continues to escalate. The 

adverse effects of the drug and human trafficking organizations op-
311 

erating in Cochise County not only definitely diminish the quality 

of life of county residents, but also places unbearable strain upon 

the budgets and resources of private and local government agencies 

in the county. 

In the 1990s—I would like to talk just quickly about the history 

of the border and why we are in the current situation. I call it the 

Plan of the Ps, where the Federal Government came out with a 

plan to secure the border, where they were going to secure the populated areas, which the targeted cities were Yuma, El Paso, and 

San Diego, and the ports of entry. The other half of the plan was 

to reroute that illegal activity, those disturbances, into the rural 

parts of the Southwest Border. I am now proud to say that today 

we are a product of the Federal Government’s plan. 

Currently, we have 1,500 Federal agents working just in Cochise 

County for 83 miles of international border. Local solutions and 

programs are no longer a thought, but a reality of bringing relief 

to our citizens. As the Sheriff of Cochise County, I felt it was my 

elected and statutory duty, which is my oath of office, to support 

the United States Constitution and the Arizona Constitution to 

protect and secure the freedoms and liberties of my citizens, with 

or without the help of our Federal partners and policymakers. It 

is no longer a debate that those that live in the rural parts of the 

Southwest Border are not secure and are vulnerable for any type 

of transnational criminal activity. 

Some of the local solutions that we have put forward: A balanced 

community policing effort, both education, prevention, and enforcement. We spent transparent time to build that community trust. 

We have collaborated at all three levels of law enforcement and 

government within our county. Our local county attorney and I 

have a law and order partnership to put the consequences back 

into those that commit crimes against our citizens, to include border crimes. Interoperabilities and intelligence sharing at all three 

levels. 

A regional Border Team: To give you an example of this Border 

Team, which is supported by Border Patrol, Customs, and the U.S. 

Forest Service, the first 6 to 8 weeks, we put 30 smugglers that we 

captured, put them in prison at the State level, where they are now 

being housed there for an estimated 2-year sentence. 

A Ranch Advisory Team: Made up of our local ranchers and 

farmers and citizens that are vulnerable in these areas. A Ranch 

Patrol of two deputies that now work directly with these citizens. 

A factual situation awareness for our media, our elected officials, 

and America as a whole. And, a community outreach to work within our communities. 

Some recommendations—I highlighted a few of them: To redefine 

the Plan of the 1990s and buildupon their successes. The political 

will to make border security a mandated program, not a discretionary one. Border security first, immigration reform second. 

Maximize the allocated resources of staffing with the Border Patrol. Currently, in the Tucson Sector, only 43 percent of all Border 

Patrol were actually on the border. Support and embrace first-line 

agents that work the border regions. They have a dangerous job 

and it is no secret their frustration is high. Quality of life. Citizens 

living on the border are supported by sheriffs and State Governors 
312 

regarding an improved security and safety. Funding supplement for 

local law enforcement, prosecution, detention, and criminal justice, 

and in support of border crimes. Continue funding and support for 

the Stonegarden program, which has actually been a very beneficial program. And, enhanced funding for regional communication 

and interoperability with local law enforcement. 

I want to read a letter—this is from the Arizona Sheriffs Association—that we sent to Washington, DC. on July 28 of 2014. I actually authored this letter. ‘‘This letter is authored by the Arizona 

Sheriffs Association to address the lack of border security on the 

part of our Federal Government, thereby placing our Arizona citizens and all those that visit our beautiful State in harm’s way by 

those that have chosen to infringe upon and violate our freedoms 

and liberties that are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. 

‘‘Arizona Sheriffs are standing united and steadfast in support of 

secure and safe borders in hopes of enhancing public safety for our 

Arizona citizens and all Americans. A secure and safe border is one 

that provides a genuine deterrent for those that cross into our 

country illegally and for illicit gain. 

‘‘Border security must never be a discretionary program, but a 

mandate by our Federal leaders and policymakers. The quality of 

life normally enjoyed by our citizens has been jeopardized by an 

unsecure border that enables transnational criminals and their accomplices to prey upon our citizens. Our focus is border security. 

It is not to be confused with immigration reform.’’ 

Today, the opportunity to address this group instills fresh hope 

that our voice does matter, and on behalf of the citizens of Cochise 

County, Arizona and beyond, we hope you will not forget us and 

will do your constitutional mandate to bring positive change to an 

overdue, vulnerable situation. 

I leave you with an open invitation to come visit us in Cochise 

County, for not a show-and-tell visit, but a real life visit. And, Senator Johnson, thank you for bringing your staff down to see firsthand what is going on on our border. 

Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to share this experience and I am open for any questions if you wish. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Sheriff Dannels. 

Our next witness is Howard Buffett. Mr. Buffett manages the 

Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private charitable foundation. He 

is a member of the Sheriff’s Assist Team in Cochise County, Arizona. Mr. Buffett oversees a 2,376-acre cattle ranch in Arizona on 

the U.S.-Mexico border and another farm in Arizona 50 miles from 

the border. Mr. Buffett has been honored for his charitable work, 

receiving the Aztec Eagle Award from the President of Mexico in 

2000, the highest honor bestowed on a foreign citizen by that government, and Mr. Buffett, we all do appreciate your generosity to 

these causes. 

Mr. Buffett. 
313 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Buffett appears in the Appendix on page 364. 

TESTIMONY OF HOWARD G. BUFFETT,1 CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HOWARD G. BUFFETT FOUNDATION, 

AND ARIZONA LANDOWNER 

Mr. BUFFETT. Thank you very much, Chairman Johnson and 

Ranking Member Carper and the Members of the Committee. I appreciate having the opportunity to be here today. 

I am here as a landowner of border property, a philanthropist 

who has worked on related humanitarian issues over the last 20 

years, and a member of law enforcement in both Arizona and Illinois. These experiences inform the perspective I share here today. 

You have already heard that the border is not secure by your 

first two witnesses and I would support that position. I believe we 

must secure our border now, regardless of efforts being considered 

on immigration reform and support to countries of origin. I would 

be happy to share my thoughts at a later time on those topics, 

given our Foundation efforts on both. But, I will say that I see 

them both as separate and distinct from the need to secure our border. 

Our insecure border creates a serious humanitarian crisis. By 

failing to secure our border, we have contributed to failing economies and unsafe environments, causing people to die attempting to 

reach our country, while putting our own citizens at risk. Our insecure border allows the drug cartels to operate at an unacceptable 

level, having a devastating impact on heroin and meth use in this 

country. U.S. citizens who own land in border States suffer economically. Those who live in communities along our border assume 

a higher risk to their personal safety that can be frightening and, 

at times, deadly, and all of this adds up to undermining our society. 

Border security is like most law enforcement objectives: It will 

never be 100 percent successful, but we must strive for zero tolerance. Today, we are far from that standard. This is reflected in the 

fact that as a landowner along the border, we cannot build a home 

on our property, we cannot let our children play freely, and we cannot reliably operate our businesses. This is not what we expect as 

citizens of the United States. 

I have neighbors in Arizona who have had to abandon their livelihoods of breeding cattle. On our property, we struggle to keep up 

repairing fences which are cut multiple times regularly by drug 

smugglers who have too heavy a load to go over or under these 

fences. 

We must also recognize that our insecure border causes people 

attempting to cross to die trying, children to be victimized, women 

to be raped, and contributes to the dysfunction of the neighboring 

economies that these people are fleeing. We should strive to help 

our neighbors improve the rule of law and to provide opportunities 

so people can stay at home without looking to the United States 

as a safe haven. And, our actions at home should not encourage 

people to travel to our country illegally. None of that is possible unless our border is secure. 

Those who decide to come to this country represent two different 

groups. Many are desperate, but decent people who are law-abiding 
314 

individuals until they cross our border illegally. Others are human 

predators, thugs, or members of organized criminal groups. 

As a part-time law enforcement officer, as a property owner of a 

ranch located on our Southern Border and a farm 50 miles north 

of that border, I have experienced many encounters with Border 

Patrol Agents and illegal immigrants. When you live or operate 

close to the border, it is like living in another world. 

As a result of our Foundation, I have spent hundreds of hours 

with families in Central America and Mexico. I have interviewed 

people boarding the death train in Oaxaca, those who were seriously injured in the process, and mothers whose sons have died in 

the Arizona desert. So, I repeat, our insecure border creates a humanitarian crisis. 

One thing I have learned from our Foundation work in over 80 

countries is that it does little to identify a problem if you are not 

able to also propose a solution. So, I present a few ideas for your 

consideration. 

One, we need more human assets on our border, but adding more 

Border Patrol Agents is not the only answer. We have an opportunity to engage appropriate military assets, and I emphasize, 

without militarizing the border. The Coast Guard is an agency 

which falls under Homeland Security, and is well trained to deal 

with border enforcement. I would strongly consider expanding its 

mandate to operate on land. The National Guard can be used to 

monitor additional technology, such as aerostats and other surveillance systems, which will add to the support in the technology 

area. 

Two, we need a commitment from Mexico and with Mexico to enforce the Northern and Southern Borders. We need to put the manpower of both countries on both sides of our border with Mexico to 

shut down the drugs coming into our country. We should apply the 

lessons we learned from our engagement with Colombia to try and 

reduce the drug trade, improve security, and promote rule of law 

for our Southern neighbor. This requires a new level of trust and 

investment, and I would emphasize, it is not without risk. 

Three, we need additional immigration courts at border facilities 

for real time judicial processing until our border is more secure. 

Four, we must improve cooperation on the border among ranchers, local law enforcement, and community leaders. It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to set this tone and to foster this cooperation. Too often, the Federal Government acts like 

the Federal Government. 

I have included in my written testimony more details of my experiences and our Foundation investments across a broad range of related activities, from gang prevention in El Salvador to geographic 

information systems (GIS) for body recovery at the Pima County 

Medical Examiner’s Office, from projects with the United Farm 

Workers and Costco supporting farm labor rights and work programs, to millions of dollars that we have invested in the Cochise 

County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) for public safety, and in particular 

to fight human trafficking and drug smuggling. 

I look forward to answering any questions. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Buffett. 
315 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Brand appears in the Appendix on page 394. 

Our next witness is Othal Brand. Mr. Brand has lived for over 

60 years in McAllen, Texas, and currently serves as the President 

and General Manager of Hidalgo County Water Improvement District Number Three, with its main facility located on the embankment of the Rio Grande River. For 30 years, Mr. Brand worked for 

his family business with farming operations and property directly 

on the Rio Grande River. 

Mr. Brand. 

TESTIMONY OF OTHAL E. BRAND, JR.,1 FARMER, MCALLEN, 

TEXAS 

Mr. BRAND. Thank you. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 

Carper, and Members of the Committee, I appreciate your invitation. 

My name is Othal Brand. I have lived in the Valley, as you said, 

for 60 years. My family farmed the Valley. We were the largest 

growers of fruits and vegetables in the State of Texas for a quarter 

of a century and farmed thousands of acres owned and leased along 

the river for that time. I now served 10 years as the General Manager and President of our Water District, working every year and 

speaking on a weekly basis with law enforcement, being on the embankment, dealing with all the issues that you have heard of and 

know about today. 

I hope you read my written testimony. There is violence and a 

criminal element is real on the river. If you have listened the last 

couple days to the news, our Sheriff for Hidalgo County just released, or the first time I have heard it, that 53 percent of all illegal crossers in the United States came through Hidalgo County, 

where we live—53 percent of everyone nationwide. I would say the 

focus is rather pointed. 

I want to spend most of my time with you this morning speaking 

to the possible solutions and, hopefully, if there is time, speak to 

the other. 

In dealing with where we live—that is all I am going to go into, 

try to tell you that my experience is—one is you have aerostats, 

you have drones, you have planes, you have helicopters, and they 

are great and they have been a great asset, but they are what we 

call fair weather systems. Aerostats can only stay up—we are 

called the Windy Valley. There is a reason for that, because we 

have a lot of wind. Aerostats can only stay up for a certain wind 

speed and then they have to come down. Drones on a cloud-covered 

day, are absolutely on the ground and have no worth to us. You 

have already started and I hope to encourage you to continue the 

added support of portable towers, which are more of a terrestrial 

structure, that are more of a 24/7 solution to—in addition to what 

you are presently doing. 

No. 2, boat ramps, or boat access. In listening to Border Patrol, 

I buy into what they say about the first line of defense for us is 

the river. We actually have a river. We are not like other parts of 

the State where it is just a dry gully, and that is the first line of 

defense. And, what we know is that if there are boats in the water, 

that is a deterrent. It is the most vulnerable. People who cross into 
316 

our part of the world, that is where they are the most vulnerable. 

It is first, getting in that water and getting out. Boats are a solution to that. They should be the first line of defense. 

In 250 miles of our river, from Brownsville to Rio Grande City, 

we have two 24/7 ramps and neither one of them belong to the government. One of them is ours, which is below Anzalduas Dam. The 

other one is above. There are eight weirs in the Rio Grande, dams 

that actually segment the river into pieces. They need access to 

that river. They need infrastructure. You have infrastructure for 

the air. You have infrastructure for the ground in the boots. You 

do not have any infrastructure for the boats, for the marine division. 

I have suggested, if you read that the Water Districts who serve 

90 percent of the people in the Valley are below the walls that were 

built in the Valley, but they provide the majority of the drinking 

water. They are the only other people on the river—other than 

your international bridges—they are the only other ones that have 

infrastructure all the way to the river. 

Border Patrol says that their issues are environmental studies 

that take 3 to 5 years and all their answers have been ‘‘no’’ to this 

point. In regard to Water Districts, the majority of them have 

channels, anywhere from a quarter to a half-a-mile long, off the 

river. This is what we have done. We did not have to do any environmental studies. We built the ramp inside our property, on our 

channel that accessed the river, never touching the embankment, 

never touching the river. 

These are simple, quick solutions. These Water Districts are 

more than open to a possible solution for Border Patrol in this respect. 

These weirs, at the same time, are important because there has 

to be a certain water level for boats to work. These weirs, we are 

getting ready to spend $125,000 to $150,000 to lift the weir below 

our pump station in order to make our pump station more efficient 

and have water supplies. This is what they were all built for, for 

the Water Districts, in the first place. By raising these weirs a foot 

to even just two feet, it gives the Border Patrol Marine Division an 

opportunity to keep a water level that is adequate for them to operate fully from one end of the Valley to the other, where 53 percent 

of these people are coming across. 

Last, I would tell you that—and let me just say, these expenses 

and recommendations I am making, these are one-time expenses. 

We built our boat ramp 5 years ago. I have had no additional expenses in that regard. These are one-time expenses, not recurring 

or residual expenses to the Federal Government, and they are—it 

is probably the best money spent on that first line of defense. 

Last, I would say to you, the National Guard—the State of 

Texas, I think, proved a point to the rest of us that added manpower and resources does help curb and deal with the battle. They 

brought a thousand National Guards. I do not want to talk to you 

about militarizing. I do not want to talk to you about who should 

do it, the Federal, the State, what agency within those governments. But, I want to say to you, the concept is solid for the first 

time in my lifetime, in the recent years. 
317 

They brought those thousand men down to the Valley. Their sole 

purpose, their singular purpose was to sit on the river and be the 

eyes for Border Patrol. They sat on the embankment of the river. 

They had no processing responsibilities, no administration responsibilities. They did not have to drive back and forth, up and down 

the river, like Border Patrol has to do because of their manpower. 

They sat on that river. The Department of Public Safety (DPS), the 

State Police, game wardens, worked with all of them during the period they have been down there. 

It is the concept. I do not want to get wrapped up in who should 

do that, but the concept works. It is something Border Patrol does, 

but they need more men to do it. 

The Police Chiefs of McAllen and Mission will both tell you—I 

visited with both of them this week before I came just to hear it 

again—that during this period of time, even though none of these 

people that I just talked about—DPS, game wardens, or National 

Guards—none of them were put in cities. They were all put on the 

river in rural areas. But, their effectiveness impacted the cities. 

McAllen will tell you, and they will give the credit to these three 

groups, that their crime dropped 9 percent. Mission will tell you, 

and they will give the credit, too, they dropped 18 percent in their 

crime. 

And, I am not here to argue about the effectiveness. That is the 

byproduct. If you do it outside, you do it on the river, which is 

where it should be dealt with first, that is the cheapest dollar you 

will ever spend, no doubt about it, and there is a byproduct. It will 

diminish all the other expenses that we all deal with north of the 

border. 

From a businessman’s perspective, I will tell you, that is the 

cheapest dollar you will ever spend, is securing the border. The immigration issue, I am not here for. I am here because I want my 

home secure. I want my family, my community secure. I am not 

worried about the economy. I have lived in the Valley all my life. 

The economy will survive. It will always do well. It will always 

come back. It may have a temporary black eye, but its not going 

to curb our economy. The cartels are too smart for that. If you read 

my testimony, they are like leeches and ticks. They will bleed the 

animal, being the economy. They will not kill it. They will bleed it. 

So, I do not want to argue—I do not want to debate that they 

are safe. The cities are safe. In our county, we have 1,582 square 

miles in our district. I have 2 minutes? 

Chairman JOHNSON. You are 2 minutes over. 

Mr. BRAND. Oh, I am 2 minutes over. Well, you know, that is—— 

[Laughter.] 

I count backward. 

Chairman JOHNSON. We will get back to you on questions. 

Mr. BRAND. That is all right. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Brand. 

Our next witness is Monica Weisberg-Stewart. Ms. Stewart is 

Chairwoman of the Texas Border Coalition’s Border Security and 

Immigration Committee, the collective voice of border mayors, 

county judges, and economic development commissions along the 

Texas-Mexico border. The Texas House of Representatives has rec-
318 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Weisberg-Stewart appears in the Appendix on page 400. 

ognized Ms. Weisberg-Stewart as a noteworthy business and civic 

leader in McAllen for her contributions and achievements. 

Ms. Stewart. 

TESTIMONY OF MONICA WEISBERG–STEWART,1 CHAIRWOMAN, 

COMMITTEE ON BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION, 

TEXAS BORDER COALITION 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I am a businesswoman in McAllen, Texas. The family retail business founded by my family in 1958, Gilberto’s Discount House, was located eight miles from the Rio Grande River 

and recently closed after 57 years in business. I want to share with 

you today my experiences on the border, both as a businesswoman 

and the Chairwoman of the Texas Border Coalition Committee on 

Border Security and Immigration. 

You will be hard-pressed to find anyone who cares more about 

border security than those of us who live, work, and raise our families on the border. Let me begin. 

We do not believe that the border can be truly secured without 

fixing our border immigration system. You will hear from others 

today about community needs, mostly as they relate to the areas 

between the ports of entry. Since 2000, Congress has more than tripled the budget of Border Patrol enforcement. That effort, combined with better interior enforcement and the improvement of the 

Mexican economy, has contributed to an 80 percent reduction in 

apprehensions of undocumented border crossers since 2000. I have 

great admiration for the work of the men and women of the Border 

Patrol, or as I refer to them, as the men and women in green. 

It is important to note that between one-third and one-half of all 

undocumented persons today entered this country lawfully through 

the ports of entry and later overstayed their visas. We have to help 

our Customs and Border Patrol Agents, the men and women in 

blue, do a better job of preventing the entry of people who intend 

to overstay. 

It is also important to note that the transnational drug cartels 

have built a successful business model based on the smuggling of 

cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines into the United States 

from Mexico, and the overwhelming majority of these smuggling activities occur through the ports. CBP officers performing immigration inspections are the primary line of defense against illegal drug 

flows through the ports of entry. 

The fact that no large-scale attack from foreign terrorists has occurred on United States soil since 9/11 indicates that the intelligence and enforcement that has gone into securing the homeland 

from terrorism has exceeded expectations. With that superior 

record, we have to continue to help Customs and Border Protection 

prevent terrorist agents from crossing over to United States soil. 

Proposals to fix border security on the Southwestern Border often 

come from people who do not have daily experience on the border, 

moving legitimate goods between Mexico and the United States, 

working with our manufacturers, our farmers, the Customs inspec-
319 

tors at the ports of entry, and the Border Patrol Agents between 

them. 

I suggest that Congress focus on these two priorities: Preventing 

the unlawful entry of people, especially those who might pose a 

threat to our Nation, through the ports of entry; and preventing 

the smuggling of high-value drugs that are the lifeblood of the 

transnational criminal networks through the ports of entry. 

Increasing effective security measures at the ports of entry will 

also benefit every State in the Union. Increased enforcement, more 

customs agents, better technology, and a functional infrastructure 

means more legitimate trade. According to the Wilson Center, six 

million U.S. jobs depend on legitimate trade with Mexico, one in 

every 24 workers, which amounts to half-a-trillion dollars of goods 

and services per year. 

On a typical day, CBP inspectors process one million travelers, 

handle 70,000 cargo containers, stop 425 agricultural pests from 

entering the United States, quarantine 5,000 harmful products and 

substances, and identify nearly 600 people who raise national security concerns. Mexico’s trade with the United States rose to $535 billion in 

2014. That is a 5.5 percent increase from 2013. Not surprisingly, 

Texas’ largest trading partner is Mexico, yet it can take 3 to 4 

hours to legally cross the border from Mexico, and that costs the 

United States economy money. The result is a significant and 

chronic loss of jobs and trade on both sides of the border. But, long 

wait times at border crossings could be eliminated if the Federal 

Government would aggressively invest in our ports of entry with 

new infrastructure and technology. 

In business, we look at what will give us the biggest bang for the 

buck, and we believe the biggest return on investment is at the 

ports of entry. We understand that resources are limited, but those 

investments in both security and legitimate trade and travel will 

give us the biggest return. 

Let me give you a real world example. In 2013, Congress authorized a pilot program to allow local communities to help pay for additional overtime for Customs and Border Protection Officers. The 

city of El Paso was one of five pilot projects chosen for a 5-year 

test. With increased staffing at the ports for nearly a year, traffic 

volumes have increased nearly 20 percent and almost one-third on 

vehicles. Even with increased volume, wait times went down. 

There are provisions in the Johnson-Cornyn-Flake bill with 

which we disagree, such as more fencing and waiving environmental laws. As Army trainers teach, there is nothing man can 

build that man cannot overcome. This certainly holds true with the 

border fence. People are going over it, under it, through it, and 

around it. But, there are a number of provisions on which we have 

worked with Senator Cornyn for many years, such as 5,000 additional CBP agents, more agricultural specialists at the ports, secure two-way communication devices, Border Area Initiative grant 

programs, ports of entry infrastructure improvement, and a crossborder trade enhancement provision. 

Congress has a responsibility to protect the Nation from unlawful entry, from transnational crime, and from threat of terrorism. 

The Texas Border Coalition suggests you can best fulfill your re-
320 

sponsibility, best fill the gaps in border security by investing the 

same way that our local communities do, in our land ports of entry. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Stewart. Thank you, all 

witnesses, for your thoughtful testimony. 

Chairman McCain is here from a hearing in the Armed Services 

Committee, so I am going to yield my questioning time to Senator 

McCain. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I am 

sorry about this. We have a hearing going on on cybersecurity, 

which I know is an issue that this Committee is very involved in 

and interested in, as well. 

I would like to thank the witnesses. I would also like to commend to my colleagues to take a trip down to see Mr. Buffett’s 

ranch and the place he has built on the border. If you would ever 

like to have a real on-the-ground view of the challenges that we 

face on our border with border security, it would be a visit to Mr. 

Buffett’s ranch and facility, and he has done great things, including 

providing Cochise County Sheriff’s Department with an up-to-date 

and modern communications system. 

Sheriff Dannels, how long have you been living and enforcing the 

law on the border? 

Mr. DANNELS. Since 1984. 

Senator MCCAIN. Since 1984, and what have you seen in the way 

of progress, or lack of progress, say, in the last 10 years on the border and enforcing border security? 

Mr. DANNELS. Excuse me. In the last 10 years, it has pretty 

much been status quo. Over the last 20 years, when the Plan of 

the 1990s, which I spoke about prior to you coming in, there were 

some improvements made with the infrastructure due to the fact 

that we have two port of entries in our county. We went from a 

dozen agents that we all knew by first name to 1,300 Border Patrol 

Agents in our county, and then 200 port of entry folks for the U.S. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs that 

worked there, so 1,500 Federal agents for our 83 miles. So, 15 to 

20 years ago is when we saw the big increase in security between 

our ports. 

Senator MCCAIN. So, you have not seen a lot of progress in the 

last 10 years? 

Mr. DANNELS. In the last 10 years, it has been pretty much the 

same as we saw when the first plan went into place. 

Senator MCCAIN. Would you agree with me, contrary to what Ms. 

Weisberg-Stewart just said, that fences do matter? Fences that are 

enforced matter, such as we have seen in San Diego? 

Mr. DANNELS. Yes. They are a deterrent. 

Senator MCCAIN. As long as they are enforced. It is not easy to 

breach, by the way, Ms. Weisberg-Stewart, when people are there 

to make sure they do not breach the fence. By the way, the Israelis 

do a tremendous job at that kind of work. 

Mr. Cabrera, do you believe that fences matter? 

Mr. CABRERA. Yes, sir, I do. They act as a choke point. It is a 

good tool for us to use. Granted, people will find a way over it, but, 
321 

like you said, if there is someone manning it, if there is someone 

available to push them one way or the other, we will be able to 

eventually stop them. 

Senator MCCAIN. But, would you also agree, and you, Sheriff, 

that we now have technology, some of which was developed in Iraq, 

such as a vehicle and dismount exploitation radar (VADER), where 

we could achieve 90 percent effective control and 100 percent situational awareness. It is a matter of assets, strategy, and funding. 

Mr. CABRERA. I do agree. As long as we have the boots on the 

ground to help enforce that, it would work. 

Senator MCCAIN. Sheriff. 

Mr. DANNELS. I would agree, too, Senator, and the other thing 

I would add to that is the Federal Government has been successful 

with their Plan of the 1990s for the populated and port areas of 

the Southwest Border. I would take those successes, along with the 

technology and the fencing, the infrastructure, the good people 

from Border Patrol, if you combine all that to take care of the rural 

parts of the Southwest Border, it would be very beneficial. 

Senator MCCAIN. So, with all the other aspects that you were 

talking about, economies and opportunities in these countries and 

all those things, is vital long-term in the equation. In the shortterm, visiting your facility, it is still pretty easy to get across our 

border, would you agree? 

Mr. BUFFETT. Yes, sir. I would say that Agent Cabrera, when he 

talks about a choke point on the fence, is exactly the way to describe it, because you are pushing people in different directions. 

And, we have had people use chop saws that cut the fence. We 

have many people breach the fence. But, the truth is, it does slow 

them down. The key point is that you have to have people there 

to apprehend them. 

We have a neighbor, John Ladd, who has counted 47 trucks that 

have breached through their fence through chop saws. One of them 

was apprehended because it broke down. Those vehicles could be 

stopped and apprehended if there were enough people there, because the fence does slow them down and it does make them more 

vulnerable as they try to cross. But, without the proper personnel, 

it is difficult to enforce it. 

Senator MCCAIN. Agent Cabrera, today, Congressman Salmon 

and I introduced legislation concerning our national monuments. 

There is enormous difficulty on some Federal land, such as our national monuments, to get equipment and people in and out of those 

areas. Would you agree that that is a significant challenge? Therefore, it becomes a funnel for drugs and people? 

Mr. CABRERA. Yes, sir, exactly correct. We have a lot of problems 

accessing certain lands down there where we are at. Obviously, the 

smugglers do not play by the same rules. They are going to go, regardless if you tell them they can come in or out of this area, they 

are going where they want to go and we have to go around certain 

areas and it puts us behind the eight ball. 

Senator MCCAIN. And they know that. 

Mr. CABRERA. And they know that. They know exactly what we 

can and cannot do, where we can and cannot go, and they exploit 

it. They are very sophisticated in how they work. 
322 

Senator MCCAIN. Is it not possible, Sheriff Dannels, now from 

Mr. Buffett’s facility where you can see the individuals that cross 

the border that are guiding the drug traffickers and human traffickers as they come across the border, and then once they get 

across, there are still members of the drug cartels up on the mountains directing them forward to move their drugs and people? Is 

that not the situation as it exists today on our border? 

Mr. DANNELS. Yes, it is, Senator. 

Senator MCCAIN. And, it seems to me that Mr. Brand’s complaint, then, is legitimized by this situation, because people who 

live in cities and other parts of the country are not subjected to 

their lands being violated, in one case, as you know, a tragic case 

of a rancher being shot and killed. 

So, in summary, I am asking you, this is a problem that can be 

solved with assets, with a strategy, with people, with fences and 

technology, and those who say, well, we just cannot do it, obviously, 

are incorrect, because every nation has the obligation to have a secure border. 

I guess I would begin with you, Howard, and I would be glad to 

ask all the witnesses for their comment on that. 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, I would say it absolutely can be done, but all 

of the things that you mentioned need to be deployed and they 

need to be deployed in the proper amounts and limits, but if they 

are deployed with the correct strategy, I think it is like any law 

enforcement objective. It can be achieved if you can put the right 

pieces together and the right parts into motion. 

Senator MCCAIN. That is not the case today. 

Mr. BUFFETT. No, sir. It is not the case today. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Does anyone else want to comment? 

Senator MCCAIN. Sheriff. 

Mr. DANNELS. I would say one thing, and I do agree with you, 

Senator McCain, when it comes to it can be done, but we have to 

have the political will to do that, and understand that border security is a mandate and not discretionary by some. The redefinition 

of the Plan of the 1990s, which I spoke about earlier in my testimony, I think is very important to look at, and also to maximize 

already the current allocated resources to Border Patrol and see 

what we actually need to put on the border, and look at that rural 

aspect of it. I think we can get a lot of progress. 

Senator MCCAIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your 

courtesy. I thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

I am going to go vote, but I am going to turn it over to Senator 

Carper for his questions, and we will keep the hearing moving. 

Senator CARPER [presiding.] Again, thank you so much for joining us today. Some of you served in the military prior to your service today, and as a guy who spent about 23 years active and reserve in the Navy as a Naval Flight Officer (NFO), down on the 

border about a month ago when a Navy P–3 airplane, my old P– 

3 airplane, with the Department of Homeland Security looking for 

bad guys, finding a few, too. But, thank you for that service. 

Monica, do people call you Ms. Weisberg-Stewart? 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Yes. 
323 

Senator CARPER. Ms. Weisberg-Stewart, what you had to say 

here today actually reminded me a good deal of what I have heard 

in the trips I have been to the borders, and particularly in Arizona 

and in Texas, and that is while we need to certainly not forget the 

work that is being done between the ports of entry, the land ports 

of entry, we also need to invest in the ports of entry themselves. 

A lot of drugs are coming through, and a lot of folks that are undocumented illegal trying to come into the country, they come 

through the ports of entry. So, we sometimes forget that, but I do 

not think we should. 

One of the things that is helpful in a hearing of this nature is 

to see where you agree, and as it turns out, there is a fair amount 

of consensus. I do not know if you have noticed that. One of the 

things I hear from just about every witness is we could use a few 

more bodies down on the border. We have added a whole lot. We 

could use a few more. 

We could certainly make them more effective. And, Othal, it is 

nice to see you again. Thank you very much for your insights. I 

think you made some compelling points about not just putting 

more drones in the air or tethered dirigibles in the air. I am all 

for doing that if we can do it effectively. But, there are some other 

ways that we can provide technology and force multipliers that 

maybe we have not thought too much about, and I really appreciate 

what you had to say to us. 

We had an Inspector General (IG) report from the Department 

of Homeland Security recently that said we are not getting our 

money’s worth out of the drones and that the Department of Homeland Security has to make sure that we are doing that. We are 

going to spend all that money, we are going to add more drones, 

we have to make sure we are getting our money’s worth, realizing 

they do not work every day, in every kind of weather condition. 

A couple people said we need to add either force multipliers or 

more bodies on the border to patrol, protect, and then may later 

on do immigration reform. I think we can do both at the same time, 

and the immigration reform bill that Senator McCain co-authored 

actually does both at the same time. It adds people on the border, 

provides for more technology. It also tries to make sure that for 

folks in Mexico or Central America who want to come up here and 

work for a while and go home, a guest worker approach, that 

maybe that is not such a bad idea. So, I think we need to do a little 

bit of all of that. 

I am going to ask Mr. Buffett, I mentioned earlier how grateful 

I am to you and your family, your Foundation, for going after the 

root cause of a lot of the illegal immigration coming up from the 

Northern Triangle, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. I saw 

some numbers recently that indicated about roughly 220,000 people 

came into this country illegally from Mexico—maybe they were apprehended coming in illegally from Mexico last year, 220,000, and 

that is less than the combined numbers coming in detained illegally from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. 

My dad always said to my sister and me, ‘‘Just use some common 

sense,’’ and I think if we use some common sense, it would seem 

to me to say that if, somehow, we could convince some of those 

hundreds of thousands of people trying to get into our country ille-
324 

gally from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, maybe it would 

make the job easier for our men and women that are patrolling the 

border and make them more effective. So, I think you all have outlined, whether you knew it or not, a pretty good strategy for our 

country. 

Mr. Buffett, you spent a fair amount of time really trying to, in 

the spirit of the Good Samaritan, ‘‘who is my neighbor,’’ the kind 

of investment you all have made in Honduras, Guatemala, and El 

Salvador is really commendable. As it turns out, over 20 years ago, 

you recall, a bunch of gunmen rounded all the Supreme Court justices of Colombia, put them in a room, and shot and killed 11 of 

them. There was a time that the drug cartels down there were running havoc, and leftist guerrillas, as well. 

And, we got involved in something called Plan Colombia. And, it 

was not just the United States coming in and doing all kinds of 

stuff for Colombia. They had to do a lot, and I like to use the Home 

Depot ad line: You can do it, we can help. And, they did it and we 

helped, and so did Mexico and so did nonprofits and maybe you and 

your Foundation, I do not know. 

But, talk to us a little bit, if you will, Mr. Buffett, about the kind 

of things that we can be doing, including with the nonprofit community, that—you probably know the three presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador have come together in an Alliance for Prosperity, kind of like Plan Colombia, and we have a role 

in it and so do they. Would you just give us some thoughts about 

this, please. 

Mr. BUFFETT. Yes. I would separate Mexico a little bit from Central America, only because it is our direct neighbor, and so I think 

I absolutely believe that we can take those lessons learned in Plan 

Colombia and work closer with Mexico. But, right now, there are 

parts of Mexico that the government does not even control. They 

need a lot of support and a lot of help, and it would have to be a 

very extensive program, and I think we would have to build trust 

before we could really invest in that, but we could do that. I think 

it is important to do that. We are losing that battle, and we lose 

that battle on the streets of Decatur, Illinois, or Omaha, Nebraska, 

or Tucson, Arizona, wherever you are. We are losing that battle 

with our own citizens in terms of the drug cartel and their success. 

I think when you look at particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, 

Honduras, not so much Nicaragua, other than when we work in a 

direct conflict area, like in Congo, they are probably the most dangerous countries we travel to. If you stop and think about that, 

they are not very far away. We have a border that certainly from 

time to time they breach. And, if you think about what that means 

to our country in the long run, if we do not make the investments 

and build the relationships and the trust and the support to help 

those countries get their economies under control to provide opportunities at home, we will continue to be this safe haven. We will 

continue to be the place where everybody wants to come. 

We are the richest country. My dad always told me, when you 

buy a house, do not buy the most expensive house on the block. 

And, we are the most expensive house on the block, so to speak. 

We are the place where you want to come. When I am anywhere 

in the world, no one comes up to me and says, ‘‘Could you help me 
325 

get to China? ’’ ‘‘Can you help me get to any other country?’’ They 

come up and say, ‘‘How can I get to your country? How can I get 

to America?’’ There is a reason for that. 

So, if we do not address those root causes, we will continue to 

have these issues that we face today. 

Senator CARPER. Great. Thanks so much. And, later today, I 

think we have the foreign ministers from three of those countries 

maybe coming up to meet with us today and folks on this Committee, including Senator Ayotte. 

Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Oh, thank you so much, Senator Carper. 

I wanted to just note—I was going to ask some questions, and 

Senator Heitkamp is going to vote and is coming back and very 

much wants the opportunity to ask questions, too—— 

Senator CARPER. As far as I am concerned, you can ask as many 

questions as you want. I do not know about her—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I told her I would preserve her place. 

Senator CARPER. No, I am kidding. [Laughter.] 

She is good, too. 

Senator AYOTTE. That is great. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Thanks for looking out for her. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you all for being here, and I wanted to 

follow-up on—I serve on the Armed Services Committee, as well, 

and have heard from General Kelly, who is the Commander of U.S. 

Southern Command, and he has been very clear with us about the 

efficiency of these networks that really are the transnational criminal organizations, in terms of what they can smuggle up from Central America, and he has been fairly direct with us that he believes 

that they could smuggle almost anything, including if they wanted 

to smuggle weapons of mass destruction, other things that terrorists would use. 

And, I wanted to get your thoughts on the terrorism angle, because he has been fairly direct about it in terms of a worry that 

these networks are so efficient that we have the drugs, we have 

other things, which I want to follow-up and ask more about that, 

but just this idea of terrorism and do you share his concerns about 

this. 

Mr. DANNELS. Senator, if I could answer that one, I one hundred 

percent agree with what the General was saying. We just discovered 2 weeks ago a tunnel in our county. This was a tunnel about 

2 years old, that I hate to use the word, but it is a VIP tunnel, 

which means human smuggling is not coming through that tunnel. 

You are looking at a large amount of drugs, money, and what you 

are alluding to is those terrorists or those people who pay the price 

to come in our country and harm our citizens. I am very concerned 

about that. If you can bring drugs or product through, you can 

bring terrorists through. So, it is of great concern and as a gateway, I call it, a premier—we are 24 premier counties on the border—we are a gateway to this country’s problem that is going to 

happen. 

Senator AYOTTE. Or, potentially, ingredients for mass destruction—— 
326 

Mr. DANNELS. You bet. 

Senator AYOTTE [continuing]. Or something like that. 

Mr. DANNELS. I agree. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, as we look at what we are doing with all 

of this, and I know that you have already made the point that this 

has to be mandatory, I think it is also important to put it in that 

context, that it is not just this threat of—it is not just the issue 

of people trying to come over here to work. This really can be a 

huge security vulnerability for the Nation for a larger attack. You 

would agree with me on that. 

Mr. DANNELS. I would agree. And, one of the main reasons I 

wanted to be here today was to address the unsecure border, which 

I have already spoken in my brief statement on, but also the fact 

that the importance of local government working in collaboration, 

all three levels, local, State, and Federal. If we are going to combat 

this problem, it is not just the Federal Government’s problem. It 

is all our problems. But, when you look at the supplements and the 

funding to support the local efforts, it is very small. So, we need 

to include all local government if we are going to really resolve this 

problem. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, it is local government and then it is people 

like the—General Kelly has told us in the Armed Services Committee what more resources he needs for interdiction, too, as well, 

so, thinking about, really, a strategy that we can all be working together, because this is you are on the ground locally. There are 

ways that we can better resource and make sure that we are focusing on the responsibilities that our military have in these areas, as 

well, along with State Government, you know, ICE, all of us together. 

Mr. DANNELS. Right. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, one issue that my State is seeing that I 

know was touched on earlier, but it is really a huge public health 

issue, and not only a criminal issue, but this heroin. New Hampshire has had a 60 percent increase in heroin drug deaths. It is 

devastating. And, one of the problems is that the prices of heroin 

have really dropped, and so you have people in some instances who 

are addicted to prescription drugs who are transitioning over to 

heroin. It is just so easy to get and so cheap. This is another issue 

I have talked to General Kelly about, as well. 

All of you, I would love to hear, certainly, Sheriff and your impression of how do we increase our interdiction of heroin, in particular, so not only we can stop its flow, but, frankly, I want to 

drive up the price of this stuff so that we can help, along with all 

the other efforts we need to do prevention, treatment, and all the 

things our police are doing at every level, and also our treatment 

providers, all of us, public health officials. So, what are your 

thoughts on that? I would turn it over to all of you or whoever 

wants to jump in first. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. You are talking about a $40 billion illegal drug traffick that is not being detected, and much of that is 

coming straight through the ports of entry. I think you would find 

it interesting to know that your State alone exports $400 million 

worth of goods to Mexico and ranks second as your export partner, 

and it equates to 28,531 jobs rely on your trade with Mexico. 
327 

If these drug traffickers sold a legal product, they would be considered a Fortune 500 company in the United States. They are very 

well manned. They are very well funded and very well equipped. 

But, the men and women in blue are not funded to compete or win 

this war against exactly what you are talking about, Senator. 

That is why we believe that when you are looking at homeland 

security, you need to equate the whole big picture into that equation, especially when we are talking about the cartel and the drugs 

coming straight through the ports of entry. 

Senator AYOTTE. What other thoughts do we have on heroin? Or, 

obviously, you can say it about any drug, but right now, we have 

a huge heroin crisis. 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, I think that you have brought up something 

that few people probably understand. I patrol on the streets of Decatur, Illinois, and sometimes in Arizona. When you start arresting 

65-year-old grandmothers for heroin use, you have to ask yourself, 

what is going on, and what is going on is prescription drugs have 

gotten more difficult or more expensive and heroin has gotten 

cheap. 

If you look at the statistics, and I am sure that Agent Cabrera 

could confirm—Texas may be different than Arizona, but in the 

Tucson Sector in Arizona, heroin crossing that border is up in triple digits. Meth is up in triple digits. The cartel, as was stated, is 

a very clever business and we should never underestimate what 

they are able to achieve. So, they will adjust what they bring into 

this country based on what they can sell and what the pricing is. 

And, so, I think one of the things that we have to realize is the 

significant impact that they are having on this country and our 

citizens it is a very complex issue and there is no simple answer 

to it, and there is no single answer, by any means. But, I think, 

understanding the impact and the significant impact and the population that it is beginning to impact even further is something we 

have to deal with, and if we do not, we are going to find ourselves 

with a really serious issue, or more serious than what we have 

today. 

Mr. DANNELS. One thing I would like to add on that, Senator, is 

the need for interoperability and collaborated efforts from the local 

all the way to the Federal, like we have been talking. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. DANNELS. And, I will give you an example of that, a true life 

experience that happened down in our area, where we had intelligence and information coming across our port of entry. We went 

down there, and this gentleman, I believe he was around the 70- 

year-old age, where he was coming across the port of entry every 

morning about 7 o’clock in the morning and he was carrying seven 

pounds of meth, seven pounds of heroin, and seven pounds of coke. 

And, we went back and did the history check through the port of 

entry for, like, 60 days straight, every day, same time, he came 

through there. This was a 70-year-old man that was bringing this 

in there. 

So, we cannot forget the fact that there is a greed game going 

on here, too, for money, so—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 
328 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you all. I appreciate it. And, if you have 

additional views to offer, I certainly would appreciate that. And I, 

unfortunately, have to go run to get a vote in, so I do not want to 

cut you off, but I want to make sure that I understand everyone’s 

perspective—— 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, let me just add real quick, Senator, recently 

at the Brian Terry Memorial Station near Naco, a tunnel was discovered. The tunnel was a pretty high speed used tunnel, and our 

intel knew for some time that a tunnel was being used and that 

we should patrol that area more aggressively. However, we were 

unallowed to patrol that area due to Border Patrol management 

would not let us patrol that area and work in that area. Once the 

tunnel was finally discovered and put out of commission, it had 

been used for some time. And, if we cannot capitalize on what we 

know because we have certain boundaries that we can work in, 

they do not want us working the interior patrols, then we are always going to be hindered by this. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, yes, that is absurd. We all have to work 

together on this, so thank you for pointing that out. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

I guess I will start my questioning, seeing as I am the last man 

standing here. 

Agent Cabrera, you mentioned that, certainly from your perspective and that of your fellow Border Patrol agents, that, at best, we 

are apprehending 30 to 40 percent versus management is saying 

about 75 percent. How certain are you of that? I mean, is this 

based on any figures you are keeping on a daily basis, or where do 

you come up with 30 to 40 percent? 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, Senator, out there in our areas of operation, 

we leave large swaths of land uncovered, maybe 20, 30 miles at 

times. I remember one time in the not-too-distant past where we 

actually, at a 53-mile station, we had one person assigned for that 

day. We count signs. We check the trails. Some of these trails are 

two or three feet wide with not a speck of vegetation on them, but 

we are not allowed to patrol out in that area. They constantly 

change—they make the zones larger so it is harder for us to call 

in these ‘‘got aways’’ and they just do not want to hear it. 

I have been told by our chief of our sector that we are going to 

bleed heavily on our flanks at all of our stations. The Western 

flank usually gets neglected because we do not have enough manpower to get out there. Our agents will count the foot signs. They 

will call it in, and at the end of the day, the numbers get manipulated so that it does not show up correctly. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, again, the drug traffickers, the human 

traffickers, I mean, because I was right there on the border with 

folks like you, and they have the cell phones right there. I mean, 

you are standing right next to their spotters and they are telling 

you exactly where the patrol agents are, correct? 

Mr. CABRERA. That is correct. As much as we watch them, they 

watch us. However, they have an unlimited budget. They can see 

things better than we can. They have resources that watch our stations, that watch our helicopters, right across from the airport, and 

there is nothing we can do about it. 
329 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sheriff Dannels, is that pretty much your 

estimate, too, somewhere between 30 to 40 percent apprehension of 

those we detect? 

Mr. DANNELS. I would agree with the agent on that. And, one 

thing I have learned over my three decades is the statistical data 

that comes from Border Patrol switches every 6 months, and so I 

do not use a lot on statistics as I use the quality of life by the people that live on the border and what they can tell you when the 

border is secure or when it is getting safer, just based on the traffic 

coming through their private lands and the damage they see and 

the fear they live by. So, I would agree with the agent. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Of the other three witnesses, does anybody 

want to dispute that 30 to 40 percent, or does anybody want to say 

that it is 75 percent or higher? 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, I can tell you that we have regular traffic 

across our border. Mr. Brand may be able to brag that he has the 

most people crossing, but I will tell you, in our sector, we have 

probably the most drugs. It is not a competition. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Yes. Those are some real great topics. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BUFFETT. But, I think the truth is, across our ranch, we have 

multiple breaches daily, and a large majority of those individuals 

are not caught. They are not apprehended. I can tell you that one 

time I asked the Sheriff. I said, can we go sit down on the border 

all night long with your scope truck and see what we see? In 6 

hours, we saw one Border Patrol Agent, and we probably were covering close to, 15 to 17 miles of the border. 

If I were a Border Agent, from my law enforcement experience, 

if I was on that border, because we have driven that border at one 

and two a.m., if I saw six people breach that fence and it is pitch 

darkness, do you think as an individual, with the rules that they 

have to operate under, that I am going to proceed and follow those 

individuals and try to apprehend them? I am not going to do that. 

It is not safe for the agents to do that. 

I can only speak to our ranch, but if I had to estimate, and I 

could not prove this, but I would estimate that 50 percent of the 

people coming across that ranch, at least, are not apprehended. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Does anybody else want to dispute the 

30 to 40 percent? 

OK. Mr. Buffett was talking about you basically have two types 

of individuals crossing the border, those that are really coming 

here seeking opportunity, and it is a rational economic choice when 

the wage disparity is somewhere three to four times higher here 

than it is in Mexico and Central America, and then you have the 

criminals. Is there any information, any estimates in terms of what 

percent are coming here for work versus how many, in terms of illegal crossings, are really the drug cartels and the drug mules and 

people coming across that are criminals? I will throw that one to 

you, Agent Cabrera. 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, Senator, I do not know if there is any specific number that is coming through that we know the actual percentage. What I do know is my family has lived down there for 

some time. My great-grandmother and my grandmother grew up 

right alongside the river. And, what my grandmother would tell me 
330 

was when she was young, people would come up and they would 

give them food and they would feed them, give them some water, 

let them sit in the shade for a little bit, and then they would send 

them on their way. 

Now, the same people that live down there on that border, they 

say it is a different type of people that are coming. It is a different 

generation that is coming through. Now when they see people 

walking up the gravel road, they go inside. They shutter the windows and they lock the doors and they just do not want any part 

of it, not because of some sense of country or whatever the case 

may be. It is a sense of personal safety—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Out of fear. 

Mr. CABRERA [continuing]. And security, yes, and the clothes are 

stolen from them. They still use clotheslines down there. Clothes 

are taken from the line and they are, just, ‘‘You know what, let it 

go. I do not want to be any part of it.’’ So, I think that is a good 

telltale sign. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sheriff Dannels, do you have some sort of 

sense in terms of what that percentage is? 

Mr. DANNELS. I do not know what the percentage is, but I want 

to comment, if I can follow-up what the agent is saying, in regards 

to safety. Scott Arenas is one of the ranchers that lives in our county that your staff met with and spent some time with when they 

came down. He would have loved the opportunity to come here. I 

met with him Saturday before I flew out on Sunday. 

Chairman JOHNSON. He will probably get an opportunity. 

Mr. DANNELS. Yes. I hope so. And, it is a fact that he had a scout 

sitting right on his property that he eyeballed on Saturday, because 

they have been pushing drugs pretty hard through his property. 

How can I say this? This is amazing. It is a fact that these ranchers and farmers and these citizens that live in the vulnerable areas 

are afraid to leave their homes for the fact that they would be broken into. Scott Arenas, for example—I will speak on his behalf— 

he has been broken into four or five times, one time holding the 

door closed while they are trying to break in. 

The other part is that they are afraid to go on their ranchlands 

without being armed because of the fear of what happened to our 

rancher who was shot and killed, Rob Krentz. It is just a horrible 

way to live when we live in the United States. 

But, when I get the phone call at two in the morning, ‘‘Sheriff, 

they just broke into my house again.’’ ‘‘Sheriff, they just took my 

jewelry and my guns.’’ I mean, this is just horrible stuff, but it is 

real to us down there and that is why your visits are so important 

to us. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Brand, because I believe it was in your 

testimony, you talked about you have been on the border for 60 

years and you have seen a dramatic change in just the conditions 

on the border, if you can just speak to that before I turn it over 

to Senator Heitkamp. 

Mr. BRAND. Senator, I put it in my testimony, growing up in the 

Valley, we spent a great deal of time on the river. You go down, 

you ski, you swim, you picnic, and you camp out. People had cabins. People had portable trailers down there that they kept. It was 

a very relaxed atmosphere. 
331 

If you go down to the river right now, you will see us all gone. 

It is all gone. No one does any of that anymore. No one. And there 

is a reason. It is not the immigrants. It is the cartel. And all of the 

farms that we had and that we leased the owners actually lived on 

the land. To this day, now, I can go back and show you every one 

of those, and they are all gone, the colonials, the churches and general stores that we had on our farms, they have all been torn down 

and moved. All the landowners that we worked with have all 

moved off their property because it is no longer safe. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to assure everyone here that we are voting and that is why people are 

running in and out, that your testimony today is absolutely critical 

as we move forward with, I hope, a mutual goal, which is to stop 

unauthorized individuals from entering our country. I do not know 

how I can say it any more clearly, that that is the job of a government, to secure their border. 

I have been on the border at least four or five times. Once, I 

went to El Paso. That was before I was a United States Senator, 

and I was encouraged to cross without an ID. I said, no way am 

I not taking my driver’s license. I do not think I exactly look like 

a Mexican national, so I was just waved in without even checking 

credentials when I crossed back. 

I was able to go to the border with Cindy McCain, back to El 

Paso, saw the changes that they had made. It was a completely different border crossing from the border crossing that I was at 4 

years before that. 

I had a chance to basically see the border crossing in McAllen, 

see the challenges that the personnel had there with children, unaccompanied minors basically coming to the border and surrendering. I think the good people of McAllen, not just the Federal officials, stepped up and provided services, and McAllen is to be commended for how they responded to that crisis. 

Then I had a wonderful opportunity at the request of Mr. Buffett 

to come out to the Arizona border in Cochise County and was 

hosted by the Sheriff and by Mr. Buffett. 

I would encourage everyone on this Committee who thinks they 

know about border issues to actually go to the border and actually 

visit with people who are on the front line, whether they are law 

enforcement officials, whether business people, whether they are 

ranchers, who Mr. Buffett speaks for today. It is an atmosphere of 

fear. It is an atmosphere of intimidation. It is an atmosphere where 

my land used to be worth this and it is not worth this anymore. 

We have to prove negligence on the part of Border Patrol or Border 

Protection before we are compensated for the damage done to our 

land. That is another issue we have not even touched on. 

But, what frustrates me with hearings like this is you all come 

with good ideas, you all come aware of the situation, and you get 

a lot of politics, I think, back. So, how about we just start talking 

about solutions. How about we just step up and say, let us get it 

done. Let us figure out how we are going to actually listen to the 

sheriffs on the border. Let us talk about how we are going to listen 
332 

to the landowners on the border, how we are going to listen to businessmen on the border, and listen to the people who are on the border who are responsible for protection. 

And, so, I think that there have been a number of really great 

ideas today that have been advanced, particularly in your testimony, Mr. Buffett. I think we need to have a broader discussion 

about what those things do. 

But, getting to the view from a mile high, Sheriff, I think you 

said it best when you said, we are operating on a plan of border 

security that was written in the 1990s to basically prioritize the 

points of entry, prioritize the large population areas, and as a result, this balloon has pushed particularly the criminal element to 

the rural communities where those individuals are most vulnerable, and I speak as somebody who was involved in rural law enforcement for a lot of years. 

So, my question to you, Sheriff, is how do we institutionalize a 

consultation or a communication with border sheriffs, with border 

chiefs of police, in order to make sure that those voices are heard 

at the Federal level? 

Mr. DANNELS. We already have an association, Senator. It is the 

Southwest Border Coalition, made up of sheriffs, the 24 counties on 

the border from Texas to California. We collaborate. We work together. We have a strong association. And, I would say, 99 percent, 

we are in agreement on what needs to be done. All the way up to 

the National Sheriff Association, where there is a comprehensive 

plan on border security, along with Arizona and Western Sheriff 

Association. 

One of the suggestions I have, along with my fellow sheriffs, is 

that we respectively work with our State Governors, who automatically work with you all when it comes to keeping all the stakeholders involved. I think it is so important. 

The other aspect of it is the local collaboration. In our county, we 

work very closely with Border Patrol, the State agencies, the chiefs, 

myself. We meet every 3 months. We talk about the hot topics, 

what is going on. And, we bring solutions to the table on how we 

can do the job better, our interoperability, our intelligence sharing, 

our ability to work face to face. But, once it seems to get out beyond the walls of Cochise County, beyond the walls of the State of 

Arizona, it becomes very fuzzy and blurry and very complex. And, 

I understand the complexity of this issue. Do not get me wrong. 

Your sheriffs are a direct voice of trust in their respective counties, so I think it is important that we continue that voice with the 

sheriffs and not ignore us. 

The other aspect, I have to say—I would be remiss if I did not 

say it—is the funding absence for local government. Again, like I 

was talking with our Border Team, that is a mission-driven team 

under the Sheriff’s mission supported by Border Patrol, Customs, 

and U.S. Forest, again, 6 to 8 weeks, we took 30 smugglers down. 

Three, I believe, were teenagers. And, the Federal Government has 

a technicality where they do not challenge or do not put away teenagers for smuggling. They go back across the line. We actually 

prosecute them. We ran them as adults, put them in our detention, 

and then up to the prison. So, like I said, all 30 went to the State 

prison. We have no issue with that. 
333 

When it comes to our State criminal alien—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. But, you are incurring the costs. 

Mr. DANNELS. We are incurring all these costs, and I will give 

you an example. Under the State Criminal Alien Apprehension 

Program (SCAAP), which has been redefined to, I think, very challenging, so in the last 2 years, we have had three-quarters of a million dollars in expenses to house illegals at the county jail. In return, the Federal Government has given me about $45,000. So, I 

am getting pennies on the dollar to house illegal criminals in our 

jail. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think the point that I want to make is that 

as we are talking about resource reallocation, or plus-up, we need 

to involve the sheriffs—— 

Mr. DANNELS. Yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP [continuing]. And we need to involve the programs that provide for collaboration with local law enforcement. 

And, I think that could not be more critical. 

Mr. Buffett, obviously, I spent some time with ranchers and with 

various people on the border, and you have, I think, very astute observations about how we can do better, and I want to applaud you 

for the work that you are doing all up and down the border in 

terms of providing hope for some of those ranchers who have not 

felt very hopeful in the past. 

But, I want to turn to some of the issues that Ranking Member 

Carper was talking about. You have been all over in some of the 

most war-torn, desperate places in the world, particularly in Africa 

and Central America. How would you evaluate today the security 

of Central America compared to other places you have been? 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, we spend a lot of time in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other than when I am in an active conflict 

area, I would say that Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador 

probably outrank most countries in Africa in terms of—it is a different kind of threat. I will say it is a very different kind of threat. 

But, it is dangerous going to those countries, and for the people 

who live in those countries and I do not think there is hardly anybody in this room, if they were going to speak frankly, who would 

not say that if they were living in those circumstances where kids 

are inducted at early ages into gangs, parents lose control of their 

families, they cannot make a living that is adequate, they cannot 

feed their kids, I do not think there is anybody in this room, if they 

were really going to be honest about it, who would not say, I would 

try to go North, as well. 

So, I think my point in my testimony is that as long as we do 

not have a border that is secure, as long as the people think that 

they can cross that border, as long as they believe that they can 

get into our country, we are contributing to that humanitarian crisis by not controlling that border. And, I do not think it is always 

phrased that way, but I think it is important to phrase it that way, 

because in the end, we are all human beings, whether we are Senators, sheriffs, ranchers, or whoever we are. We are all human 

beings and we have to care about how our actions impact other 

people. 

And, so, it is true. The majority of the responsibility clearly falls 

on those governments. There is no question about that. But, if we 
334 

use that as an excuse to ignore the problem or not help solve that 

problem, then in the end, we are going to continue to suffer in this 

country. There is no question about that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Would you agree that the United States—oh, 

sorry. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Heitkamp, I am happy to do a second round, but I have some questions, as well, and I am not sure 

what the timing of the hearing is going to be, but I appreciate your 

involvement. 

And, I will also say the reason, obviously, we have the people on 

the ground is to lay out that information, to involve them. 

And, the other part of this process—again, how to solve a problem is you have to properly define it, you have to understand the 

depth of it, you have to acknowledge reality, you have to admit you 

have that problem. The reason I want to set up a process of not 

only multiple hearings but also multiple roundtables, a little more 

informal setting where we can really drill down and get the information, get the facts, describe the realities so we can actually start 

designing real solutions. 

But, I also have a number of questions I want to continue on. 

Again, not acknowledging the reality, if we have the higher-ups 

here in Washington saying we are 75 percent secure but we are 

only 30, I mean, we are deluding ourselves. I just want to ask 

about the possibility of achieving 90 percent apprehension rates. Is 

that possible? And, I will start with you, Agent Cabrera. 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, sir, I do not know if that is possible. I would 

like to think it is. Until we start getting more proactive about what 

is going on down there, being proactive and going after what needs 

to be done as opposed to reacting to what is already being done, 

we are always going to be caught off guard. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, we are a long ways from that 90 percent. 

Mr. CABRERA. We are a long ways from that 90 percent. I do not 

know. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sheriff Dannels, can you kind of address 

that. I mean, do you think 90 percent is achievable? And, again, 

we have had a number of people now talk about we need more 

agents. We need more bodies just on the border. Where we had National Guard positioned in Texas, that worked. How many more 

people do we need that are actually boots on the ground that are 

at the border? 

Mr. DANNELS. Well, to begin with, Senator, I think, first of all, 

you need to look at your allocated resources and see if they are 

being maximized on the border to get a true number of what you 

actually need on the border, and then reset the plan of primary deterrence at the border and not away from the border, and then secondary intervention from there. 

The other thing I think is so important, I do believe we can get 

up to that 90 percent plus. It is going to take some time. It is going 

to take some political will to do that. And not political posturing, 

but political will. Where the border is—and I appreciate your 

stance and our conversation we have had in the past to understand 

this. It is a very comprehensive problem. But, it is a mandated 

problem, to protect our freedoms and liberties. And, if we do not 
335 

secure our borders, we will never get there. Or, at least, if we do 

not try, we will never get there. 

One thing that my citizens, and I have hit on this, is they have 

become very numb to the fact that nothing is going to change, and 

that is frustrating for me, directly linked to my citizens in Cochise 

County, and it makes no sense to me, either, because the Plan of 

the 1990s is still in effect. Not many people talk about, how do we 

redefine this plan? I think we need to look at that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I have seen the VADER system and the unmanned aircraft. I have seen the aerostats. I have seen the fixed 

towers. I have definitely seen that we have probably improved our 

ability to detect. I am not sure that I have seen the technology that 

Senator McCain was talking about that has been developed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is any of that positioned anywhere on the border right now, or is that just what has been used in the military? 

Mr. CABRERA. As far as the radar systems that they have out 

there in Israel, we do not have any of those down there. What we 

have are some blimps and that is pretty much it. We hear there 

are drones. We have never seen them, so—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. But, again, we can detect, and we can 

improve our detection. We can apprehend. We can improve our apprehension. But, then, if all we do is process and basically give 

somebody a Notice to Appear, and then give them a bus ticket or 

a plane ticket and disperse them throughout America and have 

them really join those people living in the shadows, we have not 

really solved much of the problem. 

Mr. Brand, you are shaking your head. Is that your understanding of what we are doing? 

Mr. BRAND. Senator, one other thing that I have participated in 

and been a part of for the last 9 years is the Department of Health 

and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (OOR) 

program, with these 16-year-old boys, and what we do with them 

and how we process them, and we spend more money on these kids 

as they come across than we spend on our own people. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I will be back. 

Mr. BRAND. Then I will stop. 

Senator CARPER [presiding]. Senator Ernst. Senator Johnson is 

running to vote. I have to run and speak at a Finance Committee 

hearing. You are the new Chair. I will be back. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST [presiding]. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ranking Member. 

Senator CARPER. Get some good stuff done. [Laughter.] 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. So nice to have you here. I appreciate your testimony. A lot of hearings going on this morning. 

I would like to start by—and I hope nobody has covered this yet, 

but those of you that have the information available, what is the 

working relationship with various agencies as it pertains to the 

Mexican government and the drug cartels? What are we doing in 

that relationship, or how can we affect that? Is their border security effective against bringing in weapons, drugs, anything from the 

drug cartels that exist in Mexico and Central America? What is our 

relationship like? 
336 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, Senator, I can tell you firsthand, as far as 

dealing with the Mexican authorities, they are no help at all. We 

have actually been there where we have called them to interdict 

some people that had run some drugs to our side. They took them 

back to the Mexican side. We called the Mexican authorities to 

come and check these people out. They actually opened the gate for 

those people to leave and then locked up behind them. 

We had another one where we were in a stand-off with guns 

drawn from our position on a boat in the river to a position at a 

Mexican park, and the police came up, drove around the vehicles, 

stopped and talked to somebody, shook hands, and drove away. 

They tell us to call the Mexican authorities, they will fix it, they 

will get it done. We rarely see them. Every now and then, we will 

get some assistance from the military, and that is just basically because the military does not have any more friends in Mexico, so we 

are their only friends left. But, for the most part, the cooperation 

across the border is just not there from our standpoint on the river. 

Senator ERNST. That is extremely disheartening to hear that. I 

think we do need to do more, but we do need greater assistance 

coming from those authorities, as well. Any other thoughts? 

Mr. DANNELS. Senator, if I could add to that—— 

Senator ERNST. Yes, Sheriff. 

Mr. DANNELS. Relationships are built on trust, and right now, 

that does not exist on the border communities. And, to give you an 

example, in fact, there is a cartel hit on me right now. If I stepped 

into Mexico, I would be in serious trouble. I would be on CNN or 

FOX or a major network for what they would do to me. 

The point is, we do not go into Mexico. We have very limited dialogue with them. It is all based on lack of trust and based on the 

cultures on these border communities. I agree again with what the 

agent is saying, it is very challenged and very strained. 

Mr. BUFFETT. I might add, from a little different perspective, two 

quick examples. We have met with our Mexican counterpart ranchers on the other side of the border and they are quite descriptive 

about the experiences they have and the fact that they get zero 

support in terms of any agencies on that side of the border, and 

they have to live with the drug cartel. 

We are actually in an area in Arizona, it is not very flat. We are 

at 4,200 feet and we have hills that are 4,600, 4,700 feet. There is 

one across in Mexico. They have built a little shed on top of the 

hill. I cannot walk on our ranch without knowing that I am being 

watched across the border. And, believe me, those spotters have excellent technology, as well. 

But, what the ranchers told us is that they have no option but 

to basically be compliant, because if they are not compliant, they 

are told that we know where your kids go to school, we know where 

your wife shops, and so if they are not compliant, they are under 

constant threat. But, the point being that they will tell you themselves that there is absolutely zero support from law enforcement 

agencies on their side of the border to support their position. 

The second thing I would tell you is a few years ago, probably 

about 5 or 6 years ago when there were an estimated 5,000 people 

crossing at the Nogales area, I went downstate in Altar, Mexico. I 

would not do it today because I probably would not come back. But, 
337 

I followed the buses up to the border, and on the way to the border 

twice, the Federales stopped the buses and they would check your 

citizenship. And, if you were other than Mexican (OTM), they 

would kick you off and they would take you down to their facility— 

now, it is in Chiapas. If you were a Mexican, they would allow you 

to proceed to the border. 

So, all it does is emphasize the fact that Mexico is not only not 

supporting border security, but, in a sense, they are condoning it. 

That is from the other side of the border. So, absolutely, you see 

it on both sides of the border. There is minimal interest or support 

from the Mexican government, from my personal experience, to do 

anything about those coming across the border. 

Senator ERNST. Again, very disheartening. 

I know Senator Ayotte had brought up General Kelly’s testimony, 

the testimony that he gave coming from SOUTHCOM the other 

day, and I do believe that we have to crack down on these drug 

cartels and the trafficking that occurs across the border. I think we 

need to do that. But, I do believe that we need a physical barrier, 

and I think I have heard maybe pieces of that. 

But, until we have that, and I know in your experience, Mr. 

Buffett, Mr. Brand, living in that area, having these issues, until 

we actually secure the border—I know that you have dealt with 

this for years, and what costs have you seen associated with this? 

Is there anything that you have done on your own property to 

make sure that you are protected, your livelihoods are protected? 

Mr. BRAND. When I first became manager of the district, I went 

down, and the first morning I was there, between 7:30 and 8, we 

would have vans zoom through our part of the property, the 45 

acres the Water District owns on the embankment of the river, and 

I asked, so that is the cartel? That is either drug or people. Well, 

call the Border Patrol. No, we are not calling the Border Patrol. 

Well, why not? Because they know we work here. They know we 

are here, and if we call, they know we are the ones that did it because we are the only ones that saw them. That was going on at 

7:30, 8 in the morning, and 3:30, 4 in the afternoon. I finally figured out that was the shift change for Border Patrol. 

And, so, I will tell you, for me, that is not how we are going to 

work and live in our community, and so we began trying—and this 

has been 10 years. First, I thought street lights would work, but 

that only helped them see better at night when they came across. 

Then we had what we called splashdowns, which Border Patrols 

are familiar with. When the drug cartel was intercepted, they 

would turn around and drive their cars back through our property 

as fast as they could off the embankment and splash down in the 

water, get out, pull the drugs out, and take them back, and they 

would have men on the other side ready to meet them to come out 

and pull the drugs out before the car sank. The Border Patrol, the 

last time they came to our district, they pulled out five cars, one 

of them still with the drugs in it. 

So, we put up Jersey barriers, which, if you are familiar with 

them—— 

Senator ERNST. Yes, very familiar. 

Mr. BRAND. So, we put those up and it stopped. 
338 

And, so, the next step was we still had traffic. When you all announced a cutback several years ago, we had the most traffic we 

have ever had. It was said in our local paper, that the government 

is considering cutting back the hours, the manpower, and the gasoline for Border Patrol, the very next day and for several weeks following, we started having dozens and dozens and dozens of people 

come through our property. 

I have three generations of people that have worked for the 

Water District over a 65-year span, and none of them have ever 

seen this before. And, so, I went to the board and the board said, 

well, you put up a fence. You look at getting a fence. You get more 

lights. You get looking for security officers. 

Well, I went to Border Patrol to give them a heads up, because 

if there are going to be any guns on the river, they like to know 

it. And they said, well, give us an opportunity to help you with 

that. 

So, they came down and they put up their portable towers, which 

you have seen, as well, manned towers with day and night infrared 

thermal imaging cameras on top of those. When they did that, the 

traffic stopped. That was the first time it just stopped. And we 

went back to them and asked them, have you ever put these towers 

on the embankment of the river? In this particular sector, they had 

not, because they did not have enough of them, nor had they had 

the opportunity. And they did and it worked. So, now they man 

that thing. That has been there ever since then, which has been 

years now. It stays there now. 

We went and put a boat ramp in, just finished a water trough 

this week for the horse patrol. Our Water District in the last 10 

years has probably invested over $300,000—— 

Senator ERNST. Wow. 

Mr. BRAND [continuing]. In our facility in order to assist, knowing that there are things they cannot do that we can that assists 

them and vice-versa. And, this is what we believe is—again, we put 

up towers. We put up cameras, gave them access to those cameras. 

These are the things we have had to do. 

All of those things put together has made us—as far as I am concerned, we are probably in the safest area right now, anywhere you 

can be on the U.S. border. 

Senator ERNST. So, it is safer, but it was up to you to initiate—— 

Mr. BRAND. Well, it was up to the partnership—— 

Senator ERNST [continuing]. Jersey barriers, OK. 

Mr. BRAND. It was a partnership. 

Senator ERNST. Right. 

Mr. BRAND. They made suggestions, and they said, could you put 

up more floodlights? We did it. They just put a 125-foot tower, camera tower, portable one several months ago. Again, it has stopped 

the traffic. Of course, we also have a wall through the middle of 

our 45 acres, and a gate. 

And, so, I will tell you that the gate does work. It has a place. 

There is not one single for Texas, which has half of the total Mexican border, there is not a single solution that works on the whole 

border. All of these things that we have talked about today all have 

to be incorporated, but you have to take the lay of the land to determine what the correct approach is. And, around these cities, 
339 

they have been right. It has funneled people out of the cities and 

into the open. Thank you. 

Senator ERNST. And, Mr. Buffett, what type of safeguards have 

you seen or utilized? 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, I remember when we bought this ranch, 

somebody came to me and he said, ‘‘Let me give you a little advice. 

Actually, let me give you a warning. If you see gentlemen crossing’’—I do not know why he called them gentlemen, but—‘‘if you 

see gentlemen crossing your ranch and they are wearing burlap 

bags on their legs, absolutely do not confront them and walk 

away.’’ That is a typical way, the Sheriff will tell you, to cover their 

tracks, and Agent Cabrera would tell you, to cover your tracks. 

These men are armed and they are dangerous because they will 

protect what they are bringing across the border. So, we are in a 

constant environment of concern. 

I will tell you that—because we are doing some things differently 

on the border—I think it will be interesting to see how they turn 

out. We have a situation where the Border Patrol—the Federal 

Government—has taken quite a bit of land in a certain respect in 

terms of roads and hills by eminent domain on our ranch. We have 

been able to have good, cooperative discussions with them, but 

there are things that could have been handled differently, for sure, 

as a property owner. 

One of the things we are doing if I were going to spend my time 

on anything, I would spend it on this. We had ranchers come to us. 

The Sheriff came to us. Senator Heitkamp helped us with this, 

with a meeting with Secretary Vilsack, and we are now implementing a program, which we started last year, where we are going 

to try to clear a mile deep for about 38 miles of the border of all 

the invasive species of creosote and other invasive species. This will 

change the face of how the border looks for these ranchers. 

For one thing, they are concerned about their safety, which is, 

of course, one issue. The other is that they want to reclaim their 

lands. So, this is a water and grassland conservation project and 

it is also a border security project in one. We have great support 

from U.S. Forestry, from the National Resources Conservation 

Service (NRCS), and the Border Patrol has been supportive in certain cases, and not in all cases. 

But, I think, at the end of the day, it is something new. It is different. It has not been tried to this extent, at least not in Arizona, 

and we will see what the results are. The funny thing is, the Border Patrol says we will catch more people. The ranchers say less 

people will cross. So, we do not know who is right. But, it is a pretty innovative program. It is costly. We have 100 percent buy-in 

from the ranchers. We have good support from some Federal agencies, but not all the leadership. But, we do have great support, also, 

from the local people. 

Senator ERNST. But, it is a great starting place, so that is encouraging to hear. 

And, Sheriff, just one final question before I turn it back over to 

the Chair. What are you preparing for as far as the summer influx 

this year? What types of measures, security measures, are you putting into place, ideas, concerns? 
340 

Mr. DANNELS. One thing we have done is realize that our local 

solutions are mandates, living where we live. So, we are going to 

keep and sustain what we are already doing. We have a Ranch Advisory Team which is made up of ranchers, farmers, and citizens 

that advises on a daily basis if there is a critical event going on 

in our county or the smuggling is picking up. It is great intel-driven information. We also have a Ranch Patrol where our two deputies go out there. That is a direct voice for our ranching and farming folks. 

And then we have a Border Team, and that Border Team gets 

strengthened every day. We just added two more outside agencies 

into that, where they go out and they work intel based on the 

Ranch Advisory Team and the Ranch Patrol, and they work in collaboration with Border Patrol, Customs, and they have been very 

beneficial in bringing trust back to the ranchers that there can be 

a difference on their lands, that they have seen little results and 

frustration. And, it is also bringing trust back with Border Patrol, 

because there are ranchers in our county that have trespassed Border Patrol from being on their property based on lack of trust, and 

that is so sad. 

So, we have taken a multi-badge one mission approach in our 

county, and the interoperability, the intel sharing, the ability to 

communicate is so important, not just talking face to face. What I 

am talking about is the IT infrastructure, which we have built that 

system up, which we are bringing all that into one all throughout 

the county. So, we have a lot of neat programs that we are doing 

and we will continue to sustain that, but it comes back to a budget 

issue, also, and we get very little support. Stonegarden is about the 

only program that is beneficial that really seems to work well for 

us in Cochise County, which still has some challenges, do not get 

me wrong, but overall, that is a good program. But, besides that, 

we get very little. 

Senator ERNST. Very good. Thank you so much for your testimony today. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman JOHNSON [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Ernst. 

I will give all the witnesses a chance to kind of sum up, or if you 

have a brief comment at the very end here, but I have a couple 

other questions I want to continue to go through. 

I was surprised by Ms. Weisberg-Stewart’s contention—and it 

may be true, I just do not know. I just want to ask Agent Cabrera 

and Sheriff Dannels, I mean, is it true that most drugs are actually 

being funneled through the ports of entry as opposed to illegally 

smuggling between those ports? Agent Cabrera. 

Mr. CABRERA. Senator, I do not believe so. I know there is quite 

a bit that goes through the port of entry, but we do have quite a 

bit, I think. They just, over the past weekend, just in our area, that 

small area along the border, over $5 million worth of marijuana 

was caught just within 2 days. That is only what we catch. Granted, marijuana is a little easier to catch than some of these other 

high-value drugs. Obviously, they are going to put a little more into 

making sure they are secured. 

But, I do believe there is a lot coming through the port of entry, 

but there is also more than a ton of it coming through the river 

itself, or in Arizona’s case, the desert. 
341 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sheriff Dannels, do you believe what Ms. 

Weisberg-Stewart said is an accurate assessment? 

Mr. DANNELS. I would say the port of entry has its attempts to 

come through, and get through, if you want to call it such. But, I 

truly believe that the go-arounds, the open seams on our border, 

Southwest border, are more common. 

The second part about that is the tunnel that was discovered several weeks ago, that was approximately a 2-year-old tunnel. By the 

way, that was discovered by a traffic stop—intel-based, but by a 

traffic stop. In that vehicle was almost 4,900 pounds of marijuana. 

They would back it up, load it where the shaft for the tunnel was 

concealed, load up the vehicles. So, if you think about that, in 2 

years, how many drugs went through that is amazing, which, by 

the way, it was, like, a quarter of a mile from the port of entry. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Ms. Weisberg-Stewart, obviously, I need to 

give you a chance to respond—where did you get that information 

from and how can we verify that? 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Well, actually, sir, if you would look at 

statistical information that has actually come from the Department 

of Homeland Security, I think you would be amazed what you find. 

But, I think it is important for you to also look at the big picture 

of facilitating legitimate trade and travel and what those affect. We 

have heard a lot of between the ports of entry, but not at the ports 

of entry. 

Our ports right now are suffering tremendously. Your State 

alone exports a total of $2.8 billion. Mexico is your second export 

partner, and 117,665 jobs rely on your trade with Mexico, and if 

you looked at the ports of entry, you would actually see the security and you would actually see that, right now, we constantly put 

the cart before the horse on dealing with actual security needs. So, 

we believe that these goods are coming through because we have 

not accurately as a government facilitated the trade and travel and 

given them the funds necessary in order to curtail the amount of 

drugs that are coming through. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Being an exporter myself in my former life, 

I am all for free and fair trade and functioning ports of entry, but 

the question was really about drug smuggling. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Mm-hmm. 

Chairman JOHNSON. When I was on the border with the people 

who spent a day with me—and I appreciate that, Sergeant 

Cabrera, on a Sunday and your day off—one of the revelations, or 

certainly one piece of information I got was that I have always felt 

law enforcement, prosecutors, district attorneys, they are always 

fighting over jurisdiction so they are the ones who get to prosecute 

and send somebody up. 

That was not the case on the border. What I heard is that—and 

I just want to get the reaction if this is basically true—but, I heard 

we are not even prosecuting, for example, marijuana smugglers unless they have at least 500 pounds of marijuana. We just do not 

bother to prosecute. And, the jurisdictional battle is, ‘‘I do not want 

to touch that prosecution. You take care of it.’’ Was that an accurate assessment of the people I was driving around the border with 

that day? Sheriff Dannels, we will start with you. 
342 

Mr. DANNELS. Senator, you are exactly correct. Teenagers are an 

example. I think we have four or five in our jail right now that are 

remanded juveniles, have been arrested, picked up. We actually remand them as adults and put them in our center to prosecute 

them. The Federal Government will not prosecute them—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, so the drug traffickers use teenagers 

because—— 

Mr. DANNELS. They will not prosecute. And, I was talking to the 

Sheriff in Yuma, Sheriff Wilmot, last night. There is an issue right 

now where those illegals that have child pornography, they will not 

prosecute. And, we just started talking about that last night. So, 

again, these burdens are on our local county attorneys, and that is 

why I have such a great partnership with ours when it comes to 

doing that and making sure that we can prosecute these folks. 

They are bad in the communities. 

I do not know if you realize, the five busiest Federal courts in 

this country are in the Southwest, and that might be a clue of our 

border issues, again. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Agent Cabrera, did you want to comment on 

that, or—I see you kind of writing things down there. 

Mr. CABRERA. Well, Senator, like we talked about before, a lot of 

times, like Sheriff Dannels said, we do not mess with the juveniles. 

For some odd reason, we will not prosecute them. If it is weekends, 

a lot of times, they will pass on some of these smuggling cases because it is a 4-day weekend—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, do we just set them free, then, just release them? 

Mr. CABRERA. A lot of times, we do. We will do an administrative 

smuggling case. We may seize the vehicle. They will come pick it 

up on Monday and start from scratch. 

With some of our agents that get assaulted, if it does not meet 

the threshold, if he does not have enough blood or bruising, they 

do not prosecute. One thing I have always admired about the State 

of Texas is if you so much as bump into a police officer, you are 

going to do some jail time—unless that police officer happens to be 

a Border Patrol Agent. Unfortunately, with the Border Patrol 

Agents, they just do not put too much in the way of deterring people from assaulting our agents. 

Now, on the national level, throughout the Border Patrol, we 

have more than one assault per day on our Border Patrol Agents. 

Unfortunately, there are probably even more that go unreported 

because these agents know that nobody is going to prosecute for 

them. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Talk to me about the drug cartels’ control 

over the Mexican side of the border. I certainly witnessed all kinds 

of things just in my day there and saw a bunch of photographs that 

really showed the impunity with which the drug traffickers really 

are controlling that border. Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Mr. CABRERA. The interesting part about that is if some of these 

people that were coming, they could have taken the bridge. They 

could have come across through the port of entry, asked for amnesty or—what is the word I am looking for—credible fear and it 

would have been granted and they would have broken no laws. 

But, the smugglers control who crosses where. If a group of immi-
343 

grants are walking toward the bridge, the cartels will come up and 

say, look, you are not crossing that bridge. You are going to go 

through this river. No, well, I would rather cross through the 

bridge. Well, you do not have a choice. You are going to cross 

through here at this point, at this time, when we tell you, and on 

top of that, you are going to pay us. 

And, they send them across when they want to send them across, 

where they want to send them across, because they know it is 

going to tie up our resources, and in doing so, then they can do the 

end-around and run some either high-level, high-interest illegal 

aliens or some drugs around the back side when all of our agents 

are tied up with a group of, say, 80, 90, or 100 people, trying to 

get them sorted out. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Is it also true that they use rafts to paddle 

the drugs over, but those rafts are tethered to a truck so if they 

do meet some resistance, they just pull them right back over and— 

again, they can do it with impunity because they control the Mexican side of the border. They do not have to worry about being 

picked up by any Mexican officials, correct? 

Mr. CABRERA. Exactly. The Mexican officials are already paid off 

on that side. They can operate as long as they have the money, 

they control that river. 

At first, they were oaring those things across, back and forth, 

and it got to the point where our Boat Patrol Unit were confiscating their rafts and intercepting their loads. It got to the point 

where they would tie a rope to the end of the raft with a john boat, 

and if they saw the boat coming, the guy on that truck would take 

off and that raft would just skip about that water and get about 

30, 40 feet into Mexico before it stopped. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, again, they have total control over the 

Mexican side of the border. They can just sit there and watch. They 

can have people on our side of the border with their cell phones 

making sure that we all know where the Border Patrol Agents are. 

And, when the time is right, they can just head on over and go, 

oops, it did not work so good, they just pull them right back on the 

other side, and, again, they are not being caught. They are not 

being apprehended on the Mexican side. They can just bide their 

time, and that is why it is so incredibly difficult for us to fully detect and fully apprehend unless we have a whole lot more people 

on the border. 

Mr. CABRERA. Exactly. And, if you go down that river at night 

with infrared, you will see, literally, every quarter mile, you will 

see somebody in the trees along the Mexican side, and they watch. 

They count how many people are in the boat, if they are going 

upriver, downriver, and it is like checkpoints on the Mexican side. 

They know that, OK, the boat has passed Point A, so by the time 

we run this load back and forth, the boat cannot possibly make it 

at its top speed. They have it all figured out. 

And, there are consequences for these guys losing loads. When 

they come across with their drugs, if they lose it, sometimes you 

will see them wash up onshore a couple days later. They are real 

strict in how they do their business on their side. 

So, they are running the show, at least on the Mexican side, and 

to an extent on our side. 
344 

Chairman JOHNSON. There is a really high incentive to succeed 

in getting the drugs across successfully in the United States. 

Mr. CABRERA. Yes. Unfortunately, there is a very high incentive. 

They rule out of fear. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Carper, I was about ready to go 

down the table there and give them an opportunity to offer some 

last comments. Do you have some questions before I do so? 

Senator CARPER. Where did you learn to do that? 

Chairman JOHNSON. From the former Chairman of this Committee. 

Senator CARPER. Oh, I remember him. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Just a great guy. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Lieberman. [Laughter.] 

Collins, one of those. 

Before we do that, and I am glad that the Chairman does that. 

For me, it is the most helpful part of any hearing we have had, especially on issues where there is not unanimity of opinion, is that 

on a diverse panel, like, where is the consensus, because we are all 

about building consensus here. At least, we should be. That should 

be part of our job. 

Let me just come back to you, if I can, Ms. Weisberg-Stewart. 

Talk to us about force multipliers. Let us talk about force multipliers at the ports of entry, and just give us some examples of some 

that you think make sense. 

I had my cell phone, and I remember being at one of the border 

crossings a couple years ago and the woman who was there, the 

lady in blue, was bringing people through. She held up her, I think 

she called it an Enforcement Link Mobile Operations (ELMO) device, it may not have been an ELMO, but, she said, ‘‘This device 

allows me to know not only what the next truck is and what is in 

it, but who the driver is and the record of coming across the border. 

And, in fact,’’ she said, ‘‘we can line up several trucks behind it. 

I have that information on my handheld.’’ 

That is just one of a number of examples. Give us some other examples of force multipliers that enable us to do a better job and 

maybe not add a huge number of people at the border crossings. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Yes. I am glad you started off with discussing some of the technology needs. Some of our ports of entry 

are so antiquated that the electric grids do not even allow some of 

the security functions to take place. So, for example, the bandwidth, which is what you are referring to, and allows that timing 

information to go through the ports of entry cannot even be used 

at some of our antiquated facilities because they are not able to get 

that timely information in that quick basis. 

Some of our information that is coming across, which is a reporting system which actually says—let me use the name of Jose Garcia—is coming across our ports of entry and there is a Texas hit 

on one Jose Garcia, you are going to see every Joe, Jose, or anybody by that name being pulled over because the system today does 

not go through and adequately provide that specific Jose Garcia is 

the one that actually has the issue. So, right there, you are adding 

more times on because the technology today is not allowing some 

of those things to take place. 
345 

When you are talking facilitating trade right through those ports 

in an expedient fashion, one issue is personnel. One is the actual 

gate which those individuals or Customs and Border Protection are 

in. We have some of those where we have had officers electrocuted 

because the facilities are in such bad array that water has actually 

come and rained through that system and fried some of the computer systems. 

So, when we are talking about the big infrastructure problems, 

we have issues at Port of Hidalgo, for example, where the command center is facing the wrong direction. It is facing toward the 

opposite side of the bridge. We built some brand new ports of entry 

that do not even have enough lanes in them to deal with the actual 

amount of traffic that is coming across those ports of entry. 

And, when we talk about drugs, there are some statements, and 

we have a white paper that we will be more than happy to share 

with you all that quotes from the Department of Justice and the 

Department of Homeland Security about the amount of drugs and 

arms coming across. 

We also have, when we are talking about actually checking, we 

know that arms and cash that are arming these cartel members 

are coming straight through our ports of entry. We know this, and 

there have been many reports from both governments, the Mexican 

government and the U.S. Government. But, at this point, our infrastructure currently today cannot hold a Southbound check except 

for looking for arms and cash because the realities are our infrastructure cannot hold it and cannot maintain it. 

Now, there is other technology that is out there that—— 

Senator CARPER. I am going to ask you to wrap it up, because 

I want to let the others have a chance—— 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Sure. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. To talk about force multipliers. 

Just finish your sentence. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. At the end of the day, our country depends on the facilitation of trade and travel, and legitimate trade 

and travel comes across our ports of entry. There are a lot of programs and out-of-the-box thinking that we can do. But, just doing 

things the way we did it in the past is oftentimes the sign of insanity, because what we are doing right now is not truly fixing all our 

issues. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. That was a long sentence, but a 

good one. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Sorry. 

Senator CARPER. That is OK. [Laughter.] 

Othal Brand, I was just glad you came today so I could say your 

name a few times. [Laughter.] 

I think you once told me where that name came from. That is 

a great name. 

You gave us, in fact, I think, several really good pieces of information for us. I thought I knew a little bit about the challenges 

ahead of us in securing the border. You all have given me some 

really good new information, and especially you with respect to better access to the water and the technology, the kind of investments 

we can make. Do you want to give us one more force multiplier? 

If you do not have any other ones, that is fine. 
346 

Mr. BRAND. No. I ran over two-and-a-half minutes, so I do not 

think that I should—— [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. What I will say, too, in this process, consider this your closing statements. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Go ahead, and then I am going to ask Mr. 

Buffett, and if we have time—— 

Mr. BRAND. I will just tell you this. I do not like living in fear 

and I do not like living in an area that I do not feel safe, especially 

when you are talking about your home. I do not like it, and—— 

Senator CARPER. I do not blame you. But, again, I want you to 

stick on force multipliers. That is really what I am looking for. 

Mr. BRAND. Well, I cannot help you on force multipliers. 

Senator CARPER. OK, fine. Mr. Buffett. 

Mr. BUFFETT. Well, I think this falls under that category. I know 

that the Sheriff will know what I am speaking about. The Border 

Patrol will accept no private money and no private support. That 

limits some of their ability to increase force multipliers. So, we are 

trying to go around that, to be honest with you, work through the 

Sheriff’s Department, and make them the CCSO assets and have 

the Border Patrol work with us. But, I think the Border Patrol 

could work more effectively and open up the opportunity to work 

with private resources. I think you could increase some of those 

force multipliers. 

Senator CARPER. And, for Mr. Dannels and Mr. Cabrera, I was 

going to ask you about who do you think is the best right-handed 

batting first baseman in the major leagues, Mr. Cabrera. Do you 

have any ideas? 

Mr. CABRERA. Can you repeat that? 

Senator CARPER. Miguel Cabrera, your cousin. [Laughter.] 

All right. We will come back to you for the next one. 

We know there are problems with drones. We have an IG report 

that says, as promising as the technology is, it is not being realized, and we are drilling down on that to see how it can be better. 

We know that tethered dirigibles have a fair amount of—are being 

used in some places very effectively. I do not know if you use stationary observation towers or even mobile observation towers in 

your county, in your State. Do you, and if so, would you comment 

on their effectiveness? We have heard very positive things about 

them in other parts of the border. Go ahead. Mr. Cabrera. 

Mr. CABRERA. Yes, we do have stationary observation towers— 

well, more like the blimps, the little systems we have out there. 

They do work very well. They have a good range. However, they 

are at the mercy of the wind. 

Senator CARPER. No. We are talking about the stationary towers, 

as opposed—not the blimps. We saw some tethered dirigibles, I 

think about a thousand feet they go up, I guess, or 10,000 feet. 

But, the stationary towers. And then we have some that, they are 

not stationary. You can actually move them along the border there. 

They are mobile. That is what I am asking about. 

Mr. CABRERA. There are some stations in our sector that have 

some. In the area of McAllen, where we are the busiest, McAllen 

and Rio Grande City, we do not have any—— 

Senator CARPER. I understand that. But, I think you probably 

have, given your experience and all, you have probably heard from 
347 

your colleagues on other parts of the border and some of the folks 

you represent. What do you hear about stationary observation towers? 

Mr. CABRERA. I think they work well. The only issue I would 

have with them is the fact that they are stationary. They would not 

be able to—unless we can saturate the area and have interlocking 

fields of view, then we would be at the mercy of the distance of that 

device. 

Now, if we had something that was more mobile, which we are 

starting to get into little by little, if we have these things that we 

can move around and be flexible and address the threats where 

they come through, I think that would be more effective, because 

we can adjust as opposed to just being static in one position. 

Senator CARPER. Go ahead. 

Mr. BUFFETT. Senator, they are in the process of constructing 

two of those towers on our property—— 

Senator CARPER. Are they? 

Mr. BUFFETT [continuing]. So they have an overlapping footprint. 

What is missing on those towers is they do not have the funding 

to put the radar, and if you understand how the systems work, it 

is one thing to have personnel constantly looking through cameras, 

but the radar is what makes those cameras about 100 times more 

effective, and that is what is lacking. 

Senator CARPER. That is a great point. We have been sending out 

drones for a couple years without the VADER systems and without 

sophisticated observation systems. So, those are just examples of 

some of the investments, smart investments, that we can make, 

and if we do that, we are going to make the people you represent, 

Chris, a whole lot more effective, and, Sheriff, your folks, too. 

This has been a great hearing and we are very grateful to all of 

your presence and your input. Thank you so much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

I was hoping to combine it, but it really did not do justice to it, 

so we will start with Ms. Weisberg-Stewart, just a closing comment. Try and keep it brief. 

Ms. WEISBERG-STEWART. Sure. When we look at border security, 

to many people, it might mean many different things. To those of 

us who live on the border, you have heard from us. The Arizona 

border is quite different than the Texas border, but as Senator Carper has mentioned, there is a lot of commonality. 

One thing is to definitely address between the ports of entry and 

find solutions in that area and at our ports of entry, and if we are 

able to accomplish those two areas, then we have actually done 

something to secure our country. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Brand. 

Mr. BRAND. Mr. Chairman, I would say to you all, like I said earlier, it is a chess game right now. Because we do not have all the 

resources and the manpower, the cartel wins it because they constantly move. And, every time—and they do have, even at our 

pump station, they have a guy sitting on a tree in the wind with 

a cell phone constantly. And, they have that lined all up, as Officer 

Cabrera talked about, whereas where Border Patrol is in the Valley, they move. They have to move, because they do not have the 

technology to man. So, they put it where the need is, and if it has 
348 

been solved in one place and there is no movement, they will pick 

it up and move it somewhere else because they have to. And, until 

the day comes where you can have it, solve it all the way, it is 

going to continue to be a game. 

In the Valley, what we know in my lifetime is that we know 

there are two reasons we are safe from cartel element that we talk 

about today, which is obviously prevalent in our area. As long as 

we do not interrupt them, get in their way, and as long as we do 

not mess with their business, we are fine. But, if we do either one 

of those two things on our side, they will do to us anything and 

everything they do to the people on the other side right now, and 

we know that. People who live in the Valley know that, and the 

rural areas along the rivers. We know that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And that is a stark reality. Thank you. Mr. 

Buffett. 

Mr. BUFFETT. I want to take my last minute to try to get to a 

point that I think you were trying to make, Mr. Chairman, which 

is on drug interdiction. When you are at a port facility, you have 

the opportunity to stop and examine any vehicle and person coming 

through that port. When you get outside of that port, you have two 

things happening. First, you have to find them, spot them, and 

then you have to respond to that, and you have to have the resources to respond to that, two very different sets of circumstances. 

And, if you understand drug interdiction from a law enforcement 

perspective, what it comes down to is repetition, it comes down to 

personal contact, and it comes down to numbers. To give you an 

example of that, if you took the Sheriff’s office and you wanted to 

compare it to the port versus outside of the port, if he runs a canine team through the FedEx and the UPS facility every day, he 

is going to find drugs with that dog. If that dog never shows up, 

he is not going to find them. And, it is the same thing. You put 

officers on the Interstate and you implement drug interdiction, and 

it is repetition and personal contact. 

You have that automatically at the ports. You do not have it outside the ports. So, I would contend that there is a large amount of 

drugs moving outside those ports. 

And, thank you for letting me be here. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That would have been my assumption. Not 

that I am going to do it, but I would not go through the ports. I 

would go to where I thought I might not get caught. Sheriff 

Dannels. 

Mr. DANNELS. Senator Johnson, let me be the first to say thank 

you very much for having us. To hear our local voice here is so important to my citizens and all the folks that live on our Southwest 

Border. 

The Plan of the 1990s has caused us great damage over the last 

20 years. There are two No. 1 stats we just came out with that I 

am not proud to report on, but it is true. No. 1 is out of all the 

counties, over 3,100, I believe it is, counties in this country, we had 

the largest decrease in the country, for decrease in population. People are leaving our county because of the way it is. They do not 

want to live in fear, like you were talking about. 

No. 2 is, we just came out last week, is per capita, we are the 

No. 1 fraud county in the country, and that is your ID thefts, your 
349 

embezzlements, your frauds. I truly believe a lot of that has contributed to our border. 

The one most critical thing I worry about every day as a sheriff 

is another loss of life. Whether that be a citizen, an officer, a deputy, an agent, it is a great concern to me because of our border 

being insecure. So, every day that goes by that we keep talking is 

another day that just draws more and more pressure in our county. 

Those that choose to live on our border should deserve the same 

freedoms and liberties of those that live here in D.C., Iowa, and beyond. I grew up in Illinois and lived in Illinois until I was 18 years 

old, then going down there for the last 32, 33 years. What a difference of life, and it should not be any different under the same 

Constitution. 

Thank you again. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Sheriff. Agent Cabrera. 

Mr. CABRERA. Senator Johnson, I would like to close with securing the border, it is essential. It is not just essential for our border 

communities, our areas in the Southern part of Texas, but for the 

entire Nation. We are committed to keeping illicit drugs, terrorists, 

people entering illegally out of the country because it is going to 

make our community safer. It is going to keep drugs out of our 

streets, off our streets, out of our communities, and off our schoolyards. 

The more we make it appealing for people to come into this country the wrong way, the more people are going to make that journey 

and more people ultimately will not survive the trip, and that is 

just a terrible thing, especially when you are dealing with children. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you, Agent. 

Obviously, this is just the first hearing of, multiple hearings, 

multiple roundtables. We will continue to involve the people on the 

ground, because from my manufacturing background, I have solved 

a lot of problems, and I understand there is a process, and the first 

step is admitting you have one. Unfortunately, as a Nation, I do 

not think we have really come to grips with the full reality, the full 

complexity of this. There is too much demagoguery in this, too 

much simplicity, I think, directed to this problem. 

So, this is complex. We are going to build a record, and we are 

going to involve the people that really do understand what that reality is and we are going to face those realities. As harsh as they 

are, as unpleasant as they are to face, I refuse to write or markup and be involved in a border security in name only bill. And, this 

is going to involve not only what we need to do in terms of infrastructure and personnel, but we have also got to look at the incentives that our immigration system creates for that type of illegal 

immigration, and we have to look at drugs. 

Certainly, the trip down to McAllen, Texas, I mean, if anything— 

if you need that point reinforced, how much of this is being driven 

by the drug traffickers, and let us face it, I think the numbers I 

have, we spend about $25 billion per year fighting the war on 

drugs. It is sad to say, we are not winning that war. So, we have 

to get serious about this. 

But, again, I just want to thank all of you for the time you have 

taken. You have traveled here. You have spent a lot of time, very 

thoughtful testimony, very thoughtful answers to our questions. So, 
350 

again, I really appreciate it, and to the extent you want to stay involved, we are going to want you involved, as well as other folks 

in your position. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until April 1 

at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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(425) 

SECURING THE BORDER: ASSESSING THE 

IMPACT OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME 

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ernst, Carper, Tester, 

Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. Good morning. This hearing is called to 

order. I want to welcome all the witnesses and thank you for your 

thoughtful testimony. I see a lot of work went into it, and I certainly appreciate reading all the information that was contained 

therein. 

This is our second hearing having to do with the security of the 

United States’ borders. As we found out in our last hearing, it was 

pretty prominent in testimony that the border is not secure. I 

would agree with that assessment. I think we also are coming to 

realize how incredibly complex this problem is. 

I come from a manufacturing background, and I have solved a 

lot of problems, and there is actually a process you go through to 

solve a problem. It starts with really understanding, ascertaining, 

admitting to the reality. A lot of times reality is not particularly 

fun to acknowledge or have to face, but if you are going to solve 

a problem, you have to understand the reality of the situation, and 

you have to accept it. 

The next step in the problem-solving process is to establish 

achievable goals. Set yourself up for success, not failure. Once you 

do those two important first steps, then you can start crafting 

strategies. 

I think in the past we have bypassed those first two steps, and 

as a result, I read—and I want to read it again this list of bills that 

we passed in Congress to try and address this problem, and it 

started out in 1986 with the Immigration Reform and Control Act. 

Back then, we recognized we had a problem, and the unauthorized 

population in America was about 3.9 million. We progressed to the 

1990 Immigration Act; about 3.5 million people here illegally. In 

1996 we passed the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigration Re-
426 

1The prepared statement of Chairman Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 465. 

sponsibility Act. By that point in time, there were 6.3 million people in the country illegally. 

In 2001, as part of the PATRIOT Act, we passed a law to require 

an entry-exit system. By that time, there were 9.6 million people 

in the country illegally. 

In 2002, we passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa 

Entry Reform Act, and now we are up to about 10.3 million people 

in the country illegally. 

In 2004, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act 

was passed, about 10.9 million people in the country illegally. 

In 2006, the Secure Fence Act, 11.7 million. 

I just want to stop there for 2 seconds. As I have thrown myself 

into this problem, really trying to recognize the reality, I asked my 

staff members to print me out the Secure Fence Act because I 

wanted to study that piece of legislation. You do not read a bill. 

You have to study it. And so I wanted to spend a weekend really 

going over the Secure Fence Act so I could really understand the 

complexity of it and figure out what we can do to do a better job 

of that. 

Well, I did not need the weekend. I only needed 5 minutes, because the Secure Fence was two pages long. That obviously did not 

work. 

And then in 2007, we had the 9/11 Commission’s Recommendations Act, and, again, our illegal population then stood at about 12 

million. 

I just point out the fact that we have passed bill after bill after 

bill, and we have not solved the problem. The definition of insanity 

is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different 

results. 

So I want to address this problem the right way, recognizing reality, that this hearing is really about trying to lay out the reality, 

and a very important component, maybe the most important component of this problem, transnational criminal organizations, drug 

trafficking, human trafficking. Terrible problems. 

I do have a written statement that I will ask to be included in 

the record, without objection.1

I just want to quote from a report on Operation Strong Safety. 

This was a report given to the 84th Texas Legislature and the Office of Governor on January 28, 2015, that summarizes the problem. 

First of all, in this report it says, ‘‘There is ample and compelling 

evidence that the Texas-Mexican border is not secure.’’ And then 

they go on: ‘‘The ascension of the Mexican cartels as the State’s 

and Nation’s most significant organized crime threat and Mexico’s 

most significant domestic security threat is directly attributable to 

a porous U.S.-Mexican border and an unending demand in the 

United States for illegal drugs, forced labor, and commercial sex.’’ 

I think that kind of encapsulates, based on the testimony I was 

reading, what we are going to be talking about today. And, again, 

it is about laying out the reality of the problem, which is going to 

be the first step in solving it. 
427 

So, with that, I will turn it over to our very capable Ranking 

Member for some opening comments. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for bringing us 

together today, and our heartfelt thanks to all of you. It is especially good to see you again, General McCaffrey. 

I just want to comment briefly on what the Chairman has said. 

One of the things I learned a long time ago was if you want to 

solve problems, you do not just address the symptoms of the problems; you address the root causes of the problems. And among the 

root causes of these problems are our addictions in this country to 

methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, and the like. And among the 

root causes of this problem, because of our addiction, it creates a 

culture of violence, and not just in Mexico but in the Central American nations, that we contribute directly to. And if you and I were 

raising our kids down in those countries—and I have been there to 

three nations in the Iron Triangle—I would want to get out of 

there, too, and I would want to get my kids out of there, too. And 

if we want to be successful, those are the kinds of root problems 

we have to address. 

Today I just want to say that we had a hearing a week ago, and 

we are having a series of hearings this week. Last week, we heard 

from folks who live and work along the southwest border about 

some of the border security challenges that impact their communities. And today we will continue that conversation and dig even 

deeper into the transnational crime that occurs along our borders 

and throughout our country. 

Over the course of the last several years, I have made a number 

of trips to both our Southern and Northern borders. Most recently, 

I had the pleasure of joining our Chairman and Senator Sasse on 

a trip to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. During these trips, 

we saw firsthand the dedication and expertise of the men and 

women who put their lives on the line each day to keep our borders 

secure. 

And because of the efforts of these brave men and women, along 

with the quarter of a trillion dollars that American taxpayers have 

spent on border security over the last 10 years, we have made some 

progress, I think real progress, in securing our borders. Is it perfect? No. Are there people who still get through, bad guys, contraband? Of course. Can we do better? Yes. 

But I especially appreciated, General McCaffrey, you pointing out 

in your testimony that, ‘‘by many measures, the U.S.-Mexico border 

is more secure that it has ever been.’’ And I agree with that. And 

to say that, you do not just stop where we are. It is not a time to 

pat ourselves on the back. 

But since 2003, for example, we have more than doubled the size 

of the Border Patrol. We have constructed more than 600 miles of 

new fencing and deployed sophisticated cameras, sensors, and 

radar across much of our border with Mexico. Today we are operating drones and aerostats high in the sky, as well as fixed and 

mobile observation towers, providing situational awareness for our 

agents on the ground. 
428 

Yet while many border communities are among the safest towns 

in America, we know that there is still much work to be done. And 

we know that transnational criminal organizations are indeed a 

real danger. Transnational crime, however, is not just a border 

issue. It is much broader than that. It is a national security issue, 

and it is an issue that touches all of our communities. 

For example, transnational crime can touch our friends and families in the form of drug addiction. It can victimize thousands who 

are brought into this country for sex trafficking or for slave labor. 

It can hurt our businesses and bring crime and violence to our 

neighborhoods. And it has the potential to bring national security 

threats to our borders, such as persons with possible terrorist ties. 

Today’s transnational criminal organizations are agile and they 

are global in reach, and they will do just about anything, and will 

stop at almost nothing, to carry out their illicit and very lucrative 

operations. So how do we disrupt and dismantle these criminal organizations? 

I believe we must continue to support the men and women combating these criminal networks along our borders and throughout 

our communities. As my colleagues have heard me say before, I am 

a strong believer in providing our border personnel with ‘‘force multiplier’’ technology that will help them do their jobs more 

effectively. We also need to share information better, more effectively—particularly intelligence—more efficiently so that we can 

act quickly and leverage resources across the Federal, State, and 

local level. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about what 

tools and resources are needed to better secure both our Southern 

and our Northern borders. 

That said, I believe our homeland defenses should not begin on 

the ‘‘1-yard line’’ of our borders, as General John Kelly, Commander of U.S. Southern Command and Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson have stated before. In many 

cases, it should begin much farther away. 

Many of the criminal organizations that operate along our southwest border have roots deep inside Mexico and throughout Latin 

America. In parts of Central America, we know that gangs and 

other criminal organizations continue to threaten prosperity. Some 

might even say they threaten democracy itself in the places where 

they operate. 

That is why it is so important that we seize this window of opportunity to help our neighbors in Central America grapple with a 

variety of security, governance and economic challenges. And by 

doing so, we will address one of the root causes of transnational 

crime and enhance the security of our Nation. In closing, let me 

just say we will be focusing on this issue at tomorrow’s hearing, so 

I will expand upon this topic much more at that time. 

Finally, I believe we can address transnational crime in one 

other very important way, and that is by confronting America’s insatiable appetite for illegal drugs. Our demand for illegal drugs 

fuels the power, the impunity, and the violence of criminal organizations around the globe. We must continue to focus on our Nation’s addiction to drugs and continue to identify effective programs 

to reduce this crippling threat to our Nation’s future. 
429 

And, with that, I again want to thank our witnesses. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, for bringing this together, and let us bring it on. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

A closing comment here. I would draw people’s attention to the 

photo that I actually got the day after our border trip. I stayed 

around and was given a tour of the border with a number of offduty officers, and this one was given to us by a Mission, Texas, police officer. It really does show the impunity—and I have copies in 

front of everybody’s station here. We are a family friendly Committee here, so we have blurred out the specific hand gesture, but 

this is a basic turnback. This is the middle of the day. Drug traffickers load up a raft with—you can see these 100-pound bales of 

marijuana, and the raft is tied onto a truck, and so if they meet 

resistance on the other side, they just quickly pull them back over 

the border. 

Now, apparently we frustrated these individuals here, but it just 

shows the impunity with which the drug cartels operate on the 

Mexican side of the border. They are not afraid of getting caught, 

and they are a little upset that Border Patrol agents foiled their 

drug trafficking, at least for that day. 

But, anyway, it is the tradition of this Committee to swear in 

witnesses, so if everybody will stand and raise your right hand. Do 

you swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

General MCCAFFREY. I do. 

Mr. TORRES. I do. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. I do. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I do. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness will be General Barry R. McCaffrey. General 

McCaffrey served in the U.S. Army for 32 years and retired as a 

four-star general. At retirement, he was the most highly decorated 

serving general, having been awarded three Purple Heart medals, 

two Distinguished Service Crosses, and two Silver Stars for Valor. 

After leaving the military, General McCaffrey served as the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy 

from 1996 to 2001. 

General McCaffrey, thank you sincerely for your service, and we 

look forward to your testimony. 
430 

1The prepared statement of General McCaffrey appears in the Appendix on page 469. 

TESTIMONY OF GENERAL BARRY R. McCAFFREY,1 USA (RET.); 

FORMER DIRECTOR (1996–2001) AT THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also 

Senator Carper and the other Members of the Committee. I really 

mean it that I think your leadership is going to pay off on this 

issue. There is inadequate attention being paid to what is in essence a huge and complex and worsening problem, and that is on 

our Southern and Northern borders. And I think your opening 

statements really brought to life much of what I personally have 

learned about the issue over the years. 

Let me just, if I may, publicly remind myself and the Committee, 

I spent 20 years looking at this issue. In 1994, Secretary Bill Perry 

and I were the first two Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and U.S. 

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) commander to ever set foot in 

Mexico, which is quite a comment. We had been to places like 

North Korea and Russia, but never had a Secretary of Defense set 

foot in Mexico City. And I have been watching that issue quite 

closely since, and for the 5 years I was Drug Policy Director, I had 

an annual trek from sea to shining sea, where the Mexicans and 

the U.S. authorities would meet across the country and try and 

hone in on some of these challenges we were facing. 

I was on President Calderon’s International Advisory Committee, 

and I might add I have invested a considerable amount of effort in 

the last several weeks getting ready for this hearing, to include 

hours on the telephone interviewing trusted contacts along that 

border—sheriffs, ranchers, Border Patrol, engaged citizens, reporters, et cetera. 

I might also add I am not affiliated with either political party 

and have loyally served administrations—Bush 41, one of my heroes, President Bush. 

Some quick observations, if I may. 

No. 1, clearly we have to acknowledge conditions have improved 

immeasurably since I started looking at this in 1994. We had 4,000 

Border Patrol. The border was essentially wide open. You could 

drive across it in an 18-wheeler truck, and people literally did just 

that. 

It also was not all that much a problem 25 years ago that there 

was insecurity. These were illegal migrants, but they were people 

looking for work. Ranchers’ wives gave them sandwiches on their 

way north. So the environment on the border that created the conditions of insecurity had been longstanding. 

Yesterday I went and got an update from Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP) and taped my personal thanks to the 60,000 men 

and women of Customs and Border Protection that you have 

resourced. Though times have changed, their integrity, courage, 

technology, manpower, the level of cooperation—we are going to 

hear more from Elizabeth Kempshall about the High Intensity 

Drug Trafficking Area’s (HIDTA). The cooperation between local, 

State, and Federal law enforcement today compared to 20 years 

ago is simply unbelievable. 
431 

And I might also add I think Secretary Johnson, and, in particular, Commissioner Kerlikowske, we now have a professional cop 

running CBP, and I think you are going to see a dramatic, continuing change in the law enforcement culture. 

Second observation: Border security is not a United States problem. It is an international problem. You cannot do it without international partners. With Canada, it is pretty easy: 5,000 miles, the 

Canadians have world-class law enforcement, total cooperation. 

With Mexico, it is more of a challenge. And I would flag for your 

consideration my strong concern that we apparently have taken off 

the table discussions of drugs, crime, and insecurity with the Mexican Government and public, and I do not think we are going to 

move forward until we have greater resource support from Mexico, 

particularly their army and marine corps, but also Pena Nieto’s attempt to build a new gendarmerie and Federal police. But I do 

think that the insecurity in Mexico is simply beyond belief, not just 

in the border communities but Monterrey all the way to the Southern border. 

Third observation: There are two issues here that are the same 

sides to the same coin—or two sides of the same coin: Border Patrol, which we are going to talk about, and also sensible immigration policy. And, to be blunt, if you have 11.2 million unauthorized 

migrants, if your max deportation was 439,000 in a given year, if 

you get a half million every year still coming in, if half the illegals 

arrive by air and stay, then you cannot solve the problem by deportation. And, by the way, who would want to do that. These people 

run our agricultural system, our meat packing plants, daycare centers. They are a valued part of the workforce. So we have to, it 

seems to me, proceed at the same time with both solutions. 

And, by the way, those 11.2 million illegal migrants in this country, bunches of them, are not Mexican or Central American. They 

are Indian high-tech people. And they are also the parents of 5.5 

million U.S. citizen children. So there is no way out. We have to 

do both things at the same time. 

Fourth observation: The U.S. major cities on the border—and 

eight of them I normally keep track of—are incredibly safe thanks 

to Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the U.S. Marshals Service, and State and local authorities. Just astonishing. El Paso is always the example. We 

serve up El Paso and Honolulu as being some of the safest cities 

in the Nation. We ought to be grateful for this. It did not come 

easy. And that was not the case years ago. 

Fifth observation: The rural border areas are absolutely not secure. They are controlled by foreign criminal international cartels 

at times and places of their choosing. They are a humanitarian disaster. Hundreds die each year on that frontier. 

And, by the way, I have seen attacks on people making that 

claim as if it was false data. It is literally hundreds of people die 

per year. I am not sure we even know. It is a drug crime disaster. 

Maybe we get 5 percent of the drugs. When you stop them at ports 

of entry (POE), they go to sea delivery, they go to air delivery, tunnels, backpacking, et cetera. 

They are an environmental disaster. The Border Patrol cannot 

get permission from other Federal agencies to build helicopter 
432 

pads, access roads, fixed tower platforms, et cetera, and yet drug 

cartels move across the frontier and dump hundreds of metric tons 

a year of trash. They cut fences. They are a disaster. 

There are places on the Arizona border, I just talked to a major 

rancher, a fifth-generation rancher, where, as he looks at his 5 

miles of U.S. frontier, there are dozens of cartel scouts wearing 

camouflage uniforms with padded boots for non-tracker, with 

$2,500 solar-powered, encrypted satellite phones, with AK–47s. 

That is who is in control of the border when they choose to do so. 

And the Border Patrol really has limited access to even get down 

there. 

And I would just tell you, from talking to many of these citizens—I know you have had field hearings—they have come to hate 

their government for not protecting them on the frontier. It is just 

simply astonishing, the insecurity. And a lot of them, of course, are 

selling and getting out of there. And, in general, we have to watch. 

They are selling to Mexican cartels in some cases to control both 

sides of the border. 

Another anecdote. A Border Patrol agent I talked to last week 

says, ‘‘Look, when I joined the force a few years back, my aunt and 

uncle, Mexican Americans, told me, ‘Come live with us until you 

find a place to live. But call us when you come home at night so 

we can get the garage door up and close it behind you because we 

do not want our neighbors seeing your uniform. You are going to 

leave, and we have to stay here.’ ’’ So insecurity we should not tolerate for American citizens on the border. 

Seventh observation: The Border Patrol is not adequately 

resourced. I understand we have 60,000 people now in CBP and a 

tremendously enhanced presence. But I tell you, it is also a national security threat. There are 2.3 million men and women in the 

Department of Defense (DOD), 4.7 percent of GNP, the lowest percentage of any so-called war in our country’s history. But when it 

comes to the border, we simply cannot control this frontier as a civilized nation should do unless the agents have IR night vision devices, M4 carbines. There is not an M4 carbine for every agent, so 

they have to sign one out, and it will not be zeroed when you sign 

out a weapon out of a stack. We do not have enough fixed-tour surveillance sites. We do not have border fences everywhere we need 

them. There is a four-strand barbed wire fence along one of the 

most sensitive access routes into Arizona. 

And then, finally, I do think we ought to recognize that the border is a national security threat. It is not one we ought to ask DOD 

to fix. I personally do not like to see the National Guard committed 

to that mission. They are supposed to be preparing to fight the 

country’s wars. Where we see an infrastructure lacking, a capacity 

lacking, we need to build Federal agencies commensurate with the 

responsibility we are giving them. And part of that is also Federal 

financing for State and local law enforcement. 

I talk to sheriffs up and down that line that say, ‘‘Look, I detain 

people, I turn in a bill for $800,000 bucks. A year later, with no 

explanation, I get back a check for $40,000.’’ 

Autopsy money. Bodies are not being autopsied simply because 

of the lack of funding out there on the frontier. So we have to sup-
433 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Torres appears in the Appendix on page 477. 

port State and local law enforcement with the tasks they are facing. 

As a general rule, clearly we ought to be proud of what we are 

seeing on the frontier, but there is a lot of work to be done, and 

I applaud the members of this Committee for bringing your attention and leadership to bear on the problem. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, General. 

Our next witness is John Torres. He is the President of Guidepost Solutions, LLC. Prior to joining Guidepost Solutions, Mr. 

Torres served as the Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in D.C. and Virginia. He also has served 

as Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

(ICE); a Deputy Director of ICE; and the Deputy Assistant Director 

for Smuggling and Public Safety. 

Mr. Torres. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN P. TORRES,1 FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR AND FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR 

SMUGGLING AND PUBLIC SAFETY AT U.S. IMMIGRATION 

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

Mr. TORRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Carper, and distinguished Members of this Committee. First of all, I 

want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss transnational 

crime and the impact that it has to our country as well as the 

threats to our border. As you mentioned, I served at the Department of Homeland Security and its predecessor agencies for 27 

years, most recently here in our Nation’s capital, where I was in 

charge of Homeland Security Investigations for about 31⁄2 years. 

Of those 27 years, 25 of those were as a Special Agent, and going 

back to the mid-1980s, where I was a Special Agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) starting out in Los Angeles, where I was hired as a result of the Immigration Reform and 

Control Act from 1986 that increased the number of enforcement 

agents for the INS back at that time. 

During my career, we have been focused on transnational criminal organizations at pretty much every critical phase of the cycle, 

including internationally, in cooperation with our foreign counterparts where transnational crime and terrorist organizations operate, at our Nation’s physical borders and ports of entry, in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where the transportation cells attempt to exploit America’s legitimate trade, travel, 

and transportation systems; and throughout the cities in the 

United States; and then also at the various cities where criminal 

organizations earn substantial profits from smuggling and the 

transportation of illicit goods. 

What I want to start off talking about is the impact that I saw 

over the course of my career with regard to national security. Back 

in 1997 through 2000, I was an INS agent assigned full-time to 

FBI headquarters in the bin Laden Unit. And this was before September 11, 2001. We focused on all threats related to al-Qaeda. 
434 

Back in December 1999, we were working around the clock in response to a very credible threat that there was a terrorist plot to 

bomb U.S. landmarks during millennium celebrations. It was during this time that Ahmed Ressam was arrested, traveling under 

the alias of Benni Noris, while trying to enter the United States 

from the Canadian border in a rental car. In the trunk of that car 

were enough materials to make four medium-sized anti-personnel 

and car bombs. 

During that time, Ressam was not cooperating with us, which 

really forced us to race against the clock at that time to potentially 

prevent a New Year’s Eve attack at an unknown location. Later we 

found out that his intention was to bomb Los Angeles airport. 

In his possession at the time, basically the pocket litter, were 

phone numbers back to New York City to an associate there that 

we traced to what turned out to be human smugglers that were operating from Montreal through Boston and New York City and 

crossing the Vermont border. 

Back then, Ressam and his al-Qaeda-linked cell, based in Montreal, were using this human-smuggling ring to their advantage to 

gain entry into the United States for some of its operatives. So as 

early as 1999, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists were willing to use 

transnational criminal organizations to further their operations 

here in the United States. 

One of the things that we did when I was at ICE to improve security at the borders, both the Southern border and the Northern 

border, as well as at ports of entry, was to establish the Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BESTs). They currently operate in 

35 locations throughout the United States, including Puerto Rico 

and Mexico. And they leverage over 1,000 Federal, State, and local 

law enforcement agents and officers representing over 100 law enforcement agencies. They basically provide a collocated platform 

where they can investigate intelligence-driven operations, and then 

they disrupt and dismantle those transnational criminal organizations operating at the border. 

With regard to human trafficking and human smuggling, I have 

seen that for many years going back to my INS days in the 1980s. 

I have seen it with human traffickers, bringing people in from Asia. 

I have seen it take place on the Southern border. I have seen it 

come over from Eastern Europe. And what we see here is over the 

years these organizations have been responsible for tens of thousands of men, women, and children entering the country illegally 

each year. And this is really an international market that remains 

extraordinarily lucrative today. 

Sadly, a significant number of those children are brought to the 

United States in the hands of ruthless smugglers placing them at 

risk. And, quite frankly, we saw this happen back in 2003 in Victoria, Texas, where dozens of smuggled immigrants—men, women, 

and children—were locked in a hot, airless tractor-trailer outside 

Victoria, Texas. Ultimately, 19 people died in that trailer because 

they were locked in it, including a 7-year-old boy. It was the deadliest case of human smuggling in the United States in 15 years at 

that time. 

And then last year, we saw children that were entering the 

United States at increasingly alarming rates, unaccompanied chil-
435 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Kempshall appears in the Appendix on page 487. 

dren. Some of those children were placed in the hands of those 

same smuggling organizations by adults and even some of their 

family members to seek a better life here in the United States. But, 

frankly, it is not humanitarian to induce children to put themselves 

in the hands of smugglers. 

I am happy that you are working with the Federal agencies here 

to focus on those types of crimes, especially with transnational 

crime. 

Some of these cases I have highlighted today are indicative of the 

impact that transnational crime can have in our local communities. 

I want to thank all the Members of this Committee for your work 

with our Federal law enforcement leaders to remain focused on 

combating transnational crime. And thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am pleased to answer any 

questions you may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Torres. 

Our next witness is Elizabeth Kempshall. Ms. Kempshall has 

served as the Executive Director of the Arizona High Intensity 

Drug Trafficking Area since January 2011. From May 2007 until 

December 2010, Ms. Kempshall was a Special Agent in Charge of 

the Phoenix Field Division for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which encompasses the entire State of Arizona. Ms. 

Kempshall began her career with the DEA in 1984. Ms. Kempshall. 

TESTIMONY OF ELIZABETH KEMPSHALL,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARIZONA HIGH INTENSITY DRUG TRAFFICKING AREA, 

OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, 

and distinguished Members of the Committee, it is my privilege to 

address you today on behalf of the Arizona High Intensity Drug 

Trafficking Area’s Executive Board concerning the current drug 

threats in Arizona and how these threats affect the rest of the 

country. 

The Arizona HIDTA region is approximately 64,000 square miles 

and includes 372 miles of contiguous international border with Sonora, Mexico. The international border area consists of inhospitable 

desert valleys and rugged mountainous terrain, which are ideal for 

drug smuggling. The Arizona-Sonora corridor contains six international land ports of entry situated in Nogales, Naco, Douglas, 

Sasabe, Lukeville, and San Luis. 

Six main interstate highways run through Arizona. Due to Arizona’s geographical location and shared border with Mexico, all highways and roadways are exploited by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations to transport large quantities of illicit drugs. 

Each year, the Arizona HIDTA Investigative Support Center conducts a comprehensive intelligence study to identify the new and 

continuing trends in the Arizona region. The Threat Assessment 

provides strategic intelligence to the Arizona HIDTA and its partners to assist in the development of drug enforcement strategies. 

The Threat Assessment found that the Sinaloa Cartel presents 

the primary operational threat to Arizona, possessing vast resources to source, distribute, transport, and smuggle large amounts 
436 

of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamine in and 

through Arizona. The Sinaloa Cartel and affiliated Mexican drugtrafficking organizations exploit well-established routes and perfected smuggling methods to supply drug distribution networks 

based in Arizona cities, which in turn supply drug networks 

throughout the United States. The assessment also found that from 

fiscal year (FY) 2012 through 2014, 451 drug seizures occurred outside of Arizona but had a documented Arizona nexus. The sheer 

volume of illicit drug seizures with an Arizona nexus further confirms how vital Arizona is to Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. 

The smuggling organizations that operate along the ArizonaMexico border deploy a variety of transportation methods, such as 

tractor-trailer trucks and vehicles outfitted with deep hidden compartments; stolen vehicles; ATVs; underground tunnels; ultralight 

aircraft; and backpackers to defeat law enforcement border defenses. 

Just recently, nearly 13,000 pounds of marijuana were seized 

from a Mexican national driving a tractor-trailer through the 

Nogales port of entry. The marijuana was concealed inside boxes 

commingled with mechanical components. Another long-term investigation in Arizona resulted in a record seizure of 137 pounds of 

methamphetamine, 107 pounds of heroin, and $50,000 in cash destined for Atlanta, Georgia. 

Transportation and smuggling activities between the points of 

entry in inhospitable desert valleys separated by rugged mountainous terrain are equally important and ideal for drug smuggling. 

An extensive system of scouts armed with radios, solar-powered repeaters, cellular telephones, and weapons situated on high points 

along drug-trafficking routes are vital to the smuggling groups. Located in strategic positions in Mexico and as far as 75 miles into 

Arizona, scouts protect drug loads from law enforcement and ripcrews and redirect backpackers and vehicles to avoid law enforcement operations. The scouting networks provide a continuous view 

of law enforcement presence on both sides of the border, making 

easier to direct loads around law enforcement presence. The scout’s 

role is fundamental to the drug organization’s success in supplying 

drugs to U.S. cities. 

Law enforcement operations that successfully disrupt and/or dismantle Arizona-based drug organizations directly impact the U.S. 

drug markets. The Arizona HIDTA is uniquely qualified to combat 

the immense drug-trafficking threat facing Arizona, for this threat 

is far too big for a single agency. 

The Arizona HIDTA philosophy of cooperation and coordination 

is based upon enhanced information and resource sharing through 

collocated, collaborative Task Force Initiatives strategically stationed throughout the region. Under the coordination umbrella of 

the Arizona HIDTA, the participating law enforcement agencies 

eliminate duplicative operational and investigative programs and 

facilitate tactical, operational, and strategic intelligence sharing. 

The Arizona HIDTA approach demonstrates that when traditional organizational barriers are overcome, Federal, State, local, 

and tribal law enforcement entities can better focus investigative 
437 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Martinez appears in the Appendix on page 494. 

and intelligence resources in dismantling and disrupting the most 

dangerous and prolific drug-trafficking organizations. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and for 

the Committee’s support for the HIDTA program. The Arizona 

HIDTA remains committed to facilitating cooperation among Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement through sharing intelligence and to supporting coordinated law enforcement efforts. 

I will be glad to address any questions you may have at this 

time. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Kempshall. 

Our next witness is Benny Martinez. He is the Chief Deputy 

Sheriff for Brooks County, Texas. Prior to this position, he served 

as a Texas State trooper. In 1990, Chief Deputy Martinez joined 

the narcotics service of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), 

which charged him with the overall direction of the State’s enforcement efforts against illegal drug trafficking in Texas. Chief Deputy 

Martinez. 

TESTIMONY OF BENNY MARTINEZ,1 CHIEF DEPUTY SHERIFF, 

BROOKS COUNTY, TEXAS 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Good morning, Chairman Johnson, Ranking 

Member Carper, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the invitation for me to speak to you today. 

My name is Benny Martinez. I am the Chief Deputy in Brooks 

County. The county consists of five deputies and sheriff that is responsible for maintaining law and order within a rural region of 

943 square miles that encompasses the county seat of Falfurrias. 

Outside of the city, the county consists primarily of privately 

owned ranchland. The sandy terrain is mostly vegetated with mesquite trees, scrub oaks, and prickly pear cactus. The total population for the county is roughly 8,500. 

Brooks County has a checkpoint, which is one of the busiest 

checkpoints on U.S. 281, probably the busiest in the southwest corridor. It feeds on to cities as Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and 

Dallas, and other destinations throughout the interior of the 

United States. 

Highway 281 is part of the gulf coast corridor, which is one of 

the most active drug-and human-smuggling corridors in the United 

States. The Falfurrias checkpoint was the busiest checkpoint in the 

country in regards to undocumented crosser apprehensions (until 

the surge of the undocumented minors last summer) and narcotic 

seizures. The current checkpoint facility will soon be replaced by a 

new one that will increase the number of primary lanes from three 

to eight. 

Because of Brooks County’s geographical location and the checkpoint, it faces unique challenges, and most of them is the fact that 

majority of the people are dropped off south of the checkpoint, and 

then they are walked across either east or west of the checkpoint. 

In other cases, local gang members or others seeking monetary 

gain who live in the county drive their human and drug loads 

through private ranches by having access to keys to locked property gates. 
438 

The sad reality is that many of those who are being led through 

the brush by the smugglers do not survive their demanding journey. In the past 61⁄2 years the county has recovered 443 bodies of 

undocumented crossers. We estimate that we recover less than half 

of all those who perish. From 2008 to 2014, Brooks County has 

spent almost $700,000 for body recoveries. That is half of our budget. 

The Mexican cartels and the transnational and statewide gangs 

continue to increase the level of organized criminal activity in the 

Rio Grande Valley. They are very active into home invasions, felony invasions, extortion, kidnappings, sexual assaults of undocumented crossers, and the recruitment of Texas children to transport drugs, people, and stolen vehicles across the border. 

Violent transnational gangs such as MS–13 gang members are in 

Texas and elsewhere. Since 2011, the number of MS–13 members 

encountered by U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) in the Rio Grande Valley sector has increased each year accelerating in 2014. This coincides with the illegal migration from Central America during the 

same period. In the fiscal year of 2014, MS–13 represented 43 percent of all gang encounters within the Rio Grande Valley sector approximately 11 percent of those were juveniles. In addition, there 

are at least three major Mexican-American gangs that are known 

to be active in our communities and throughout Texas if not the 

country. 

There was one particular case that affected myself and one of the 

deputies. You will note the unsealed indictment that is included in 

the written testimony. 

I would like to emphasize that Brooks County law enforcement 

has a very close working relationship with State and Federal law 

enforcement partners. I have worked alongside the ICE office, back 

then the Customs office, and started working with them in 1992. 

I also have a close working relationship with local U.S. Border Patrol under the direction of Kevin Oaks and Deputy Director Raul 

Ortiz and Agent in Charge in Brooks County Amidon Doyle. Without their support I cannot imagine how we would have fared. This 

past Friday we had a homicide in the city of Falfurrias, gang-related. Border Patrol provided assistance, and secured the perimeter 

to where we did not have any interference to secure the crime 

scene. They allowed the Texas Rangers and the local police department to handle the case. 

I would also like to recognize those who have come to Brooks 

County’s aid and to the aid of the family members of the 443 deceased victims found in the county. This assistance is provided 

without any type of cost to Brooks County. Dr. Kate Bradley, from 

Texas State University in San Marcos; Dr. Lori Baker, from Baylor 

University in Waco, Texas; Dr. Krista Latham, from Indianapolis 

University; and Dr. Harrell Gill-King, from the University of North 

Texas—all have gotten together and helped in identifying the victims so their families could be notified and have closure. 

I would also like to recognize the Texas Lieutenant Governor’s office that stepped up the last 2 years when no one else would and 

directed $150,000 to the county to help our depleted budget. 

In closing, while we are faced with many difficult security challenges, we also have to remind ourselves that South Texas is the 
439 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Costigan appears in the Appendix on page 539. 

epicenter of legitimate trade and travel for the country. Therefore, 

it is incumbent upon local, State, and Federal law enforcement 

agencies to ensure our communities remain safe, and with the help 

of this Committee, I am confident the safety, economic vitality, and 

prosperity of our region will continue to prevail. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and Committee Members, thank you for the opportunity to share Brooks County’s challenges and those of the Nation’s concerning the dangerous affliction 

of transnational crime. I would be pleased to answer any questions 

that you may have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you, Chief Deputy Martinez. 

Our next witness is Bryan Costigan. He is currently assigned as 

the Supervisory Agent in Charge of the Montana All-Threat Intelligence Center (MATIC) of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Division of Criminal Investigation. Prior to this position, Agent 

Costigan worked as an investigator in the General Investigation 

Bureau, specializing in financial crimes and criminal extremist 

groups. Agent Costigan has additional law enforcement experience 

with the Helena Police Department and the Lewis and Clark Sheriff’s office. Mr. Costigan. 

TESTIMONY OF BRYAN COSTIGAN,1 DIRECTOR, MONTANA 

ALL–THREAT INTELLIGENCE CENTER, DIVISION ON CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION, MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, 

thank you for inviting me to testify today. 

When most Americans think about border security, they think 

about the Southern border, and there is a lot of activity going on 

down there. For example, the Texas State Fusion Center fielded 

more than 53,000 requests for information in 2013 from law enforcement agencies, including 8,500 requests from Federal agencies 

alone. 

At the same time, there are a lot of us who have our eyes focused 

on the Northern border. As Director of the Montana All-Threat Intelligence Center, one of the 78 fusion centers in the National Network of Fusion Centers, I can tell you that there has been a steady 

improvement in collaboration and information sharing across Federal, State, local, and tribal partners along the Northern border. 

We all recognize that we cannot secure the border with people 

or physical infrastructure alone. We need a risk-based approach to 

understand threats, understand the actors and their methods of operating. We need to exchange that information quickly with our relevant partners. A combination of technology, relationships, and 

policies make that happen, and that is where fusion centers come 

into play. 

I would like to give you examples of coordination that is occurring through fusion centers along the Northern border. 

In Montana, DHS recently shared information with my fusion 

center regarding an organization smuggling narcotics from Mexico 

up along the Rocky Mountains and into Canada through Montana 

border crossings. Working with the Rocky Mountain HIDTA and 

the Risk Program, we performed an analysis to understand pat-
440 

terns and worked with our State and local partners to enhance 

their ability to identify behaviors and share that information. 

Our fusion center is a focal point for information sharing among 

the many agencies that operate in Montana. The Department of 

Homeland Security Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is represented in our center, along with State and local agencies. We 

share information with the Border Patrol and CBP, with Canadian 

agencies through our Federal partners. Our fusion center has completed joint products with DHS INA and FBI regarding homeland 

security threats, and we recently participated in a multiple-State 

analytical effort regarding fraudulent driver’s licenses, which have 

obvious implications for border security. 

Elsewhere along the Northern border, the Ohio State Fusion 

Center is the hub for information and intelligence coordination in 

the Ohio Northern Border Initiative Task Force. The task force operates in partnership with the U.S. Border Patrol as part of Operation Stonegarden. Its mission is to provide law enforcement support through collaborative border security efforts in Northern Ohio. 

The task force works regularly with the Northeastern Ohio Regional Fusion Center in Cleveland and with the New York State 

Fusion Center regarding foreign-flagged vessels that have traveled 

through New York en route to Ohio waters. Task force leaders attend monthly regular briefings in Columbus at the Ohio State fusion center. The Maine fusion center has a CBP officer assigned 

full-time in its space and is engaged with Federal partners on both 

land and maritime border issues. 

In South Dakota, a law enforcement officer encountered two foreign nationals at a traffic stop who were in possession of a credit 

card reader and over 100 stored-value cards. Criminal organizations are known to steal credit card numbers and then transfer 

funds to stored-value cards. The officer reported the encounter to 

the South Dakota fusion center. State and Federal records checks 

in coordination with the North Dakota fusion center and ICE investigators showed that the individual had ties to an active ICE 

money-laundering investigation. The fusion center also discovered 

that the subject had ties to associates in three other States. 

Through this collaboration, South Dakota and North Dakota fusion 

centers were able to provide new information to ICE to further 

their investigation. 

Recently, police in Windsor, Canada, notified the Detroit Police 

Department that the Detroit-Windsor tunnel would be shut down 

due to an explosive device found in a vehicle. Analysts at the Detroit Urban Area Fusion Center conducted analysis regarding the 

vehicle and the suspects and provided information to the Border 

Patrol, DHS, Detroit police, and then the suspects were arrested. 

Earlier this year, CBP received information regarding a port runner into Canada. Information was provided to the Detroit fusion 

center whose analysts reported key information back to the Federal 

partners to assist it in locating the suspect, who was later apprehended in Windsor. 

In New York, the State Police and the U.S. Border Patrol developed information on individuals who were smuggling illegal aliens 

across the border in the northwestern part of the State. The New 

York State fusion center rapidly provided analysis and technical ca-
441 

pabilities to help locate the individuals, including the use of automated license plate recognition (LPR), services. Further investigation by Federal partners and the Canadian authorities determined 

that the individuals were part of a larger human-smuggling network. 

These are just a few of the examples of how fusion centers are 

providing local and regional context to homeland security threats, 

providing intelligence to support the Federal partners along the 

Northern border. Just as DHS components address many of the 

distinct security missions, fusion centers do the same by coordinating State and local resources across a spectrum of threats. So 

whether we are providing analytical support to Secret Service or 

HSI to further fraudulent resident alien card investigations or 

identifying domestic associates of transnational criminal actors, fusion centers today are supporting a wide range of homeland security missions. 

Border security is one of those Federal missions where fusion 

centers are being used to coordinate State and local resources and 

analysis to enhance what is inherently a Federal responsibility. 

Mr. Chairman and Senator Carper, thank you for inviting me 

today. My colleagues across the National Network of Fusion Centers are happy to provide more information as you consider how to 

strengthen the security of our borders. I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Costigan. 

I will start my questioning with General McCaffrey. I just want 

to understand a little bit more, can you clarify your opening comment where you said conditions have improved. Now, I am assuming you are talking about the fact that we have certainly closed 

down some of these corridors and we have built fences, and certainly places in California and some of these areas are certainly far 

more secure. But it is kind of like damming up a flood; water just 

kind of flows around. 

General MCCAFFREY. Exactly. Yes, at the end of the day, if you 

do not have a comprehensive defense—that acts in cooperation 

with foreign countries, I might add—it is hard to imagine how you 

ever get there. But it is still a great contribution. I mean, San 

Diego makes a perfect example. San Diego-Tijuana, before the barrier fencing went up, was a nightmare. The year before that fence 

went up—and these numbers are approximately right—there were 

70-some-odd murders, many of them in broad daylight. I asserted 

at the time 100 percent of the women trying to cross that frontier 

were sexually assaulted. You could not use the beaches on either 

side of the frontier. Thousands of people would run down the interstate in broad daylight getting hit by cars. That sort of chaos has 

ended, and a lot of it is because of resources, technology, competence, and strategy of CBP. 

Having said that, it seems shameful to me that I would be able 

to tell you that there are places in Arizona and Texas, as well as 

New Mexico, for that matter, where our border is not under our 

control, where there is a four-strand barbed wire fence, where 

there is no law enforcement presence on the frontier. 

We have to get a coherent, long-term approach to border frontier. 

And, by the way, it is not impossible to do this. I frequently run 
442 

into the response that says, ‘‘No, come on. It is an illusion that you 

could actually stop traffic across a 2,000-mile border.’’ You cannot 

stop it, but you can create conditions of law and order throughout 

the frontier region if we give people the tools and the right supervision. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, so we have improved conditions in 

some areas, some sectors, some cities, but we certainly have not 

solved the problem. 

You obviously were in charge of our drug problem here. In your 

testimony, you state that somewhere between 5 and 10 percent is 

the level of drug interdiction, which means 90 to 95 percent of illegal drug trafficking is succeeding; it is getting through. We spend, I have seen in some briefings, about $25 billion per 

year on our war on drugs. Can you just speak to the extent of that 

problem and where we are on that? It seems like we are a long way 

from solving that, from actually winning the war on drugs. 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, Senator, I have always been a little 

bit reluctant to use the term ‘‘war on drugs.’’ I tell people, ‘‘You 

want a war on drugs? Sit down at your own kitchen table and talk 

to your own children.’’ That is really where it starts. 

But to put it in context, when you look at America, 315 million 

of us, overwhelmingly we do not use illegal drugs, and the rate 

dropped dramatically from 1979, the peak rate of around 13 percent, past month’s drug use, and got down to 6 or 7 percent. We 

were doing pretty darn good. Adolescent drug use rates dropped 

dramatically year after year; 13 years in a row they came down. 

Five years in a row, they have gone up. And the problem is not 

Mexican cartels driving it up. It is medical marijuana. It is a conversation that is lacking in the United States about the absolute 

disaster of chronic addiction. I spend a lot of my time working in 

that field still. 

So I would argue that we—in accordance with international law 

and with our neighbors—we need to cooperate in drug interdiction. 

And, by the way, without it, it would be a damn disaster. If we 

were not in Colombia—we were in Peru and Ecuador, less so, almost non-existent now. You have to go out there and help people 

on the ground with their condition. Senator Carper talked about El 

Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Just complete nightmares 

now of law enforcement. 

It is not just drugs, by the way. The Canadians have drugs up 

north, but they are not slaughtering each other with AK–47s. 

These are institutional, lacking capacity in Central America, and 

broken cultures. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me understand. So you are saying that 

we were making progress in terms of reducing the demand in 

America for drugs. Do you believe the number of drugs coming into 

this country has been reduced over the last 20 years? What would 

be the total stats on that? Is it going down? 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, when we do well at reducing transit 

of heroin across the frontier, drug use turned to synthetic opioids. 

So for several years in a row, oxycontin, Percocet, and diverted 

legal narcotics were the problem. Fortunately, Congress, the State 

of Florida, and other places, cracked down on that. So I tell people 

it is not the kind of drug we are seeing. It is drugged behavior, 
443 

which brings criminality, ill health, destruction of families. Part of 

it ought to be stopping the flow of drugs across the frontier, going 

to source production of drugs, and support those governments to 

deal with it. 

But that is not the way to defeat the problem of drug addiction, 

I would not think. 

Chairman JOHNSON. My time is running short. I will get to the 

other witnesses in my second round of questioning. But while I 

have General McCaffrey, I am highly concerned about the nexus 

between drug cartels and international terrorism and a growing 

connection with money laundering. I have been briefed on a number of things just in terms of the sale of used cars and the use of 

that in terms of money laundering. 

Can you just speak to what you have seen in terms of the progression of that nexus between potential Islamic terror, international terrorists, and the drug cartels? 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, thank God for the NSA, the CIA, and 

U.S. Special Operations Command, without which we would have— 

a disaster would have occurred over the last 10, 12 years in this 

country. They are doing an incredible job in the international community. 

The back-up in the United States is increasingly sophisticated. 

The FBI and other Federal law enforcement, CBP in particular, are 

extremely good and have—the deterrence factor of Federal law enforcement is enormous. People say, the terrorists say, if we are 

going to attack someplace, let us go to Paris, Madrid, Indonesia, as 

opposed to trying to get to New York City. So we have done tremendous work in that area also. 

Having said that, if we have half a million people that walk 

across the frontier from Mexico every year, which is the case—a 

quarter of them actually come out of Central America. We are picking up Pakistani nationals, Iraqis, jihadists out of Crimea. All sorts 

of goofy people are showing up on that frontier. So far not an organized terrorist operation. It will happen. We have several thousands foreign fighters with ISIS right now, primarily Europeans, a 

handful from America. We are going to see them come home, and 

the obvious way to get into the country is across the frontier, not 

through trying to talk down a CBP officer at Dulles airport. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, General. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, 

thank you all for just timely testimony. 

We have all heard and probably all used the phrase ‘‘like finding 

a needle in a haystack.’’ Not an easy thing to do. But if we are 

looking for a needle in a haystack, sometimes it is helpful if we actually reduce the size of the haystack. And the other thing that 

might be helpful is to find technology or tools that enable us to find 

needles, small ones. 

One of the things that we have focused on a fair amount in this 

Committee the last couple years and this year as well—is figuring 

out how do we reduce the size of the haystack. And one of the ways 

that we are trying to do that is to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants from countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. 

They comprise today actually more people coming in from those 

countries than from Mexico. And the reason why they come from 
444 

those countries is they live lives of misery, which we actually impart to them by virtue of our addiction to the substances we have 

talked about here today. 

There are some things that we observed when Senator Johnson 

and Senator Sasse and I were down on the border of Mexico a 

month or so ago. We talked a lot with folks there about force multipliers, and that is, how do we do a better job of finding those needles, figuratively speaking. Well, we use drones. And the IG from 

the Department of Homeland Security would suggest we do not use 

them very effectively, and we are drilling down on that to try to 

make sure we do a much better job and get our money’s worth. 

We saw and heard about tethered aerostats, dirigibles that go up 

to 1,000, 5,000, even 10,000 feet. They cannot always operate the 

drones when the weather is not good, when the winds are up. Same 

thing with tethered aerostats. 

We heard some good things about stationary towers. Actually, we 

heard some good things about mobile towers. It is not always easy 

to get somebody to let them be sited on their property, but actually 

we heard some encouraging reports there. 

We saw a little bit about helicopters that we are using, some discussion about fixed-wing aircraft. We actually flew around in a 

B–3 aircraft, which is what I flew around in when I was in the 

Navy for a number of years. And we are using them, reconfiguring 

them with different surveillance equipment to be able to pick up 

drug runners coming in from across the waters. 

We have an aircraft down there that is called the Cessna 206, 

which I think in the past we have used, we send people out with 

binoculars to look for folks trying to get into the country—not a 

smart thing to do. We put our drones without using evader systems 

that are highly effective in picking up incoming. 

We found out that in about 150, 200 miles of waterway from the 

Gulf of Mexico inland on the Rio Grande River, we have just a couple of places where you could actually put boats in, and in a lot 

of places we could use lighter boats, boats that do not go very far 

down into the water and could go a lot faster. 

We heard about night vision goggles. We actually heard about 

horses, had a chance to see how they are starting to use horses 

down there, and in the high brush they are actually pretty effective, getting the riders up above the brush. In fact, the horses are 

actually effective in sensing people coming through. 

And we heard a fair amount about just access to public lands, 

trying to make sure we are doing a better job and not just providing those like a free rein for the bad guys to get through. 

Those are just some of the force multipliers that we talked about 

and heard about. 

Let me just ask anybody on the Committee, have you all thought 

about this? What are some of the most effective force multipliers, 

realizing there is not one silver bullet for any particular point of 

our border, but through a lot of different combinations that we 

can—in some places fences work, in some places they do not. Sometimes dirigibles work or drones work, or sometimes they do not. 

Mr. Costigan, do you want to give us some thoughts from the 

north, up north, what can we learn from you guys, particularly 

working with the Canadian Government in terms of force multi-
445 

pliers? Maybe the other best force multiplier is intelligence—information sharing, intelligence sharing. We have a lot of cooperation 

with Colombia maybe not so much with Mexico and some of these 

other countries. Go ahead, just very briefly. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, information sharing is very important. We work closely with our Northern border 

partners all the way across the way to figure out the threats that 

are going on and work joint investigations with them. It always 

helps. I know Border Patrol has embraced technology along the 

Northern border to include drones and all sorts of other tools that 

I have heard about from them directly. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Martinez, please, force multipliers. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, sir. Brooks County has two aerostats, and 

those are excellent if the weather is permissible. But we—— 

Senator CARPER. How high do you go up? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I believe they go up to between 5,000 and 10,000. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. It depends on the weather. Right now our weather, the wind has not picked up yet, so they are good. But we have 

had bad weather. But when they are up, they are very productive, 

and we are able to get the trend. There is always a trend movement within the brush. We are able to locate the trend and send 

the interceptors to intercept the group. So that is always good. 

And there is always backpacking. You always find your backpackers, those that carry their 50-pound backpack with narcotics. 

We also need something besides the aerostat because once the 

aerostat is down there is no visual. Our brush is thick and it 

makes good cover. Vegetation is solid for the smuggler. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks so much. Ms. Kempshall. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Thank you, Senator. I have been involved in 

drug law enforcement for 31 years now, and I have seen all different phases of it, where it was stovepiped and law enforcement 

was not cooperating with one another to the point where they are 

now, and we are really cooperating like never before, because if we 

do not, we understand the consequences. 

And I think using intelligence to drive multiagency task forces 

is the best force multiplier we can have. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Good. Thanks so much. Mr. Torres. 

Mr. TORRES. Several areas for really making a difference here. 

Technology made a significant difference over the course of my career, as well as international cooperation, being able to push the 

borders out and use vetted units in host countries. Community cooperation with the various groups that are out there, and then 

really building efficiencies into the processes we had at the Federal 

Government so we could do more with less. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. 

My time is about to expire. General McCaffrey, just take a 

minute. You have had a fair amount of preparation, talked to a 

bunch of folks before you gave your testimony. What advice would 

you have for us on force—— 

General MCCAFFREY. One of my favorite stories, Senator Carper, 

is just before I left the drug czar’s position, I had a big conference 

in El Paso, and I was very proud of myself because we deployed 
446 

a lot of technology to the frontier during those 51⁄2 years. We made 

two giant busts. For 3 days we were having a conference right at 

the El Paso port of entry, and I got out there and told the press 

it was a payoff obviously of my investment in technology, et cetera, 

et cetera. 

The truth of the matter is one of the biggest busts, 10, 12 metric 

tons of pot built into an industrial strength compartment on a 

truck. The truck pulls up to this tired old customs officer who has 

been breathing fumes for the last 15 years. He hands over his papers—by the way, the consequence of losing drugs, you get murdered. He hands over his papers to the customs guy, and his hand 

is shaking. And the customs officer goes, ‘‘You carrying drugs 

today?’’ And he says, ‘‘Not much.’’ And that was the secret to the 

bust. 

So I never wanted to lose sight that in law enforcement, less so 

in Marine and U.S. Attorney Ranger operations, an experienced 

old-hand law enforcement professional is key. So building that Customs and Border Protection and getting them out there where they 

have NCO quality leadership is going to be essential to us. But the 

technologies are crucial? 

The aerostats are magic if they are up. And these cartels, they 

are an intelligent enemy, so they are watching—sequestration 

came into effect, and they piled across that border like you could 

not believe. They knew the aircraft were down. They called 

audibles and moved across the frontier. So technology is good, but 

we need experienced professional law enforcement. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you all. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Tester. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 

thank the Ranking Member also for your opening statements and 

for holding this hearing. And I want to thank you all for being here 

and for the job you do. It is not easy. We talk about having technology on our side. We need to also remember, as you just said, 

they have technology on their side, too. 

I had an incredible opportunity last Saturday to get a briefing by 

the Border Patrol on what is going on on the Northern border. It 

was a marvelous briefing, but it was also very stunning to see what 

is going on up there, and I think we talked about one of the things 

you just talked about as far as smuggling things across the border, 

Elizabeth. 

If it was all like this, oh, my God, how easy it would be. When 

I look at a picture like this, I wonder what is going on down the 

road 5 miles up the border. I mean, the truth is that I am just a 

dirt farmer from north-central Montana, but if there is pot in those 

bags, I would be surprised, quite frankly. It is amazing to me that 

we do the job we can do on the border. 

And I just want to ask a question, because I think the Northern 

and the Southern border are absolutely connected. I think you guys 

talked about it a little bit, about some of the stuff that is going on 

on the Southern border has a direct nexus with what is going on 

on the Northern border and vice versa. 
447 

So the question I have—and you are right, Canada is a good 

friend. But without the help of our allies, of the Mexican Government in particular, and other governments around the country, is 

it possible to secure our border? That is for you, General McCaffrey. 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I think as a general statement, we 

are inadequately focused on the north-south axis. At the height of 

the—and these are not arguments against the war on terror—but 

at the height of the Iraq campaign, we were spending $12 billion 

a month. At the height of the Afghanistan campaign, it was $10 

billion a month, 60,000 killed and wounded. We went all out and 

should have done so. 

Now, you turn around and look at the resources. Here, after 

years and years of supporting it, I think the number now is something on the order of six Black Hawk helicopters have gone south. 

It is shameful, the inadequate resources we have in some ways 

provided these countries. And our agents in many cases, we have 

tied their hands. If you want to deal with the government of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, you are dealing with imperiled 

regimes. So it is not appropriate to tie their hands and say you 

cannot talk to certain kinds of units because they had human 

rights violations in the past. You have to get inside them and try 

and change them. 

I do not think we have done enough on the north-south axis at 

all. General Kelly you mentioned, probably the finest four-star we 

have on active duty today. This guy is really first-rate. He has been 

trying to call attention to that north-south axis and the impact of 

international crime, driven in many cases by drugs. 

Senator TESTER. And the point is that without their help, without making those relationships, it is going to be very difficult to 

stop it. 

General MCCAFFREY. Sure. 

Senator TESTER. The other point that you brought up, General 

McCaffrey—and I very much appreciate it—is that you said without sensible immigration policy it is going to be an uphill battle. 

I paraphrased what you said. Can you talk about that just for a 

second? You touched on it. You touched on the fact that it is not 

all Hispanics, that the fact is there are some folks that are here— 

and quite a number of them, quite frankly, that are here because 

we want them here, whether they are running our dairies or running our motels or are engineers in our businesses. Can you talk 

about the importance for sensible immigration to allow you guys, 

you five and the folks you represent, to be able to do your job? 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, it has become such a partisan—— 

Senator TESTER. That is correct. 

General MCCAFFREY [continuing]. Source of fury, it is just astonishing to me. And, again, that is why I try and say it is two sides 

of the same coin. As the Chairman has pointed out, you can pass 

bill after bill, but if your illegal immigration goes from 2 million 

to 11 million, apparently you are not doing the right thing. 

Senator TESTER. That is right. 

General MCCAFFREY. And, I look at the Yakima River Valley, the 

fruit basket of America, which is almost across the board illegal migrant labor, without OSHA safety standards, minimum wage, they 
448 

cannot wire money home to their mother. When they cross the 

frontier going home at Christmas, they get shaken down by the 

Mexican border police. 

Senator TESTER. Right. 

General MCCAFFREY. It is just an unconscionable situation. 

And, by the way, that is only half the problem. Half these people 

that are here illegally, the Indian high-tech people got off a plane 

and stayed. But the notion that we could deport or in some ways 

penalize the existing population of the country when we need their 

labor, among other things, does not make any sense. Nobody really 

believes we can do that. 

Senator TESTER. OK. John Torres, a question for you. About a 

year ago, maybe it was 9 months ago, we were talking about 60,000 

people at the border that were under the age of 18. I assume that 

is not occurring, at least to that level, at this point in time. What 

transpired to have that stop? 

Mr. TORRES. Well, to Secretary Johnson’s credit, he reached out 

to a number of different people to get a lot of different opinions as 

to what steps could be taken, and included in some of those steps 

that they have done is they have focused a little bit more precisionwise with enforcement, to target the human-smuggling networks 

that were breaking people up. 

Senator TESTER. That was happening in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador and places like that? 

Mr. TORRES. Yes, right. And enhance the international cooperation with our foreign law enforcement counterparts so that they 

could work together. And then he reached out to the local communities to work with NGO’s, to work with faith-based organizations, 

and to work with the medical community, to drive resources down 

there so that they could really address the hypersensitivity of that 

market there. 

Senator TESTER. Right. Well, like I said, I very much appreciate 

the work you guys are doing to find solutions to problems, and 

sometimes we tie your hands here in Congress. And I think that 

is very unfortunate moving forward. 

The last question is for you, Bryan. The Bakken has incredible 

growth and a lot of money, and we are seeing what I think are 

drug cartels moving into that area and have been for some time 

now. Could you talk about that and talk about the threat and, 

since it is right on Montana-North Dakota’s border, what you are 

trying to do to bring everybody together to solve the problem? 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Sure. Senator, what we are seeing is—the 

Bakken, obviously, huge energy growth between Saskatchewan, 

North Dakota, and eastern Montana. And what we are having happen there is traditionally in Montana our folks that ran our drug 

trade in Montana used to trip to go out to get their drug supplies 

from other States, go to Arizona, go to Denver, or wherever, and 

pick up their stuff. 

We have seen a change now where we are starting to see cartel 

activity move up into the Bakken, and it is obvious the corporate 

mentality and culture is coming in because there is money there, 

huge disposable incomes that are there, and these folks are starting to move in. So we are seeing big changes there. 
449 

Some of the issues that we are having with that and we are trying to address is obviously it is multiple States. We have North Dakota and Montana there, and we are working together back and 

forth. The FBI has moved a new field office in there. We have seen 

some interesting things go on, task forces come about, and working 

forward. The North Dakota fusion center and we cooperate on a 

daily basis back and forth, sharing information regarding those 

threats. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you very much. Thank you all for what 

you do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Tester. I will point out, 

on Thursday, we are going to have a hearing that is going to really 

lay out the population of people in this country illegally, and what 

they are doing. I agree, if we had a functioning guest worker program, you would certainly minimize the people coming here illegally, make that a legal process. We had that in the 1960s with the 

bracero program but with all its problems that got canceled. But 

we did not have the significant illegal immigration problem when 

we have today. People could come and go. We need to understand 

what works and what has not worked. But I hope you can attend 

Thursday’s hearing. Hopefully that will be enlightening in terms of 

that reality as well. 

Senator TESTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I might, I think you are 

exactly correct, but I do not think we can expect these folks to do 

their job if we do not do ours. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I understand. 

Senator TESTER. And part of it is getting a sensible immigration 

policy passed around here and taking the politics out of it, as General McCaffrey said, because it is too important. It is not going to 

go away unless we deal with it. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And the way I am trying to take the politics 

out is we share these same goals and lay out the reality. That is 

the start, the first step. Thank you. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

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

putting together this hearing, and Ranking Member Carper as 

well. And to our panelists, it has been a very interesting discussion, and I appreciate the work that you do each and every day to 

secure our border. From listening to Senator Tester, we know it is 

a very complex issue as well. It requires more than just securing 

the border. It means also reaching out to other countries as well 

and looking at in a comprehensive way. And I know all of you are 

thinking about that on a regular basis, and I appreciate that and 

hope you continue to bring your ideas to us here in Congress. 

Also, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the perspective from the Northern border, and I hope that as we continue to have hearings, given 

that I represent Michigan, we discuss some of the unique challenges in States not only like Michigan but North Dakota and New 

Hampshire and Montana and other Northern border States that 

should be part of any discussion when we talk about securing our 

country. 

As Mr. Costigan pointed out in his testimony, often the Northern 

border receives less attention and resources than the Southern bor-
450 

der. And in order to deal with the vast expanse of land that you 

have in Montana, which spans over 500 miles and two Border Patrol sectors as well as the network of Northern border States including Michigan, the fusion centers were created to share intelligence among law enforcement agencies. And, Mr. Costigan, I appreciate your discussion of those fusion centers and how they work 

and how they have been effective in dealing with the complexity of 

a very wide open border. 

But as all of you know, transnational criminal organizations will 

always try to seek the path of least resistance, and in Michigan, 

unique geography presents a challenge to border security and law 

enforcement. The Detroit River serves as an international boundary between the United States and Canada, but at points it is only 

a mile wide. 

During Prohibition, rum runners regularly used the narrow river 

to smuggle alcohol. Just recently, we had a Canadian man who was 

arrested while swimming across the river and back to fulfill a bet 

after a night of drinking. Last fall, we had two Americans that 

were arrested, and their boat was seized when they were caught 

smuggling tobacco into the United States as well. And there are 

many other instances just like this. 

But the United States certainly has worked with our Canadian 

partners through the Beyond the Border Action Plan to address 

threats early with the goal of preventing dangerous people or materials from reaching either country and facilitating cross-border enforcement. 

In Michigan, on the Detroit River, criminals have been using the 

border against law enforcement by retreating to the opposite side 

of the border when they are pursued exclusively by either the 

United States or Canadian law enforcement. However, a collaboration between the United States Coast Guard and Royal Canadian 

Mounted Police known as ‘‘Shiprider’’ has served as a very innovative way to make our border more secure. The program allows for 

cross-designation of specially trained officers who are allowed to 

conduct law enforcement on either side of the border while patrolling shared waterways. Shiprider is a success story for cross-border 

law enforcement cooperation by preventing these criminals from 

simply crossing into Canadian waters in order to avoid a U.S. 

Coast Guard vessel that is pursuing them. 

So given that kind of cooperation with the Canadians—Mr. 

Costigan, you mentioned in your testimony as well, and you have 

been at this a number of years—what have you seen in terms of 

cooperation between the United States and Canada? It sounds as 

if it is getting stronger? Are there areas where you think we need 

to improve that? If you could give us kind of an assessment of 

where that international cooperation is currently on the Northern 

border. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Mr. Chairman, Senator, I believe that it is improving, and through the Border Enforcement Teams or the old 

IBETs, as they used to call them in some of the border areas, that 

works great for sharing information. But I think at times we need 

to figure out a better way to share information with our Canadian 

partners in a more timely manner. 
451 

Obviously, as an ally of ours, we want to share as much as possible, but sometimes information restrictions that are placed upon 

State and locals in sharing information with the Canadians, since 

they are another country, proves difficult at times. We get the information to them if they absolutely need it immediately, but sometimes there are these impediments in the road. 

Senator PETERS. So that is a function of communications, just the 

barriers in communications? Would you elaborate on that, please? 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Senator, I think part of it has to do with when 

we can release information and what we cannot. If I have a product 

that is produced by the FBI or DHS or something along that line, 

I cannot release that without the agency’s permission. Sometimes 

that permission takes a long time to get back down to us to release 

that to our partners. 

Senator PETERS. OK. Good. 

To the other panelists, let me just go down the panel, in your assessment—we have talked about the linkage between the Southern 

border and Northern border. Perhaps just briefly, if you could mention, do you believe that Federal resources and initiatives are sufficient for work on the Northern border? And if not, is there one area 

in particular in relation to the Northern border that may be different than the Southern border that we need to consider? We will 

start down there with Mr. Martinez, and we will work our way 

down to General McCaffrey. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, Senator, I believe that the communications, 

of course, is always vital, but it all depends on what restricts that 

particular information to be filtered out. In our case, not having 

any direct contact in Mexico as to who to contact in that particular 

country, I would not filter anything out to them. Those are just my 

thoughts. 

Senator PETERS. OK. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Senator, I do believe that communication with 

our partner countries is critically important. I have seen times during my time as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration that we could not share information freely with Mexico. 

And I saw how that hindered our investigations. You knew if you 

had a connection in Mexico at that time it just stopped, and the 

investigation could go no further. And I saw under President 

Calderon’s administration we enhanced that communication, and 

we made real strides, and we made impact on a number of the cartels. 

We know that the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are 

supplying Canada with drugs, because they can get more money for 

their kilos of cocaine in Canada right now than they can in the 

United States. So I think it is imperative that we have that communication capability from Mexico to the United States and to 

Canada, because if we are not able to communicate, then these 

drug organizations succeed because we are not able to break their 

infrastructure. 

So I think it is critically important, but sharing intelligence in 

Mexico has its unique challenges because you have to know who to 

share it with, as Mr. Martinez said, and how to share it, because 

if you have someone that you can cooperate with, you do not want 

to put them in harm’s way in Mexico because you are cooperating 
452 

with them because of the corruption and the challenges that we 

have. So communication is important, and we have to develop those 

lines of communication to effectively address the challenges that 

we have. 

Mr. TORRES. Senator, I believe you said it best when you said 

that these organizations take the path of least resistance. As we 

put more pressure in other areas with various different programs 

with regards to national security, drugs, gangs, money laundering, 

some of these organizations will take a look at Canada and see that 

it is easier to get to Canada, and from there they can make their 

way to the United States. 

One of the issues we dealt with quite frequently over the years 

was asylum issues. Many people from other countries thought it 

may be easier to get asylum in Canada and then take advantage 

of the border, the Northern border, to come down to the United 

States as opposed to just trying to come to the United States to get 

asylum. And so as we strengthen our programs, if they are not 

commensurate across the board or with our neighboring countries, 

they will take advantage of that. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you. 

And, General, thank you. 

General MCCAFFREY. Senator, a couple of thoughts. One is, if you 

are a Canadian RMP official and you look at the drug threat to 

Canada, it is us. It is Interstate 5. We are the transit country for 

99 percent of the cocaine coming out of the production areas going 

into that country. So it is an odd thing. I used to think of that 

every year, and we had to validate who was cooperating with us 

in foreign governments and thinking the Canadians ought to disenfranchise us, not the other way around. 

I think the second thing that is unusual dealing with Canada is 

the economic importance of cross-border trade is so gigantic that 

we should never lose sight of that. The investment in infrastructure on the Northern border has been inadequate to make sure we 

could facilitate that cross-border trade. That river, that bridge situation in Detroit is just crazy that we have not solved that already. 

So, the biggest foreign trading partner of the United States is 

Canada. Normally No. 2 or No. 3 is Mexico. We are all wrapped 

in a NAFTA basket. But the economic implications of the Northern 

border are vital. 

Canadian immigration policy has always been a sensitive issue. 

Who they let into their country means they automatically let them 

into our country, because essentially we still do not have the border 

even remotely under control for individuals. So we have to have 

better discussions with them along that line. 

Then a final note: When it comes to law enforcement sharing information, it is a very unusual situation. The Canadians have 100 

percent integration with the U.S. Department of Defense. They actually are in command of U.S. and Canadian forces in NORAD, as 

you know. They are routinely—New Zealand, Australia, Canada, 

and Great Britain—get all of our sensitive intel. So why we have 

problems sharing information is a structural failing on our part because it does not exist in the Department of Defense. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Booker. 
453 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOOKER 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you. My family are not immigrants to 

the United States in any recent generations, but I was raised to be 

very sensitive of our American values, which are you are a citizen 

of the United States, whether you are a first-generation immigrant 

from Mexico or Canada, you enjoy certain rights and privileges to 

be an American citizen. And some of our most vaunted values are 

values of inclusion and tolerance. And I live in this country that 

I love and adore, but the racial realities are evident. If you are an 

African American, you are multiple times more likely to be stopped 

for suspicion of using drugs than if you are not an African American. If you are a Latino American, you are multiple times more 

likely to be stopped for suspicion of possession of drugs than if you 

are not a Latino American. And this has resulted in wild biases 

within our criminal justice system where there is no difference between blacks and whites for using drugs, but astonishingly, blacks 

will be arrested about 3.7 times more likely. 

And so when I see this bias, it actually to me stretches to a lot 

of our focus or concern, and I am curious from some of the panelists that every time I hear ‘‘secure the border,’’ people seem to be 

talking about our Southern border. I come in and I see a picture 

of Latinos crossing the river, and I wonder: Where is the picture 

of the Canadian border and the thousands and thousands of illegal 

crossing we have there? 

Why does it seem that we have a Nation so much more concerned about the serious problem that does indeed exist on our 

Southern border but very scant, little conversation about our 

Northern border? And I am wondering if that stems from some of 

the fears that we have that drive us as a Nation to so disproportionately impact blacks and Latinos in the criminal justice system 

for legal citizens. I am wondering that we celebrate in a perverse 

way our Southern border crossings and all those problems when 

the data shows that we have a serious problem in the north as 

well. 

We have right now in reality unique security challenges and significant threats along the longest border in the entire globe, over 

5,000 miles, in the north, and this is diverse terrains and climates. 

Roughly 300,000 people a day, $1.5 billion in trade, are crossing 

our Northern border every day. We have a problem. A June 2012 

report from the Department of Homeland Security entitled ‘‘Northern Border Strategy’’ highlighted the fact that illicit drugs are the 

predominant form of contraband smuggled across our Northern 

border, but no pictures. Not talked about in the press. Somehow 

that is scary to us, but our national imagination does not seem to 

be focused on a problem that is on our north as well. 

The Northern border is also an avenue for unintended hazards 

that do affect our country, including infectious and communicable 

diseases, and the potential for terrorism and violent extremism 

that can attempt to gain entry and access across that porous border 

in our north. And so I wonder: Where is the enthusiasm, the seeming alacrity that I find about our Southern border to secure our 

north? 

And so, Mr. Costigan, I am so happy you are here. As Director 

of Montana’s All-Threat Intelligence Center, you are a leader in 
454 

protecting the security of our Northern border communities. I am 

grateful. I wish you brought a photo, too, because we have a real 

problem. It may not be scary brown people, but we have a problem. 

Is that correct, sir? Yes or no. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. I would agree. 

Senator BOOKER. Serious problem. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. I do not know if I would term it as ‘‘serious,’’ but 

there is a problem. 

Senator BOOKER. And so what problems and what priorities 

should we be giving the security of our Northern border? 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Senator, from my perspective, obviously I am a 

Northern border person, and I agree that we have a problem on the 

Northern border and that we have to dedicate resources to it. 

Senator BOOKER. And just last week, a Border Patrol official fatally shot a man named Jamison E. Childress, if I am pronouncing 

that right, who was apparently in the country illegally on the U.S.- 

Canadian border about 100 miles north of Seattle, according to the 

New York Times. The man was wanted for murder outside 

Whatcom County—again, I hope I am pronouncing that right— 

Washington. The man was approached by two Border Patrol agents 

after setting off ground sensors along the border into the United 

States near the town of Sumas, Washington, after displaying erratic and threatening behavior toward the agents and refusing to 

follow their orders. The man sprayed one agent with an incapacitating spray. One of two agents shot and killed the man. 

I am concerned right now that people are crossing our international border from Canada to bring crime and violence. The fact 

that you do not think it is serious—the levels of drugs that come 

across our Northern border, the level of illicit contraband, the level 

of counterfeit prescription drugs, the level of threats to our community to me strikes me as very serious. 

And so do you share my concern that Congress should be a lot 

more vigilant and use our resources to protect the integrity and security of our Northern border? And if so, why don’t you think there 

is more attention on our Northern border? 

Mr. COSTIGAN. I agree that we should pay attention to the Northern border, and I would say that I am thankful for being here to 

be able to testify regarding that issue. 

As far as what kind of resources we dedicate to it, I think that 

the Congress has to make that decision how we dedicate those resources and where they are going to put it. 

Senator BOOKER. General, I appreciate your longstanding service 

to the United States of America and to this country. I am wondering if you could shed some more light on what I consider to be 

a serious threat. Illegal immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border is 

at a 40-year low. We have a lot of work to do. There are serious 

crimes going on on the border. There are border towns and communities that are facing horrific circumstances because of drugs and 

cartels. I have heard about it. I have read about it. I turn on the 

news, and I see it every day. But our Northern border has thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants every year crossing into 

this country of undocumented immigrants, and there is a tremendous drug problem on our Northern border as well. 
455 

Do you agree with me with the severity and the urgency to address this problem? 

General MCCAFFREY. Let me go to the first point you made because it is the toughest one. Normally I have current numbers, the 

Monitoring the Future study, et cetera. As a general statement, 

when you hold up a mirror to America and say, ‘‘Who is using 

drugs here in this country?’’ as a general statement, some of the 

lowest rates of drug abuse in American society, first of all, are the 

armed forces. And, also, if you are talking young people, it is African Americans who have a lower rate to include cocaine use than 

does the general population. And yet the consequences are dramatically different, and for a variety of reasons. If you are a Honduran 

kid selling drugs on the streets of Los Angeles, we are going to arrest you the first night. You will not have bail. You will not have 

a dad who has a lawyer. There is a whole series of social, cultural, 

economic factors that come into play. It deserves a serious discussion to address that issue, without which I think it is a major factor bearing on the disproportionate focus of the criminal justice system on minority populations. 

And, by the way, one of the highest rates of drug abuse in American society are health professionals. So if you are a plastic surgeon 

in San Francisco, a 40-year-old female, and you end up in one of 

our CRC health group treatment facilities, you are going to get 30 

days of inpatient care. You are going to have 2 years of supervised 

care afterwards. You are going to respond because the DEA is holding your license to write prescriptions. But not so much if you are 

in Chicago. So I think that point you make is a complex one, but 

we need to look at it. 

Now, when it comes to cross-border concerns, solving the problem 

of controlling the U.S.-Canadian border is a tough one. But I have 

always been uneasy about saying there is an equivalence between 

the problems in Mexico, the problems in the United States, and 

problems in Canada. 

Senator BOOKER. And forgive me, General, for interrupting you. 

I make no equivalency. The sheer numbers—— 

General MCCAFFREY. No, I did not say you did. I am just saying 

I am always uneasy about that argument. If you are on the U.S.- 

Mexican frontier right now, a U.S. citizen or law enforcement, you 

will not walk across the frontier for any reason unless you have an 

IQ below 70. Tijuana, different, but as a general statement, those 

border communities now, there may be gun fights going on across 

the frontier for a week at a time, survivors stumbling across the 

frontier. It is a flipping nightmare over there. It is a good deal living next to Canada. I mean, it might be slightly better at the Vatican, but the Canadians are a law-based society, first-rate law enforcement, economically vital to U.S. national interests—as is Mexico, I might add. So I do not think there is an equivalency. 

Now, how you go about securing 5,000 miles of border with Canada, you have to have a common immigration policy for starters. 

If you are a Chinese citizen with a master’s degree in physics, your 

preferred port of entry is to go into Canada and then come across 

the frontier into the United States. 

Senator BOOKER. And just if I can tread upon the Chairman’s 

good graces, my last, final follow-up is: It was said earlier about 
456 

1The picture submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 552. 

jihadists from Crimea. If you were a terrorist trying to cross over 

a border, what is easier crossing, the north or the south? 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, you have to get into Canada for starters. So there is first-rate intelligence cooperation between Canadian and U.S. authorities. So I would be reluctant to fly into Canada also. Once you are in, clearly you can get into the United 

States much more easily from that direction. 

But back to the U.S.-Mexican border, half a million people walk 

into this country every year illegally, so the border is not controlled. Even though it is safe in the major border cities, you can 

still cross the frontier, pay the nice man $1,000, and he will drive 

you across the frontier. 

Senator BOOKER. Right, and the point is that we just saw Canadian homegrown terrorists who caused some serious incidents. So 

someone from Canada who is already radicalized, it would be very 

easy for them to come across our border, correct? 

General MCCAFFREY. Yes. Again, though, the insight—Canada’s 

culture of civilization and peace is pretty intense compared to the 

United States. If I was a terrorist, I might move out of the United 

States into Canada where I would feel safer. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Booker, before you leave, because 

you were not here with the opening—and I just need to assure you 

there was no racial intent, absolutely no purpose behind this to 

bring race into this at all. This hearing is about laying out the reality. I am happy to hold a hearing on the problems with the 

Northern border. Right now we are talking about transnational 

crime. We had a picture1 given to us by a sheriff from Mission, 

Texas, showing the impunity with which the drug cartels operate 

on the other side of the border. This was a turnback situation, and 

that is the only purpose of that, was to lay out that reality. If you 

have a good picture that illustrates a particular reality on the 

Northern border, happy to put it out here. But there was absolutely 

no racial intent of that particular picture. This was just showing 

the impunity of the drug cartels and how they operate on the 

Southern border. OK. 

General McCaffrey, real quick, I know in our office you said you 

did not really particularly like talking about the total dollar value 

of the drug problem in the world. I know the U.N. reports it is 

about a $320 billion per year business. Quite honestly, I was actually surprised it is that low. I thought it would be a bigger problem. 

I will ask any of the witnesses here. Do we have any sense in 

terms of the dollar value of the human-trafficking component, the 

sex trafficking, and then the amount of money the drug cartels also 

make off of the illegal immigration? I separate human trafficking/ 

sex trafficking from the illegal immigration smuggling as well. 

Anybody have any sense in terms of just the dollar value, the enormity of that? 

General MCCAFFREY. Let me add a quick interjection. I tried to 

get law enforcement to stop briefing me on the dollar value of 

drugs seized. They have no value. It is all situational. If you are 

a dentist in Miami, you will spend 5,000 bucks a weekend on cocaine. If you are a poor boy in Rio, you can get a basyca, cocaine 
457 

paste cigarette, for $2. The supply of illegal drugs always grossly 

exceeds the demand. That is the key. And then when you get to 

the synthetic, manufactured drugs, there is, of course, an unending 

supply. 

Chairman JOHNSON. You are saying the supply exceeds the demand? 

General MCCAFFREY. Always, across the board. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Because it is so lucrative. I mean, there is 

so much money to be made in it. 

General MCCAFFREY. It is so easy to make them. There is no industrial—we are not talking Mercedes cars or growing fine wine. 

So the supply out there is unconstrained. And so it depends on who 

you are how much you will pay for the drugs. It is better to measure shattered lives, it is better to go to Monitoring the Future and 

talk about kids dropping out of school, better to go to the hospital 

emergency rooms, all of which we do, and see who is on what drug 

when they come in. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I understand. So much of this, let us face 

it, it is driven by the profit motive, and there is enormous amounts 

of money to be made, and I am just trying to get my head around 

that. 

Mr. Torres, this is almost totally aside, but you made a comment—I am new to public policy, just came to the Senate in 2011. 

But you said you were part of the bin Laden Unit. Is that what 

the name of the unit actually was back in 1997? 

Mr. TORRES. Right. It was the Usama, with a ‘‘U,’’ Usama bin 

Laden Unit. It was created in early 1998, and I left that unit in 

2000 to run the Denver office, but it continued for years. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Again, that just caught me by surprise. 

I was not aware of that, that we knew so much about Osama bin 

Laden that we actually had a unit set up within the FBI. 

Ms. Kempshall, you talked about the scouting networks. What 

laws are in place—or are there no laws in place—that we can arrest those individuals that we basically know are scouts? I mean, 

is there any control that we can have? Because we were down on 

the border, and literally we were standing right next to a scout. I 

know we were. He was on his phone. He was communicating our 

position to members of his gang on the other side. What laws are 

in place? 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. It is a scary feeling, isn’t it, when you know 

someone is watching you and calling out your positions as a law 

enforcement official to the bad guys that you are trying to apprehend. It has been a challenge for us to prosecute the scouts because 

it was just nothing specific for them. And I think it is important 

that there are consequences to their bad actions, because if they 

are not facing significant jail time, then they are just going to continue to do it and be replaced, because it is an opportunity to get 

into the United States, a slap on the wrist, they go back, and then 

family members can come back and replace them. 

So it is important that laws are created that these scouts will 

face significant—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So currently we do not have laws. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. They are very difficult to prosecute. 
458 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, of course, if we did have laws, they 

would be using minors, which is another problem, correct? 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. That is a significant problem, because we are 

seeing that across—the children are being used to bring drugs in 

across the ports, because in the Federal system it is very difficult 

to prosecute a minor. So now we have to have that prosecution 

handled by a county attorney in a border town that has very limited resources. But the law enforcement community feels like you 

cannot let these crimes go unpunished, or they are going to continue. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That was a shock to me when I was down 

on the border, and I was talking to local law enforcement, and a 

couple things were revealed to me that were shocking. 

First of all, I have always viewed this jurisdictional battle between the Feds and locals was to actually be able to take control 

of a case, prosecute it. Those are not the jurisdictional battles. 

They are actually fighting over not taking the case because it is so 

costly. 

The other surprise was that I was told by local law enforcement 

that unless there are 500 pounds of marijuana involved, they do 

not even bother. Can you confirm that, that what was told to me 

is basically true? 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. At one point in time, there was a minimum 

mandatory for Federal prosecution. I do not know that that is in 

place today. but I think that you see that we have had a plus-up 

of Border Patrol, and when you plus-up one agency—which is important, because the Border Patrol agents have an incredibly difficult job in Arizona and across the border. But we needed to plusup the rest of the infrastructure, the Marshals Service, the judges, 

the jail systems. The Federal system, the infrastructure for the entire criminal justice Federal system was at a breaking point when 

we had so many illegal immigrants being arrested, the drugs were 

coming across the border; they were having the minors bringing 

them across; the scouts in the mountains. It was just a difficult 

way to get these people prosecuted. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let us talk about what might work. General 

McCaffrey, you were talking fencing will in the right spot if it is 

constructed properly. I know Operation Strong Safety, when I read 

that report, it sounds pretty strong that having more boots on the 

ground, more enforcement officers at the border, sounds like that 

actually works. I do not know how many more we would need. I 

am looking at the budget right now, the Border Patrol, those 

60,000 agents cost about $12 billion per year. Obviously, we need 

a cost-benefit analysis on that. But, Chief Deputy Martinez, can 

you talk a little bit about boots on the ground, how effective Operation Strong Safety has been? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. It has been very productive, and it has helped us 

tremendously on our end. Being 70 miles north of the Rio Grande 

River, it has helped us where we see minimal dropoffs, we see 

groups of 20 versus groups of 70 being crossed through the brush. 

And a lot of this issue has to do with boots on the ground, but with 

that you also need your technology to work hand in hand so we can 

make every effort to interdict every single person that comes 

across, because that one person that is—— 
459 

Chairman JOHNSON. You can detect, but if you do not apprehend, 

it does not do you much good. But then if we apprehend and we 

just process—— 

Mr. MARTINEZ. That is correct. And just to reinforce what you 

just mentioned is the fact that if you do not have the prosecution 

at the level it should be at—I am referring to the USA. If they are 

not capable of handling this type of volume of cases these cases are 

going to walk because they have done it before in Brooks County. 

We literally have caught the scout. We literally have caught the 

smuggler with the people. 

Now, once they interview the people being transported, if they 

can tie in that particular scout to that smuggling organization well 

that is a plus. But if they do not that person is going to walk. Pretty much he is going to walk because he probably does not have any 

type of identification on him, no driver’s license or anything like 

that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So what percent of those scouts walk? What 

percent of people you want to prosecute we just do not? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. A very good percentage of them walk. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

We have not talked about southbound inspections, and as you 

know, the drugs go north and money and guns go south. And I just 

want to ask you to each take maybe less than a minute to talk 

about this issue and perhaps what more we can do, ought to do, 

to slow the flow of weapons and cash or other illicit drug proceeds 

into Mexico, but also into Canada. Just take about half a minute 

on each of those. General McCaffrey, would you lead us off? 

General MCCAFFREY. I think we are remiss. We owe the Mexicans better work. When I hear ‘‘money seizures,’’ I kept asking, 

‘‘What is our annual money seizure rate?’’ And somebody had mentioned a figure of $45,000. We know that it is literally billions of 

dollars moving across the frontiers back into Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico. They go in $100 bills, and these are industrial 

strength shipments, and we are not even remotely seizing a fraction of it. 

The same with weapons. When we get to weapons, you get into 

this political sensitivity that is just beyond belief. How can we possibly allow people to buy semiautomatic AK weapons on our side 

of the border by the dozens without in some way controlling this? 

And now, finally, there is just no easy solution. I stood there at 

the Bridge of the Americas, I guess, in El Paso, and you look into 

Mexico. If you tried to stop north-south traffic, there is no infrastructure to do that. You would back traffic up for 20 miles the 

first day. There is no plazas to inspect them. 

And, by the way, when you look across the bridge—I was sitting 

with a Border Patrol officer when I was doing this. It was getting 

dusk. There is no taillights going on on cars hitting the Mexican 

side of the border. They are not looking at them either. So there 

is just nothing there that comprehensibly finds guns and dollars 

going back into Mexico. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Very briefly, 30 seconds, what can and should we be doing to 

stop the flow of weapons and money heading south? 
460 

Mr. TORRES. Sure. Back in 2010, we surged a number of resources from throughout the country down to the border for that 

purpose exactly, to inspect guns and money going south. 

Unfortunately, to do that we had to pull resources from all the 

major cities, and so my counterpart in New York at the time was 

screaming and yelling, ‘‘I have all these issues in New York, and 

I have to send people to the southwest border.’’ Yet it is the drugs 

from the southwest border that are coming up to New York that 

is creating the impact. And so ultimately it is about the resources 

to create those teams and make them permanent. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Ms. Kempshall, just very briefly. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Yes, sir. It is critically important that we not 

only stop the money southbound, because that is why the drug cartels are in the business, but also the weapons. And so we are using 

intelligence to help drive those operations and coordinated activity 

between law enforcement investigations and our port officials so 

that we are having investigations and interdiction operations work 

together to help focus our efforts on the appropriate targets. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Martinez, very briefly, same question. 

Senator CARPER. Yes, sir. We had the State interdictor officers 

in Brooks County. Within 3 days, they were at half a million dollars. Within 3 days. So you do have a fixed checkpoint on the main 

corridor, just extend it over to the southbound lane and secure it 

there. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Of course, ours is a little different. Ours is going 

north instead of south. Concerns for us are usually guns going 

north to the Canadian—different culture. Our guns cause them 

problems up there also. 

But in order to work with our limited resources, I believe that 

we need to increase our risk assessment activities so we can properly utilize the limited resources that we have to target what we 

need to target. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

The last question I would have, I just want you all to give us 

some advice. Let us just say you are sitting on this side of the dais 

and not that side, and you are Senators for a day or at least for 

a hearing. Give us some ideas what you would do next, maybe one 

or two things that each of you would do if you were in our jobs to 

address the problems that we are talking about here today. General. 

General MCCAFFREY. I think it has come out all morning: a coherent, comprehensive, long-term plan to provide enhanced security all along that frontier, combined with sensible immigration policy. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. TORRES. Yes, I absolutely echo those thoughts. Ultimately, if 

I were sitting in your chair—I know how difficult it can be, but it 

is really developing and working together to come up with a comprehensive immigration plan as well as securing the border. 

Senator CARPER. That sort of goes out to the size of the haystack, 

does it not? 
461 

Mr. TORRES. Right, exactly. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Ms. Kempshall, what would you do? A couple of things. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Senator, I think that you are in this hearing 

taking very important steps. You are understanding the threat, because before I lived in Arizona and Texas, I lived in Georgia, and 

I did not have a full appreciation of when somebody talked about 

the challenges along the southwest border what they were. And I 

think it has to be a holistic approach. There is no easy fix for a 

problem of this size. Just as I said in my statement, it is an immense drug-trafficking problem, and no one agency can solve that 

problem. But if you bring agencies together, understand their missions, and understand how we can bring those missions together to 

secure the border, we are in a much better situation. And then let 

those agencies talk to you about what tools they need to enhance 

their capabilities along the southwest border, because I know when 

I worked in Washington for DEA, I may not have had a full appreciation of the challenges that law enforcement had out in the field. 

But when you bring those law enforcement agencies together and 

let us come talk to you and say, ‘‘This is what we need, this is what 

is working, and this is what is not working,’’ we will be better 

equipped to handle that problem. 

And you mentioned it earlier about the guest worker program. 

When you hear ‘‘illegal immigration,’’ I may think one thing. You 

may think another. But we have to define that. We have guest 

workers that we need to come in to work our fields. But then we 

have the folks that I deal with that are truly coming into our country to bring evil in, to destroy our communities, to make sure that 

they have continuing sources for their supply of illegal drugs. And 

so that is where the conversation needs to begin. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Good. Thank you so much. 

Mr. Martinez, what would you do? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, sir. I would continue the information-sharing 

collaboration as we are doing now, implement technology to assist 

in that. Of course establish an immigration plan that is going to 

be bipartisan, that is going to help the country, the Nation as a 

whole, and understand the mission of it. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Costigan. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. I would agree. I think we need to continue information sharing like you are doing here, but also continue and encourage information sharing through other entities with all the 

agencies involved. If we fail to share the information, we will not 

be able to take effective action against what our problems are. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, my last year as Governor I was given the opportunity to be the founding vice chairman of something called the 

American Legacy Foundation, which is the money flowed out of the 

tobacco settlement between all the States and the tobacco industry. 

And the idea was to go after the root cause. And what we did is 

we created the Truth campaign, and it was a public media strategy 

developed by young people to convince other young people not to 

smoke, not to use tobacco, and if they were, to stop. Enormously 

successful. 
462 

And in Montana, they actually used the same kind of approach 

to deal with meth, and my recollection, if I am not mistaken, 

Bryan, that was enormously successful as well. 

I just would leave us with a thought. There are actually some 

strategies that work pretty well with tobacco and with meth, and 

one of my favorite sayings is, as the Chairman knows, find out 

what works, do more of that. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Well, obviously coming from a manufacturing background, I 

solved a lot of problems, and root cause analysis is essential. But 

you have to first understand the reality. That is what we try to do 

here. 

Senator Carper kind of asked our wrap-up question. I have 

learned that from him, giving all the witnesses an opportunity to 

make a final point. I guess I will go and do the same thing. But, 

Ms. Kempshall, when you think about your closing comment, you 

talked about intelligence. I would kind of like to hear something 

about that. But, in general, this hearing really was about 

transnational crime, that reality, that element of this. And, again, 

my concern is the nexus between transnational crime, the growing 

threat of Islamic terror, international terrorists, homegrown extreme violence. 

As Ms. Kempshall was talking about, there are two parts to this: 

we have illegal immigrants coming here working, and we have people coming here to do this country harm—whether it is drug cartels, human sex trafficking, I mean evil people. And that we must 

stop. 

But, again, just go down the list, your final thoughts, potentially 

address my final points here. General McCaffrey. 

General MCCAFFREY. Well, I thank you for bringing attention to 

this issue. One of the other cautions when I give talks to a Rotary 

Club or Chamber of Commerce, people say, ‘‘Well, what happens 

when violence comes across the frontier?’’ It is already here. There 

are 1,000 communities right now, 200 major metropolitan areas, 

where the principal threat to the American people and organized 

crime comes out of Mexican cartels. So we should not talk about 

when it happens. It is already taking place. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Torres. 

Mr. TORRES. Transnational crime has to cross one of our borders, 

whether it is a land border, a seaport, airport, or even our cyber 

border. And we see the impact of that in our communities every 

single day. While it may be occurring on the southwest border or 

on the Canadian border or even at Dulles Airport, ultimately it 

ends up in our back yards with regards to drugs, national security, 

human and sex trafficking—we saw too much of that—and so 

thank you for focusing on this today. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Ms. Kempshall. 

Ms. KEMPSHALL. Senator, I think that we must understand when 

it comes to drug-trafficking organizations that these are criminal 

organizations, and they bring their drugs to the United States because we have an appetite for illegal drugs. And I think to address 

that problem, we must continue those education efforts. We must 

continue to teach our children the dangers of drug abuse, even ex-
463 

perimenting once with dangers of illicit drugs. And we also must 

use that intelligence that we develop from our investigations and 

our interdictions to make Arizona, one of the primary gateways, an 

undesirable route for the cartels. If we can push them out of their 

comfort zone, then we can make them more vulnerable. And if it 

is more difficult for them to bring their drugs into the United 

States and there is less of an appetite for their product in the 

United States, then we are going to break the backs of these drug 

cartels. But the only way that we can do that is to appropriately 

target our limited resources on the most significant drug-trafficking 

organizations impacting our communities. 

So I think it is a multiple approach: education, and using intelligence to drive our enforcement strategies, combining Federal, 

State, local, and tribal resources against those significant targets. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Chief Deputy Martinez. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, sir. Until the United States is serious about 

securing the border, the transnational criminal organizations will 

continue to operate on the border, within small communities, and 

throughout major cities of the Nation. We need to have a balance 

here because of our humanitarian issue that we have in Brooks 

County with all those bodies dying. We need to make sure that our 

national security issues are addressed to where we can identify the 

bad guy versus those that come in to assist the economy. Also, the 

crime is here, and it will continue to grow. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Costigan. 

Mr. COSTIGAN. Over 30,000 Americans died last year from drug 

overdoses. I think that is a threat to our communities every day. 

As we deal with that, I think what we can do as law enforcement, 

we have to encourage intelligence and information sharing to accomplish our mission and make it stronger. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, again, thank you all. I know you spent 

a lot of time on your testimony. It was extremely helpful. It helps 

us create that record, lay out that reality. So, again, thank you for 

your thoughtful testimony, your thoughtful answers to our questions. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until April 8 

at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(465) 

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(599) 

1The chart submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 734. 

SECURING THE BORDER: UNDERSTANDING 

AND ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSE OF 

CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRATION TO THE 

UNITED STATES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:02 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Ernst, Carper, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing is called to order. 

I want to thank all the witnesses for your thoughtful testimony. 

We have got a lot of witnesses, so I got to read a bunch of testimony last night. I appreciate it. It is very illuminating. 

The purpose of these hearings—this is our third in a series of 

hearings on border security and a broken immigration system— 

really is to just lay out the reality. I come from a manufacturing 

background and you just cannot solve a problem unless you really 

identify it properly, define it, understand the reality, acknowledge 

it, admit the problem. So, that is what we are going to be talking 

about. 

This particular hearing is titled, ‘‘Securing the Border: Understanding and Addressing the Root Causes of Central American Migration to the United States.’’ Of course, we all witnessed the surge 

last year. It created a real humanitarian crisis. I was down in 

McAllen, Texas, with Senator Carper and Senator Sasse, and I do 

have to say, as we saw how Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 

how our civil servants rallied and responded to the problem, it was 

really inspiring. I mean, they probably cut some bureaucratic corners, which they should have done, because they really responded 

well. So, again, I just want to kind of call them out. They did a 

fabulous job and they will continue to do a fabulous job. 

I do have a chart1 up here real quick, and this is actually—the 

numbers are taken out of Mr. Noriega’s testimony talking about 

the history of unaccompanied children coming in from Honduras, 

Guatemala, and El Salvador, and I do have a line of demarcation 
600 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 645. 

2The prepared statement of Senator Carper appears in the Appendix on page 646. 

marked there, which was the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which I realize did not apply to children coming to this 

country. That was really for children who came in, I believe it was 

before 2007. But, that was not the message that was delivered in 

Guatemala. 

So, I think if you take a look at cause and effect, I think you 

would be hard pressed not to at least consider the fact that that 

deferred action, that policy of this Administration, did incentivize 

people to come to this country illegally and subject themselves and 

their children to a pretty horrific journey. So, we need to understand that. 

But, we also need to understand, and I am sure Senator Carper 

will speak to this, is the conditions in Central America. I would 

come. It is a rational economic choice. I mean, this is the land of 

unlimited opportunity. We understand that. What we need to do is 

we need to make that a legal process. 

So, if we can lay out the reality of the problem and really address 

all the components—and this is just one of the components, this is 

just going to be one of these hearings—we are going to be in a far 

better position to actually go to the root cause, and Senator Carper 

and I are both big into root causes, and so we can start, hopefully, 

to pass some pieces of legislation that will start addressing the individual components and put this Nation on a path to a functioning 

legal immigration system. 

I have a written statement for the record1 that I will ask to include, without objection. 

Senator CARPER. Oh, oh, oh—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. There you go. Really bipartisan up here. 

[Laughter.] 

And, I will turn it over to our Ranking Member, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. And I also have a statement2 I would ask unanimous consent to be included in the record. 

Yesterday, one of our witnesses was General Barry McCaffrey, 

and when he was the Nation’s Drug Czar, he came to Wilmington, 

Delaware. I was Governor then. And, he wanted to see a prison 

that we—called Gander Hill Prison in almost downtown Wilmington. We had a couple thousand inmates. And, somehow, we 

had figured out how to reduce the rate of recidivism by half, from 

about 75 percent down to about 35 percent. He wanted to know 

why. 

And, we ended up—before we toured the prison, he came in, 

brought an ABC News camera crew, and before we toured the prison, we went into a room about a quarter of the size of this room 

and we met with 50 inmates. They were all in their white suits. 

And, a bunch of them, I knew their parents, knew their families, 

and had spoken at their schools and been at their churches. And, 

we had about half an hour to kill with them before we did the prison tour and learned about the program. 
601 

And, I said, General McCaffrey, why do we not just talk to these 

guys and find out how they ended up here in this prison. And, so, 

about five or six of them spoke for maybe 5 minutes apiece to talk, 

to answer the question, how did they end up in that prison. 

They all told pretty much the same story. ‘‘I was born when my 

mom was young. I never knew my dad. By the time I got to kindergarten at the age of five, the other kids in my class knew not just 

their alphabets, they could actually read. They knew their numbers. They could do a little bit of addition and subtraction. And, as 

it carried on from there, they went faster and faster; I went slower 

and slower. And, eventually, I am in the third grade and acting 

out, in the fourth grade out in the hall by my desk, and in fifth 

grade, sixth grade, in the principal’s office, in seven, eighth grade, 

suspended. As soon as I was older, I got expelled and never came 

back.’’ 

One guy said, ‘‘I ended up on the outside. I was not a good athlete. I was not popular with girls. No talents or skills. Did not 

know how to really support myself. I wanted to feel good about myself and I learned if I could take drugs or alcohol, I could feel good 

about myself, and so that is what I did. I broke the law, got caught, 

and I ended up in this prison.’’ 

The root causes there are pretty well demonstrated in the responses from all those prisoners, and we decided then and there 

that we were going to address root causes, not just the symptoms 

of problems in Delaware, but really starting with the basic building 

block for a society: Families. How do we strengthen families, make 

sure our kids are not bringing kids into this world, and on and on 

and on. And, actually, pretty successful, I might add. 

Ever since then, I have been a real big believer in root causes, 

not just addressing symptoms of problems, but root causes. We 

spent a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars in the last 10 years strengthening our border defenses with Mexico. We could probably, easily, 

spend another quarter-of-a-trillion dollars. 

But, an analogy I used yesterday, this is a little bit like the needle in the haystack. The needle is people trying to get in illegally, 

or trying to get contraband in illegally, and the haystack is all the 

number of people who are trying to get there. I said, the key for 

us is to make the haystack smaller and to develop better techniques of finding those needles, if you will. 

And, part of it is, of making the haystack smaller, is reducing the 

number of people who feel compelled to bail out of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to try to get to our country, because there 

is lack of hope, lack of opportunity, fear, corruption, hopelessness. 

And, we have seen a situation a little bit similar to this in Colombia 15, 20 years ago, where we had a failed nation. A little bit 

before that, we had a bunch of gunmen who rounded up a bunch 

of Supreme Court justices—remember this? They shot and killed 11 

of them just like that. And, you had the leftist guerrillas there. You 

had the crimes and drug narco guys, and a failed nation. And, 

somehow, they turned it around, and they did it, but we helped 

them. And, today, they are in a position to help Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Mexico is in a position to help, as well. 

But, as we continue to find ways using force multipliers to make 

the 21,000, 22,000 Border Patrol men and women we have on the 
602 

border more effective to make all those folks and another 22,000 

people that are literally working in the ports of entry on the border 

of Mexico, how do we make them more effective? We use it with 

technology. Drones have done well. Tethered aerostats have done 

well. Towers on the ground, mobile towers, stationary towers, stationary aircraft with the vehicle and dismount exploitation radar 

(VADER) systems, you name it. There is a lot that we can do faster, more places, bring in boats into the Rio Grande River. There 

is a lot of stuff we can do in terms of force multipliers. 

And, my hope is that, ultimately, we will do some immigration 

reform and that would be a way to reduce the size of the haystack, 

as well. 

But, we have an obligation, I think, moral obligation, since given 

our addiction to drugs, methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, which 

helps make the lives in these three countries miserable—given the 

fact that we contribute to their misery, maybe we have an obligation, a moral obligation, to figure out how to contribute to their 

success. 

It is not all on us. And, I am encouraged by the Administration, 

the President, and the Vice President is sort of riding point on this, 

is to figure out what is working down there. What can actually 

work. And, I will give you one example and I will stop. 

I was in Guatemala about a year ago. I have been in all three 

countries down there a couple of times. And, I was in Guatemala 

meeting with the President of Guatemala and I said to him, Mr. 

President, I am told that in your prisons here, this is a place 

where, frankly, police do not police, prosecutors do not prosecute 

too often, judges do not administer justice, correctional systems do 

not correct behavior. And, I said, I was meeting with the President 

in one of the last meetings before I came home on a Congressional 

Delegation (CODEL) and I said, Mr. President, I understand that 

the drug lords in prison, in your prisons, they get access to cell 

phones. They can actually do their business while they are in prison, incarcerated. I said, did you know that? 

And he kind of, like, shrugged, and I said, and did you know that 

there is actually a technology we have in our prisons in America 

where you can actually put a cone of silence so that people with 

cell phones in a prison cannot communicate in or out? Did you 

know that? And, not much of a response. And, I said, and did you 

know you have those systems in your prisons, as well? And, kind 

of not much of a response. And, I said, and you know you do not 

use them. 

Well, we heard in our meeting that we had yesterday with a 

bunch of our Ambassadors, U.S. Ambassadors to Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize, that is changing and we are part of 

making sure that they have supermax down there and the bad 

guys are in the supermaxes and they cannot communicate. They do 

not get the cell phones. And even if they could, they could not use 

them. 

That is just one of the many things that we need to do to help 

restore the rule of law. We can help. They have got to do it in the 

end, and part of what is needed is really strong, courageous leadership, because the people who stand up and do these tough things, 
603 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Kandel appears in the Appendix on page 648. 

they really put their lives on the line. We know that and they know 

that and we need to support them. 

The key is trying to meet our moral obligation to these folks. 

They are our neighbors. Golden Rule, who is my neighbor? They 

are our neighbors. But, to do so in a cost effective way. That is the 

challenge for us. Find out what works. Do more of that. 

Thanks very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in witnesses, and 

if members of both panels could stand and raise your right hand. 

Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

Mr. KANDEL. I do. 

Mr. NORIEGA. I do. 

Mr. FRANCO. I do. 

Mr. OLSON. I do. 

Mr. BERSIN. I do. 

Mr. PALMIERI. I do. 

General TOVO. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness is William Kandel. He is an Analyst in Immigration Policy with CRS’s Domestic Social Policy Division. He covers family based immigration policy, unaccompanied alien children 

(UAC), inter-country adoptions, naturalization, immigrant integration, and the demography and fiscal impacts of the foreign-born 

population. 

Senator CARPER. Are you saying he is a demagogue? [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. I am going to have to read these beforehand. [Laughter.] 

Prior to CRS, he conducted demographic and social science research on rural America and farm workers for the USDA Economic 

Research Service. Mr. Kandel. 

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM A. KANDEL,1 ANALYST IN IMMIGRATION POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Mr. KANDEL. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 

about last year’s surge of unaccompanied alien children. I will be 

summarizing my written testimony with these brief remarks. 

My testimony addresses specific questions given to me by the 

Committee regarding apprehensions, pending cases, asylum, no 

shows, and returns and removals. Please note that the data presented in this testimony on UAC outcomes for any given year may 

correspond to children who were apprehended in a prior year. For 

example, an asylum decision in fiscal year (FY) 2014 may affect an 

unaccompanied minor who was apprehended in 2012. 

CBP data indicate that 68,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended in fiscal year 2014, over three times the apprehensions 

in fiscal year 2009. During that 5-year period, the UAC composition, which was first dominated by children from Mexico, shifted to 
604 

one dominated by children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In fiscal year 2014, CBP also apprehended 68,400 family 

units, 90 percent of whom also originated from Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras. 

In fiscal year 2014, about 57,500 unaccompanied minors, or 84 

percent of those apprehended, were transferred to the Department 

of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). They remained in ORR custody an average of 35 days 

while awaiting placement. In fiscal year 2014, ORR discharged 87 

percent of its unaccompanied minors to family relatives, 9 percent 

to non-relatives, and the remaining 4 percent back to DHS, largely 

because they aged out of UAC status. 

Data received after my written testimony was submitted to the 

Committee indicate that in fiscal year 2014, the U.S. Citizenship 

and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 2,800 requests for UAC 

asylum. In that year, the agency adjudicated 547 UAC asylum 

cases and approved 289, or just over half. 

As of March 2014, the average wait times for all immigration 

hearings nationwide was 19 months. However, expected wait times 

for UAC hearings can extend beyond 19 months. 

Data from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) 

covering 7 months, from July 2014 through February 2015, indicate 

that DHS put 25,100 unaccompanied minors into removal proceedings. Of those, EOIR scheduled 23,800, or 95 percent, for an 

initial hearing. Of those scheduled, 6,100, or one-fourth, were given 

a decision by an Immigration Judge. Of the 6,100 decisions, 4,300 

unaccompanied minors, or 70 percent, were ordered removed. The 

remaining 1,800 cases resulted in administrative closings and completions, case terminations, voluntary departures, and one case of 

immigration relief. For 62 percent of the decisions rendered, the 

unaccompanied minors failed to appear in court. Those decisions all 

resulted in removal orders. 

Regarding removals, in the first 91⁄2 months of fiscal year 2014, 

ICE removed 1,457 unaccompanied minors. CBP data received 

after my written testimony was submitted to the Committee indicate that 95 percent of all Mexican unaccompanied children who 

were apprehended in fiscal year 2014 were returned voluntarily to 

Mexico. 

This concludes my remarks. Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Kandel. 

Our next witness is Ambassador Roger Noriega. He has more 

than two decades of public policy experience, focusing on U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. Ambassador Noriega served as 

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 

July 2003 to October 2005, and as U.S. Ambassador at the Organization of American States from August 2001 to July 2003. Ambassador Noriega. 
605 

1The prepared statement of Ambassador Noriega appears in the Appendix on page 659. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ROGER F. NORIEGA,1 VISITING FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, AND 

FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. NORIEGA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator 

Carper. I commend the Committee for holding this series of hearings this week focusing attention on the government’s fundamental 

responsibility for securing our borders. 

No event in recent years has underscored the vulnerability of our 

Southwest border as dramatically as the wave of illegal immigrants, many of them children, crossing in record numbers last 

year. The American people learned quickly how our resources on 

the border can be overwhelmed, diverting attention from the critical mission of detecting greater threats. Moreover, it underscored 

the real world consequences of our government sending mixed signals about border enforcement and of potential amnesty at the 

same time that it fails to engage effectively with our neighbors that 

are facing rising insecurity and instability. 

Mr. Chairman, I have worked on Central America for nearly 30 

years and rely on that experience in assessing the root causes of 

the 2014 border crisis and making several recommendations on 

how you might bring this problem under control. 

First, Mr. Chairman, it is important to recognize that the surge 

of unaccompanied alien children from Central America’s Northern 

Triangle countries actually began in 2012, as you asserted, when 

CBP recorded the apprehension of 10,000 unaccompanied children 

from those three countries, compared to an average of 3,900 in each 

of the three prior years. 

So, although CBP is now recording that the number of UACs encountered is down 42 percent so far this year compared to last 

year, it is important to remember that that figure in 2014 was five 

times higher than that recorded in 2012, and 12 times higher than 

what it was in 2011. We will not have a real handle on this problem until the numbers are back down to where they were 3 or 4 

years ago. 

My second point, Mr. Chairman, is although insecurity and poverty have driven people to flee the country for decades, I believe 

that the new pull factors attracting people to make the dangerous 

trek are of paramount concern because they are entirely preventable. 

Last summer, my contacts in Central America reported brazen 

radio advertising campaigns by alien smugglers drumming up business by claiming that a new ‘‘permiso’’ was being issued to minors 

reaching U.S. territory, allowing them to stay virtually indefinitely. 

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study released last 

month confirms this aggressive and misleading marketing by alien 

smugglers, commonly referred to as coyotes. 

The increased number of persons being allowed to stay pending 

hearings under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization 

Act (TVPRA) appears to be the origin of this campaign. And, the 

June 2012 decision by President Obama to defer removal action of 

childhood arrivals also fueled expectations of mass legalization, 
606 

benefiting people, particularly minors, who made their way to a 

U.S. territory. 

Journalist Richard Pollak, who interviewed dozens of people in 

Guatemala last summer, reported in August, ‘‘Coyotes may appear 

to be uninformed and unsophisticated smugglers, but they pay 

close attention to U.S. immigration laws. One smuggler asserted, 

’Obama has helped us with the children because they are able to 

stay in the United States. That is the reason so many children are 

coming,’ ’’ That is a smuggler talking, a man who knows his business all too well. 

To get ahead of this problem, Mr. Chairman, the President, Congress, and enforcement agencies must work together to ensure the 

clarity and strict enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. 

My third and final point is with respect to the responsibility of 

regional governments to make their countries safe for their own 

people. They have proposed a very ambitious development program 

called the Alliance for Prosperity, and President Obama has proposed that we contribute $1 billion to this effort in fiscal year 2016. 

I believe the United States should accept some of the responsibility 

for remedying the insecurity and violence that is fueled by U.S. demand for illicit drugs. However, this transformative plan will not 

work unless the Central American governments commit their own 

resources to this project, and, more importantly, demonstrate the 

political will to change the culture of corruption that has undermined economic growth and social justice in Central America for 

decades. 

Mr. Chairman, there are too many governments in the region 

where political power is seen as a means to benefit your family, 

your friends, your party, and yourself. Moreover, we cannot pretend 

that we care about drug corruption and gang violence when we say 

and do nothing about the fact that the President of El Salvador, 

for example, has a key advisor who is well known for laundering 

billions of dollars for the Colombian cocaine smugglers and that his 

political party, the Frente Farabundo Martı ̃ para la Liberacio ̃n 

Nacional (FMLN), has made common cause with street gangs to 

win elections. 

We should help, but that starts by using tough diplomacy and robust law enforcement to help the good people of Central America 

rescue their countries from a culture of corruption and crime. 

Also, Mr. Chairman, it is not clear from the President’s budget 

proposal that the Administration has identified a clear set of priorities that are worthy of U.S. assistance in this far-flung proposal, 

and I am relying on my experience and being one of the principal 

staffers that helped develop Plan Colombia and then implement it 

later in the Executive Branch. 

Congress should ask the President to empower an official, an individual official in the Executive Branch, to identify priorities, to 

work with the Congress to craft a legislation, to coordinate the implementation of projects, respond to robust congressional oversight, 

and engage each of the Central American governments to ensure 

that it is pulling its weight and executing programs effectively. 

Mr. Chairman, Central America’s problems will always find their 

way to our doorstep, literally, as long as a desperate people have 
607 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Franco appears in the Appendix on page 673. 

to abandon their homes and wander in the desert to find a future. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

Our next witness is the Honorable Adolfo Franco. He is the Executive Vice President of the Direct Selling Association. Prior to this, 

Mr. Franco was Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the 

Caribbean for the U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID). Mr. Franco also has served in various capacities at the 

Inter-American Foundation, including General Counsel, Senior Vice 

President, and President. In 2003, Mr. Franco was appointed as a 

member of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Foundation. Mr. Franco. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ADOLFO A. FRANCO,1

FORMER ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR LATIN AMERICA 

AND THE CARIBBEAN AT THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. FRANCO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want 

to thank you and Senator Carper for this opportunity to appear before this distinguished Committee. 

I do want to commend you, though, Mr. Chairman, for arranging 

a hearing on a complex and controversial subject that deserves 

closer examination and calmer deliberation as we just saw a few 

minutes ago. We cannot hope to reform our immigration laws and 

stem the tide of illegal immigration unless we do understand the 

causes, at the outset, what is causing this additional pressure on 

our borders. 

At the outset, as an Hispanic American, let me dispel any notion 

that Americans of Hispanic heritage or descent have views different from those of the vast majority of non-Hispanic Americans 

when it comes to illegal immigration. Most Latinos, as other Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, favor orderly, legal immigration to the United States at levels established by Congress, but 

are vehemently opposed to an executive amnesty for those who 

have migrated here illegally. As other Americans, Latinos respect 

the rule of law and understand that a country that loses control of 

its border loses its sovereignty. 

My purpose in testifying is not to flood you today with statistics 

of what our country has done to promote development and provide 

humanitarian assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. I 

would be happy to provide those details. But, Members of this 

Committee and your staff are fully aware of the billions of dollars 

the United States generously provides in the Western Hemisphere 

annually through a variety of channels. 

In addition to USAID, where I served for many years, the other 

departments and agencies have programs that support democracy, 

health, justice, environmental reforms, and economic development 

programs throughout the region. There are also considerable resources dedicated for humanitarian and disaster assistance as well 

as indirect support that our government provides to the region 

through development banks and multi-national organizations. Suffice it to say, Mr. Chairman, for many decades, the American tax-
608 

payer has been extraordinarily generous in helping our neighbors 

overcome the challenges they have faced. 

Unfortunately, after many years—and I was in this business for 

almost 30 years and, as my colleague, Secretary Noriega—I have 

learned the simple fact that America cannot solve our neighbors’ 

problems. Nor can we spend our way to development any more 

than we can spend our way to prosperity at home. 

The fact is that the government cannot create wealth and the 

government cannot develop under-developed societies. Economic 

growth can only come from a vibrant private sector. The role of 

government is to create the environment and the security necessary to allow the private sector to create wealth. Without a commitment that can be made only by Latin Americans themselves, 

continuing to pour billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into these countries will not change this fact but it will only make it worse by enabling governments to postpone unpopular reforms and create the 

kind of problems my colleague, Secretary Noriega, referred to—enable oligarchies and others in power to continue to resist those reforms. 

In that vein, Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that Vice President 

Biden’s well-intended proposal to provide an additional $1 billion 

in development assistance to Central American countries without 

this prior commitment and demonstrable record for meaningful reforms will do nothing but reinforce bad habits and a dependence 

on foreign aid. We have yet to see the specifics or the proposal by 

the Central Americans themselves to provide additional complementary assistance to make any so-called plan work. 

Our resources, instead, would be more effectively spent on securing our borders and modernizing our immigration procedures in 

order to send a clear signal that we will enforce our immigration 

laws. Such an unambiguous message to smugglers and would-be illegal immigrants is a prerequisite to success and more important 

than anything else we can do in the short term. 

Today’s hearing is focused on the pull factors that have led Latin 

Americans, particularly, of course, Central Americans, to immigrate illegally to the United States. At its core, the principal reason, and I agree with Senator Carper, continues to be economic opportunity, and our country provides it. 

It is clear to anyone that has any knowledge of our decades to 

promote prosperity in the region that foreign assistance, however, 

has done little to change that in terms of the plight of the poor. 

This situation is made even worse by endemic corruption, as referenced by my colleague, Secretary Noriega, by drug trafficking, 

violent gangs, and a general lawlessness that results from ineffective law enforcement that is often linked to the criminal activity 

itself, meaning that law enforcement is tied to the criminal activity. 

Unfortunately, an insecure border only compounds these problems because it gives an opportunity for human smugglers and 

these gangs which are linked to them in Central America and Mexico to prosper from this illicit business. These smuggling operations 

are a multi-billion-dollar business. According to a recent GAO report, 56 percent of our border, despite the efforts we have made, 
609 

is not under operational control, and, thus, it is territory that is 

open for continued growth for illegal smuggling operations. 

Now, rightly or wrongly, the Obama Administration’s recent executive actions on immigration have been widely perceived 

throughout Central America as an executive amnesty. It has been 

advertised as such. This will inevitably result in more illegal immigration and strengthen the human smuggling operations carried 

out by gangs and smuggling rings. 

The reality, Mr. Chairman, is that since 2011, the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the U.S. border has increased by 

43 percent, from 340,000 to 487,000. These estimates are important. What these numbers reflect is of those attempting to enter 

our country illegally, half of them ultimately are successful. The recent increase is largely attributed to children and families, many 

of whom believe, as Secretary Noriega mentioned, that U.S. immigration laws have changed. 

And, as a consequence of the President’s statements and executive actions, in simple terms, there is a broad legalization in the 

United States of illegal aliens, and the simple fact is that the message being heard is if you can just get your children or yourself 

across the border by any means and stay here long enough, you 

will enjoy the full benefits of citizenship in the United States. That 

is the simple pull factor that is existing in Central America at this 

moment. 

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would urge you and this Committee to consider—and these are not easy things—the following 

actions that Congress could take or send a message to stem the 

tide of illegal smuggling and immigration. 

First, restrict appropriations for the Department of Homeland 

Security so that no funds can be used to implement executive actions or policy directives that prevent enforcement officers from 

carrying out their responsibilities under current law and thereby 

enable large numbers of illegal aliens to avoid deportation and 

even to receive work permits not authorized by current law. 

Second, prevent illegal employment with a universal e-Verify 

mandate and other measures to boost employer compliance. They 

have a responsibility, too. And, this will also address identity theft, 

which is rampant in our country. 

And, last, authorize the U.S. Border Patrol to keep illegal border 

crossers in custody in the immediate border region and ensure expedited removal. This will send a very clear message in Central 

America. 

By taking these actions, Congress would not only simply reinforce the rule of law, but also send a message that the law cannot 

be set aside by President Obama or, for that matter, any President 

at his own convenience whenever he decides there are obstacles to 

his own preferences. By Congress affirming a commitment to the 

enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States that are 

currently on the books, smugglers tied to drug cartels would diminish and our neighbors will understand the rule of law is not only 

paramount, but there, indeed, is no executive amnesty in the 

United States for those who successfully breach our borders. 

Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to answer any questions that 

you or Members of this distinguished Committee may have for me. 
610 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Olson appears in the Appendix on page 677. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Franco. 

Our next witness is Eric Olson. He is the Associate Director of 

the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International 

Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the Wilson 

Center, he was a Senior Specialist in the Department for Promotion of Good Governance at the Organization of American 

States, served as Advocacy Director for the Americas at Amnesty 

International USA, and was a Senior Associate for Mexico in Economic Policy at the Washington Office on Latin America. Mr. 

Olson. 

TESTIMONY OF ERIC L. OLSON,1 ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, LATIN 

AMERICAN PROGRAM, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL 

CENTER FOR SCHOLARS 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member Carper and Members of the Committee. I appreciate your 

organizing this hearing and your focus, your interest on the underlying issues, the causes of this crisis. I am delighted to be here 

today on behalf of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think 

tank chartered by Congress as the official memorial to President 

Woodrow Wilson. Thank you very much. 

I have submitted written testimony, so I am going to, in the few 

minutes I have, focus on three things. First, the current situation. 

I am just back from several days at the Mexico-Guatemalan border 

visiting migrant shelters and detention facilities and hearing from 

migrants and Mexican, Guatemalan, and U.S. officials. As you will 

recall, when I appeared before this Committee last summer, we 

were in the midst of the humanitarian crisis and the United 

States-Mexico border, where 50,000 Central American unaccompanied children were arriving, and a similar number of families. 

During my visit to the Guatemala-Mexico border, I observed that 

migrants are still very much coming to the United States, not at 

the levels they were in 2004—that was a historically high level— 

but above the 2013 levels, and the reason is, in my estimation, in 

large part, because the underlying drivers of the migration, the 

fundamental issues here that people are facing, are still in existence, have not changed significantly. 

Violence and homicides are still at record levels. They have gone 

down some in Honduras and Guatemala, but are up in El Salvador. 

Economic despair continues. Family reunification is still a powerful 

incentive. High rates of corruption and penetration of the State institutions by criminal groups have meant police, justice ministries, 

and prisons are incapable of providing the law enforcement and 

justice people need to survive. 

Many families and young people are faced with dire choices, a 

Sophie’s choice, if you will, in which they must either reach an accommodation with criminal groups, watch their children join up, 

watch their children die, or flee. It is not surprising that many decide to flee. 

What has changed in the last several months? Efforts by the 

United States and Central American governments to send the message that the trip is treacherous, that it is dangerous, that they 
611 

run the risk of being trafficked, and that they will not be received 

with open arms in the United States have had an impact and dissuaded many from coming. Furthermore, the Mexican government 

has stepped up its efforts, as I observed, to detain and deport Central Americans. Detentions are up 25 percent, and although their 

deportations are not up that much, they are still significantly up. 

And, Mexico has done much to dissuade migrants from using the 

freight trains, the so-called ‘‘bestia,’’ or beast, by more aggressively 

patrolling the train lines. The result is that trafficking routes and 

migrant routes have shifted to more vulnerable areas where there 

are not protections from shelters. So, we do not know if the violence has actually increased against them on the route or not. 

The second point I would like to focus on is that this context requires a comprehensive strategy designed to address the underlying challenges and push factors in Central America. I recognize, 

as my colleagues have said, that there are pull factors, but those 

pull factors would exist for Mexicans, as well, and we have not 

seen the rise in Mexican child migrants the way we have from Central America. 

So, I return to the need to focus on the driving factors, the push 

factors. Fortunately, we have before us a real opportunity with two 

complementary plans that deserve support, the Alliance for Prosperity from the Central American countries, and President 

Obama’s plan. What is different is now we have a plan from the 

Central American governments that did not exist before, and I 

agree, without a plan and a commitment from them, we should not 

proceed. 

But, these plans are promising because they focus on both the 

economic and the security challenges facing the region in ways that 

previous plans—the Central America Regional Security Initiative 

(CARSI)—did not. It focused exclusively on security. They also 

focus on building capable law enforcement institutions, especially 

civilian police, public prosecutors, and prison reform is essential, 

and they seek to promote the rule of law as the fundamental building block for better security and government capacity. 

Furthermore, the risks of doing nothing in Central America are 

too great. The possibility that thousands of people will continue to 

die and more children will be forced to flee, the ability of criminal 

networks to further erode government capacity in Central America 

to provide basic security and services, are very great. And, the 

stakes are too high for Central America, Mexico, and the United 

States to do nothing. 

Conversely, and this is my third and final point, we know that 

simply throwing money after the problem is not an option. Unless 

the problems of corruption and lack of rule of law are addressed 

head on, then there is little hope that there will be any change and 

that these plans will succeed. Investors and the private sector will 

not invest at needed levels if the rule of law is not strong and there 

are no assurances of a level playing field. Children and families 

will continue to face violence and economic uncertainty. 

I believe the Central American governments are aware that 

there will be no blank check from Congress and this Administration and are willing to accept specific conditions to ensure progress, 

but those conditions are essential, and we need to be clear and we 
612 

1The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 734. 

need to articulate them very specifically. I have listed several in 

my testimony. If you permit me, I will just highlight a couple of 

them before I conclude. 

In Guatemala, I think Guatemala has to renew the mandate of 

the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala 

(CICIG). That mandate runs out in September. There will be a new 

Guatemalan government, and to ensure continuity in building the 

rule of law, Guatemala needs to commit itself to renewing the 

CICIG mandate. 

Honduras must support reform of the national police and the 

public prosecutor’s office, especially with regard to investigative capacity and community relations. They are not investigating cases, 

they are not holding people accountable for crime, and people have 

lost confidence in their police and their prosecutors. Also, greater 

transparency in the President’s Special Security Fund, which only 

he manages. All countries need to overhaul their prison system, 

but especially El Salvador, which is the most crowded and where 

there is more criminal activity coming out of the prisons. 

Support for civil society dialogue between government, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations is essential. Corruption can be fought when civil society is active in holding government accountable. 

And, finally—I see you are going to call on me here—let me just 

say—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I was just shifting in my chair here. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. We should look at creating mechanisms 

like the Millennium Challenge Account or the President’s Partnership for Growth that establish specific markers that are constantly 

and continuously being evaluated for progress. I think we must 

have those conditions before we go ahead and support these plans. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Olson, for your testimony, 

and your perceptive ability, sir. [Laughter.] 

Let me start with you. 

Mr. OLSON. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I mean, if you take a look at that chart1—— Mr. OLSON. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. There is no doubt about the 

fact that, obviously, Central America is not as developed as America, conditions here. There are far greater opportunities. There is 

a huge wage disparity. There has been for quite some time. We do 

see one action to change, is the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. The conditions were similar in 2009, 2010, 2011. Other than 

Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals occurring in 2012, did something else change? I mean, was there some dramatic shift in wage 

disparity or increased violence? I have actually seen homicide rates 

decline over that time period in some of those countries. 

So, did something else happen that I am not aware of that would 

lead us to look at a different root cause in terms of the surge? I 

am just talking about the surge. The conditions, the pull factors, 

the push factors that existed for quite some time certainly contributed to the 3,000 to 4,000, to 4,000 in 2009, 2010, 2011. Other than 
613 

Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, was there some other proximate cause to this surge from Central America? 

Mr. OLSON. Yes. Thank you. That is a very important, relevant 

question, and it is a complicated response. A couple things. One, 

in 2012, Honduras had the world’s highest homicide rate, over 90 

per 100,000. 

Chairman JOHNSON. What was it in 2009? 

Mr. OLSON. Much lower. So, I think homicide rate and violence 

rates increasing during that period was a factor. I am not saying 

it is the only factor. 

We saw the economies of Central America declining over that period, as well. I think, if I am remembering right—and I do not have 

the data in front of me—El Salvador’s growth rate in 2012 and 

2013 was around one percent. So, the economies did decline. 

But, I want to make one other point—or two other points on this. 

I do agree that there is some element that explains that is related 

to the point about DACA. But, there are two other points that have 

to be clear. We did not see an equal increase in Mexican children 

coming to the United States or Nicaraguan children, for that matter, all of which you could say generally are in the same region, 

where coyotes, where traffickers are very outspoken. 

The second thing—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mexican children, you returned the rate of, 

what, 97 percent, according to—— 

Mr. OLSON. I am sorry? 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mexican children get returned at the rate of 

95 percent. I do want some other people to answer some questions. 

Mr. OLSON. But, can I just add one other thing—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Very quickly. 

Mr. OLSON. That chart only goes to 2009. If you go back to 2005, 

there would be another enormous spike, not at the 2014 level, but 

at another spike. In other words, this has been an up and down 

cycle and it is not fair to just—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Oh, OK. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. Pick a set of years—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I will look at that. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. And not the whole thing. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I will look at that. 

Mr. Franco, do you have any comments on that? 

Mr. FRANCO. Oh, I do, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot of respect. I 

have known Eric for 30 years. I have a lot of respect for you, but 

anybody who does not look at that chart and draw the conclusion 

anybody would draw, which is the President’s actions have been 

the chief pull factor that changed—look, we have been around this 

region, all of us, for 30 years. There was violent civil war in that 

region in the 1980s. When I was at USAID, San Salvador was the 

murder capital of the world. We did not have this surge. We did 

not have the surge in the 1980s of children showing up. This has 

to do, and is tied, and anybody who is really serious about it understands it to be the case. 

The reason, Eric, there is a difference—Mr. Chairman, there is 

a difference—this is not ‘‘Crossfire.’’ The reason there is no—disparity between Mexicans and Central Americans is because the law 

is different, and that is precisely what we wanted to do—or, I 
614 

should not say ‘‘we.’’ I have advocated for a period of time is, let 

us apply the rules and laws we apply to Mexican children to Central American children and you would have the surge end. It is a 

simple fact. 

Now, that does not mean that there are not problems in the region. That does not mean there is not gang violence. That does not 

mean that we do not have a role, and we do. And, with all due respect to my colleague, no one is advocating doing nothing. As I testified, we have as a country, and you as a Congress, poured and 

continue to pour billions of dollars. The question is, is this the way 

to solve the problem? 

The one thing my colleague did not mention was the border, and 

that is under your control, to enforce the laws of the United States, 

and that will send a very clear message to smugglers and wouldbe illegal immigrants. That is just a simple fact. 

And, if the President’s, frankly, I think, illegal executive actions 

are rescinded, that will also send a very clear message in Central 

America that the laws of the United States are going to be upheld. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me go to Ambassador Noriega. To what 

extent has Central America improved their governments, reduced 

levels of corruption, that we could have some assurance that if we 

spend more money down there, it is going to be put to good use? 

Is there any evidence of that? 

Mr. NORIEGA. Well, these sorts of things—there are cycles. People come in, for example, the new President of Honduras came into 

office a year ago with a crusade against corruption. I was there the 

day of his inauguration. The following day, they were walking a 

guy from the Ministry of Education—he was on the cover of all the 

newspapers—in handcuffs for corruption. So, they start this. He 

started this. In his inaugural address, he said to the criminals, the 

party is over. Now, the rest of the story is the levels of corruption 

continue pretty appreciably. 

I would note that all of the things that Eric, my dear friend, 

mentioned in terms of any recommendations he would specifically 

make, none of them cost any money. And, I note, for example, and 

Vice President Biden has done terrific work on this, he brought the 

leaders together in early March and they made a commitment to 

very specific benchmarks, and this is really important. The 

Hondurans agreed to police service reform by June 2015. They also 

agreed to deploy an additional 6,000 police over the next 3 years. 

El Salvador said they would have a bill criminalizing bulk cash 

smuggling by June 2015. Guatemala said that they would introduce legislation to transition from an inquisitorial to an 

accusatorial judicial system by December 2015. 

These things do not cost money. And, frankly, I commend the 

Vice President for leading this effort in dragging these commitments out of these people and getting it on paper and getting the 

commitment and we will be able to measure against those things. 

But, again, a lot of the things that have to be done to jump-start 

economic growth in the country that will then create economic opportunity, revenue to the State, and allow it—have a more effective 

state to apply the rule of law against all parties without fear of 

favor, to start that rule of law, a commitment to rooting out corruption, does not cost any money. And, they can take advantage, then, 
615 

of the Free Trade Agreement that we extended to them 9 years 

ago. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So I do not lose this line of questioning, you 

said you were pretty instrumental in being involved in Plan Colombia. Can you talk about, briefly, what were the key aspects? Why 

did that work? Has it worked as well as what is advertised? I 

would imagine there are still problems. But, I mean, what would 

be different in what happened with Colombia versus what may or 

may not happen in the other Central American countries? 

Mr. NORIEGA. Well, a measure of how well it has worked is that 

everybody takes credit for it. [Laughter.] 

Everybody calls it bipartisan. But, in point of fact, a couple of 

key ingredients. Congressional engagement—this was legislation 

that was driven, frankly, by House Republicans who—like Ben Gilman from New York—I used to work for him, full disclosure, Dennis Hastert, who went on to become Speaker. These people knew 

these issues very well. They traveled—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, what was different in Colombia? 

Mr. NORIEGA. OK. So—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Or, what is common in Colombia that we 

could count on doing something—— 

Mr. NORIEGA. Let me jump forward. Political will. Few people 

come along in these countries that have the backbone, the vision, 

the tireless commitment of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, who worked 

7 days a week, 24/7, really. I saw. I would visit and his ministers 

looked like they were all going to pass out from exhaustion because 

he ran them ragged. 

He insisted that the State be accountable to the people. 

And, frankly, I do not see that level of political leadership from 

these folks in Central America, and that is what it requires. And, 

again, that does not cost any money—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. That was one leader. 

Mr. NORIEGA. That was one leader and—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. People following him. 

Mr. NORIEGA. It was essential, and the key point is it is not really there now. We can insist on greater accountability. We can insist 

on some of the issues that I mentioned about El Salvador being 

cleaned up by the President. We can use our own law enforcement 

to bring sanctions against individuals and to send a very clear signal that the United States is changing the way we engage in the 

region, and that does not really cost a lot of money. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. 

Senator Carper, you ready. 

Senator CARPER. Again, our thanks to each of you for joining us 

today, for your testimony and your willingness to stick around and 

answer some of our questions. 

I want to follow up on Plan Colombia. I always like to say, find 

out what works, do more of that. The key for any organization, 

country, State, sports team, school, hospital, military unit, the key 

to success has always been leadership. You have got great leadership, amazing things can happen. If you have lousy leadership, 

good luck. 

He said I was Vince Lombardi. He is from Wisconsin. They have 

a football team here and Vince used to coach that. 
616 

Ambassador Noriega, you have spoken about Plan Colombia, why 

it was successful. I want to ask the other members, because I like 

to find out what works, do more of that. So, let me just ask others. 

Mr. Olson, anything you know about Plan Colombia that you think 

we might want to take away as a lesson for this time through? Mr. 

Olson. 

Mr. OLSON. Certainly. I think we were very clear and there was 

an actual plan and metrics along the way that we followed. And, 

sure, there was a strong leader in Colombia, but, political will is 

not a static thing. You can build it. You can strengthen it. You can 

hold people’s feet to the fire. And, I think that that was an important factor in Colombia, as well. We conditioned that aid. We did 

not give blank checks. 

We conditioned it on specific procedures and steps that were 

taken by the Colombian people, the Colombian government, and I 

think we need to take some lessons from that, as well, in Central 

America. We need to be clear about what the metrics are, what we 

expect from people, and hold them to it. I think that is key. And, 

I think, if all the presidents in Central America do not want to go 

along that pathway, then we do reserve the right to pull back, because there is no guarantee. 

But, again, I think that simply to say, the solutions to all this 

is on the border, I, frankly, do not think that that is really looking 

at the underlying causes and the drivers here. And, I would say, 

that has really got to be the focus and we have to put our energy 

in that. 

Senator CARPER. Good. I would say it is some of both. I think it 

is some of both, and I am sure you agree with that. 

Down in Honduras last fall, I met with their President, President 

Hernandez, and he talked with our Ambassador Nealon and me 

about the willingness of our country to extradite folks, bad guys, 

drug kingpins. And, they were not just interested in seeing these 

guys extradited and sent to this country for a couple of months or 

a couple of years. They wanted us to put them away for a long 

time. And, by doing that, frankly, you provide some breathing room 

for—insurance of personal safety for the leaders of these countries, 

their families, and their top aides. 

And, since that time, I think there have been eight drug kingpins 

that have been extradited, and I think we have a couple guys, bad 

guys, who turned themselves in because they felt the heat. I think 

there is another one that we are working on. So, that is the kind 

of thing that we can do to kind of bolster the leadership and give 

them the sense that they are not all in this by themselves. 

Mr. Franco, just a little bit, please, if you would, on Plan Colombia. Why do you think it worked? Are there any lessons that we 

could take away? Use your microphone, please. 

Mr. FRANCO. Happily. As my colleague, I worked on that when 

I was serving as Counsel on the House International Relations 

Committee and then as Assistant Administrator at AID. I actually 

had the good fortune to meet with President Uribe the day before 

he was inaugurated and was there for his inauguration. 

To draw the contrast for a moment, when we met with the administrator at the time, Andrew Natsios, the three of us in a hotel 

room, he said something and I want to underscore what Secretary 
617 

Noriega said, and this is this notion that we are putting something 

together. We were actually helping the Colombians put forward 

what they had envisioned. 

Plan Colombia in many ways is Colombia’s plan that we assisted. 

This is the difference here, and it is an important one, Senator 

Carper. This is not us designing something in Washington, and I 

know there is some consultation, but that we are going to hang a 

billion-dollar here program, and, of course, they will take it. The 

Colombians wanted this. The Colombians were committed to doing 

it and they wanted our assistance along the way. 

I do think having an enlightened, committed leader with integrity is important, and that is Alvaro Uribe, was an enormous vision. By way of the differences that he made, the day he was sworn 

in and we were at the palace, the Palacio Narino, there were— 

when we were in the palace, there were rockets fired at it. That 

was the insecurity that existed in Bogota at the time. 

Senator CARPER. Those were not rockets in celebration of his inauguration, were they? 

Mr. FRANCO. No. We thought they were initially, but they were 

not. They were different types of rockets that were coming. 

So, what worked is that commitment to it, and there was a lot 

of congressional oversight. Sometimes, the Colombians thought it 

was overkill, frankly, by, particularly, members of the Senate at 

the time. But, at the end, I think they recognized that it created 

legitimacy. So, it was an engagement on our part on a plan they 

were committed to. It was their plan. 

Senator CARPER. Good. OK. 

Mr. FRANCO. What I have yet to see is where it is a Central 

American plan coming from them themselves. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. A couple of critical elements, one, leadership, two, a plan, and a plan where there is buy-in, not just our 

buy-in, but, frankly, the buy-in from the three countries. One of the 

things that I find encouraging is that all three countries have 

agreed and signed onto this Alliance for Prosperity. I do not know 

that we—I do not believe we wrote it, and I do not think any one 

of those three countries wrote it. But, I think they worked on it together. They collaborated. And, basically, we—I sure hope we 

played a role. I hope the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) 

played a role. I hope Mexico, I hope Colombia played a role, because we all need to be involved. 

So, let me come on to Mr. Noriega, and then Mr. Kandel, same 

question, and the issue is Plan Colombia. What can we learn from 

it? Maybe what can we not learn from it? Just briefly. 

Mr. NORIEGA. I will just add just one additional thing—— 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Mr. NORIEGA [continuing]. Because you have all identified this 

quite explicitly. The Colombians had a security tax and they literally raised taxes—— 

Senator CARPER. That is a good point. 

Mr. NORIEGA [continuing]. And they had a revenue stream committed to national defense. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. My recollection is what happened in Colombia is the folks who—what is the word for the folks that have 

more money? What do they call them? No, no, no. What is the word 
618 

for the folks that needed to step and do their share, the wealthier 

people? Elites? Elites. Yes, the elites. Thank you. [Laughter.] 

The elites, and I think that is what happened in Colombia, basically. The Colombian elites basically said, if you want us to fight 

crime and provide a better environment here, you have to be a part 

of the revenue package, and they—I do not know if they agreed to 

it, but they became—and, part of what, when you really look at 

Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the elites do not do all 

that much in terms of revenue. They do not do a very good job of 

collecting revenues in that country. 

As our Chairman knows, we have something that GAO comes up 

with about every 2 years called High-Risk List, and tax gap is always on that, because we are not collecting all the taxes that are 

owed. But, they have it big time. They have it on steroids, tax gap 

on steroids. So, that is a big one. 

And, we can look at Colombia. You are right. How did the elites 

help out, and they did. 

Mr. NORIEGA. If I could just add—— 

Senator CARPER. Please. 

Mr. NORIEGA [continuing]. I met with the foreign ministers from 

Central America last week when they were here, and I—— 

Senator CARPER. So did we. How did it go? 

Mr. NORIEGA. Well, the food was pretty good—— [Laughter.] 

No. But, I said quite explicitly to them, you need to have an answer to the question, how much are you putting forward. And, they 

talked—and, quite frankly, I do not think they have given it a lot 

of thought, and so—and, they think of this billion dollars as $333 

million for these folks, 333—they are thinking of it as a slush fund, 

and they will do some cool things with it along the lines of this 

plan—— 

Senator CARPER. Yes. As I understand—— 

Mr. NORIEGA [continuing]. But where is their revenue? They 

have to put up their revenue. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Noriega, as I understand it, there is around 

$500 million that actually is divided among the three countries. 

About 20 percent would go to, I think, to El Salvador, I think 25 

percent to Honduras, and maybe 30 percent to Guatemala. The 

whole billion does not go to those three countries, and I hope there 

are some strings attached to it. 

Mr. Kandel, I am over my time, just, please, quickly, what can 

we learn from Plan Colombia or not learn? 

Mr. KANDEL. I am afraid that is outside my area of expertise, but 

I am happy to—— 

Senator CARPER. Do you want to make something up? [Laughter.] 

Mr. KANDEL. I would be happy to consult with my colleagues to 

see if they have—— 

Senator CARPER. OK. That is fair enough. We will let you do 

that. 

OK. Thanks. I am out of time—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I will give him something—— 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. But not out of questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. That is in his area of expertise. 

I am viewing you as the numbers man here. We have not really 
619 

talked about some of the factors in our immigration law that might 

be related to the pull factor, incentivize some of this. There was an 

amendment to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act that did grant a greater adjudication process, a lengthier process, for immigrant children other than Mexico 

and Canada. You were talking about we returned 95 percent of 

Mexican children. Again, that is kind of a real deterrent from sending somebody here if you get sent back right away. 

Can you speak to the statistics, because you had them in your 

testimony, in terms of the difference between return rates for Mexican children, not a whole lot of Canadians coming in here, but that 

versus Central America, and what that amendment may or may 

not have done in terms of the pull factor? 

Mr. KANDEL. Well, I do not have statistics on the return rates 

for Central American children. They are very difficult to calculate. 

But, we do know that—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. You do statistics on how many we have returned from the last surge, which was primarily—a large chunk of 

that really was from Central America, so—— 

Mr. KANDEL. That is right, but the returns do not correspond to 

the apprehensions, so it is very difficult to sort of come up with a 

rate for—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Do not worry about it. So, just give us 

the numbers, then. 

Mr. KANDEL. What numbers are you requesting? 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, again, just tell us again how many 

people have been given Notice to Appear, how many people have 

appeared, how many people were returned of that latest surge. It 

is not a high percentage. I mean, it is—we had tens of thousands 

come and we have returned 1,400, I think, in your testimony. 

Mr. KANDEL. That is right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Does anybody want to speak to the incentive factor of that lengthened adjudication process? Ambassador. 

Mr. NORIEGA. After day one, they did not look back over their 

shoulder saying, ‘‘Gosh, I have got to report for that hearing.’’ They 

are home free. And, their expectation is that by the time they need 

to appear, there is going to be an amnesty or a legalization. 

During that crisis, I realized that very few people in this town 

really understood immigration law. It is just so many patchworks 

over patches. What they are looking at is the practical impact, and 

the fact was that word got back to Central America that once you 

are in the country, they hand you a little permiso and you are 

home clean and I collect my money and I am—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, in your testimony, you talked about 

the advertising they were doing. It was very effective. Now, we 

have had a counter-advertising program for that. Is that effective? 

Has that been somewhat effective, at least? 

Mr. FRANCO. Frankly, I do not think so, because so long as we 

have an executive decree, or an executive action that is taken by 

the President, people will twist those around, so long as that is the 

message. Misinterpreted, misrepresented, granted. But, just as— 

the fact of the matter is that unless you are returned quickly at 

the border, you will overstay. So long as the President’s words can 

be twisted—remember, the profile of the person that makes this 
620 

trek and the social, economic, and educational background of the 

people involved, these are not Ph.D. people or lawyers that are 

doing this. So, so long as that remains the message, we will continue to see these additional pressures for illegal immigration—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. The message also is when they see a friend 

go and not come back—— 

Mr. FRANCO. Oh, absolutely—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. They figure they got—— 

Mr. FRANCO. Absolutely. And, I take a little bit of exception with 

this idea of the bestia. I noticed there was coverage by Spanish television today. I watch the Spanish news programs every night and 

I see the train and I see it completely going. I really think that I 

am sure the Mexican authorities would like to do, and cooperate 

with us, but they are quite limited since large amounts of Mexico 

are under gang control and gang protection. 

So long as this remains big business—and we did not really get 

into it, it is a $6 billion business, smuggling involved, just like drug 

trafficking—and, so long as the executive action is perceived as 

even gravy or an additional incentive, our problems will continue 

to mount. 

Chairman JOHNSON. There has been a decline in the number of 

children coming here this year. Do you contribute that to greater 

enforcement on the Mexican, the Southern border, or the border between Mexico and Central America? 

Mr. OLSON. I mean, I was just there, and I defer, or differ from 

my colleague here. It is very clear that the Mexicans have taken 

efforts to remove people off the trains. Now, that does not mean 

they are still not coming in other routes, but the trains are much 

less a problem than they were in the past, where people were falling off, being extorted, were even killed. 

Now, it is true—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, let me just say here—— 

Mr. OLSON. But—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. So that is border security on 

the Mexican—— 

Mr. OLSON. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, border security worked from that standpoint. 

Mr. OLSON. Well, as I said in my testimony, Mexico is doing 

more to detain and deport Central Americans. So, without a doubt, 

that has had an impact on the number of people coming to the 

United States. I was in their detention facility on the South. It was 

at maximum capacity the day we were there. And, they are deporting people regularly, every day. 

Now, as, I think it was you, just suggested, there are a lot of children that are being trafficked, and this is a serious issue. Not all 

of them, but some of them are being trafficked into sex trade, 

forced labor, and other things. And, I do want to say that they 

should have an opportunity to request protection of the Mexican 

authorities, of the U.S. authorities, rather than be simply turned 

around to a situation where they are under the control of crime. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I think we—— 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. I think that is an issue, too. 
621 

Chairman JOHNSON. I think we do agree with that. There actually was a program—I am trying to get something. I am an accountant, so I like numbers. At yesterday’s hearing, we talked 

about the drug trade being about $150 billion worth in the Americas. Mr. Franco, you just talked about the human trafficking being 

about $6 billion. I asked that question yesterday. Nobody had a figure. I would like to know where you got that. 

Mr. FRANCO. Sure. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Two-part question. We also did create a program, Central American Miners Refugee Parole Program. There 

has only been, like, 107 cases. It has just been a very small number 

of people. Is it just people do not know about it? I mean, from my 

standpoint, that is part of it. We do need to have a refugee asylum 

program, but we should really institute that in Central America, 

not on our shores. Mr. Franco. 

Mr. FRANCO. Yes, absolutely, Central America. I will differ now 

with my colleague, as well. Obviously, when there is any issue, 

whether it is this issue of human trafficking, or political asylum 

cases, or so forth, we need to have procedures to address those 

cases. Usually, in-country is where those things are best handled. 

There is no question these things exist. 

What I do believe is that chart says it all, though, from my perspective. I do not think it is fair for Congress to draw the conclusion—or accurate, I should say—for Congress to draw the conclusion that this uptick has to do with human or sex trafficking from 

Central America. I just do not believe that to be the case. They are 

trying to bootstrap others that are really favoring the recent decisions that, I think, have attracted—the President’s recent actions 

that have caused this uptick—they are trying to bootstrap, or create a humanitarian or sex trafficking crisis, manufactured or fabricated or exaggerated or amplified for the purpose of justifying 

what we all know to be the case. 

There is a sense that the law in the United States has changed 

and, therefore, it is easier to come to the United States and ultimately get a work permit and Social Security number. Now, that 

is not what the President said. I understand that. But, that is what 

is being advertised and that is the driver and that is the pull factor, not the other isolated cases. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I am over time, but Ambassador—— 

Mr. NORIEGA. Very briefly. I know that we will all agree on this, 

which is where those human rights violations, political asylum, and 

legitimate claims exist, they have to be adjudicated. We do have 

this program that was initiated to allow for family members here, 

who are lawfully here, to petition for their minor children, and several hundred, and, I guess, by February, 95 percent of the Salvadorans had applied for that. 

But, the solution to this problem is not to fix—make things better for people several thousand at a time from Central America 

when there are millions in the region who are suffering under conditions that the government can fix if it takes these issues seriously. 

They do need some support from us. We can offer that, in effective programs where they are accountable and all that. And, we do 

have an obligation to do that. But, that is where the problem has 
622 

to be done, and the governments have a long way to go before they 

have vindicated their responsibilities. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to dwell for a moment on what works and just throw out 

an idea that might be helpful for us. Senator Booker was telling 

me yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that he had done some checking and 

about 40 percent of the people that are here illegally out of the 11 

or 12 million that are here came here—they came here legally. 

They came here on visas, then they were here on a visa overstay 

and they just never went back. 

The folks at Johnson and Johnson came up with a clever idea, 

and the idea is called text4baby, text4baby, and the way it works 

is this. For a mom, and maybe a dad, with a young child, newborn, 

and they have appointments that they are supposed to make for 

check-ups, supposed to get immunizations, all kinds of scheduled 

things to do in order to take care of their baby, everybody almost 

in this country has a cell phone and what we do now, and Johnson 

and Johnson started this program, is a text4baby, like, ‘‘One week 

from today, your baby is due for X.’’ ‘‘Three days from today, your 

baby is due for X.’’ ‘‘Tomorrow, your baby is due for X.’’ And, it actually works. We have done it in Delaware to great effect. 

So, we came up with the idea and said, well, why do we not 

maybe do something like not text4baby, but text4visaoverstay, like, 

‘‘Your visa expires in 2 weeks.’’ A week later, ‘‘Your visa expires in 

one week.’’ Just the idea that somebody is looking, somebody is noticing, somebody is watching. And, it works for text4baby. We think 

it might work for, potentially, visa overstays, and even if it cuts 

them by a third, that is certainly progress. 

One of the things I have loved about my time in public life is job 

creation and job preservation. I have gotten to be Treasurer, Congressman, Governor, Senator from my State. Before that, I was in 

the Navy for a long time. But, I have always loved job creation and 

job preservation. I never created a single job in those roles. But, 

what I did do was help create a nurturing environment for job creation. That is what I did. 

In Delaware, the 8 years I was Governor, I was fortunate to be 

Governor during the same years Bill Clinton was President, a robust economy. Even I looked like I knew what I was doing most 

days because of the economy being so strong. We had 8 years of 

balanced budgets, 7 years of reduced taxes. We cut down some of 

our debt, got AAA credit ratings for the first time in State history. 

So, it was a pretty good run and created, I am told, more jobs in 

8 years than in any 8-year period in the history of our State. I did 

not create one of those jobs, but we certainly worked hard to create 

the nurturing environment. 

What does that include? Workforce. What does that include? 

Sound budget policies, actually, investing in the right kind of stuff. 

What does it include? It includes transportation investments and 

infrastructure investments, common sense regulation, access to 

capital, energy costs, affordable health care, all that stuff. 

And, I think if these three countries are going to be successful, 

they are going to have to create a nurturing environment for job 

creation and job preservation, and that is a role for government. 
623 

They have very weak government systems, as you know, and we 

can help bolster them and show them how to make them better, 

maybe more effective. 

One of the big problems they have in these three countries, as 

you know, cost of energy. Their electricity is generated largely by 

petroleum in most of these places. They have access, as it turns 

out, to very low cost natural gas from Mexico, and the idea is to 

bring it down, pipeline, bring it down and use that to create electricity for maybe half the cost. That is a nice element to incentivize 

job creation. 

We have not really talked about the Inter-American Development 

Bank, and I want those of you who know something about that to 

share with us what role the Inter-American Development Bank 

might play as one of our partners in this. Again, I say, this is not 

all on us, the United States, and these countries are not good 

enough or strong enough to do it all themselves. But, if they get 

some help, including from the Inter-American Development Bank, 

they might be able to just pull this off. 

Can somebody who knows about the IDB just talk about it, 

please. Ambassador Noriega. 

Mr. NORIEGA. I am sure Adolfo knows more than I do, but I—— 

Senator CARPER. Is that true? 

Mr. FRANCO. I do not know more than he does—— 

Mr. NORIEGA. About this, at least, but I pushed the button first, 

so—— [Laughter.] 

I know this very discretely about the IDB, is they wrote that 

plan. They wrote this plan for Central America. Their hands are 

all over it, and I have talked—— 

Senator CARPER. Well, that is actually kind of encouraging. 

Mr. NORIEGA. It is very encouraging because it is an under-used, 

under-utilized resource, extraordinarily bright people there. And, so 

they put this plan—now, this is what makes my heart break, is 

that 9 years ago, we ratified CAFTA. This plan should have been 

adopted after CAFTA, because what this is all about is spreading 

economic opportunity to people from all walks of life through the 

rule of law, through logistical improvements, to breaking down barriers within the region. They are talking now about a customs unit 

within Central America. 

But, the IDB can play an important role in some intelligent lending. It comes along with the most important value added being 

technical assistance, and they sort of accompany the execution of 

these projects. I would hope that the IDB would stay front and center as they execute this plan in Central America. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Do you see a role for—and then we will 

come to Mr. Franco—do you see a role, eventually, for the InterAmerican Development Bank with respect to this pipeline coming 

in from Mexico, or is that something that there is just plenty of 

reason in terms of private sector—— 

Mr. NORIEGA. Right. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. They have this extra natural gas, 

or do they not need the IDB? 

Mr. NORIEGA. Right. My guess is they have—the market will 

work there, and, I think, let the market work. The IDB could very 

easily, and maybe they are involved in financing the project. But, 
624 

in point of fact, you can also talk about an isthmian energy market, 

so you are backing energy as it is required up and down from Colombia and into Mexico, backing it up and down Central America 

as the demand requires. It helps build a bigger market, lowers 

prices. But, again, I think that the IDB could conceivably play a 

role, technical assistance and maybe financing. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. That is one outfit, we probably 

need to spend some time with them. I need to know more what 

their capabilities are. I have always heard they have really smart 

people, and that is good. Yes. 

Mr. Franco, please. 

Mr. FRANCO. Well, I worked very closely with the Inter-American 

Development Bank over many years, and the current President 

used to be the Ambassador to the United States from Colombia and 

he worked very closely with us on Plan Colombia. 

Senator CARPER. What is his name? 

Mr. FRANCO. Luis Moreno. And, so, I have a lot of respect for it. 

I see it a little bit differently than Secretary Noriega. Yes, I 

think there is IDB all over it, and that is partly a good thing and, 

then, partly a bad thing, from my perspective. I reiterate what I 

said about the fact that there has to be the buy-in and the design 

and their plan, meaning from Central Americans. I do not think we 

really disagree on that. 

But, when they are involved, there is a seriousness and benchmarks and conditions and so forth, although IDB loans can be forgiven, and there can be bad loans and the rest of it. So, those investments should not be lulled into the false sense of security that 

it is a commercial bank doing this, which would, of course, in terms 

of these activities. But, their involvement is good and the focus will 

be one on things that are actually quite achievable. 

But, I reiterate what I said that there is a stark difference between that and what we had seen in the case of Colombia, and that 

is the involvement in the development and the commitment by the 

Central Americans themselves to the actual plan. And, I do agree 

with an earlier comment that was an important one that Secretary 

Noriega made, is that he has already met with the foreign ministers and they are already seeing this, I want to say, as a slush 

fund or so forth, where the money is being divvied up, and it is, 

‘‘Where do we sign,’’ so to speak, and that is my concern, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. 

Mr. Olson, I am out of time, but just a quick comment on this, 

please. 

Mr. OLSON. Yes. I believe that the IDB is deeply involved. One 

of the projects they are involved in is what is known as the Pacific 

Corridor that is supposed to expedite commercial traffic from Guatemala to Panama City. Right now, private enterprise says that the 

average speed of a truck is 15 kilometers an hour between that corridor because of all the problems along the way, bad infrastructure, 

but also inefficiencies at the border where people have to wait for 

days to get across. 

So, these are areas in which the IDB is trying to modernize, help 

facilitate trade, and encourage the Central Americans to take the 

steps they need to have a more modern economy. And, as you 

pointed out, without a good economy and growth and jobs, poverty 
625 

grows and it impacts the violence and ingovernability of those 

countries. 

So, I think the role of the IDB is really important, and they are 

involved in other things, as well, but I give that as one example. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

One of the good ideas I stole from our Ranking Member here was 

giving the witnesses a chance to make that final point. We do have 

another panel, so I would ask you to keep it short. I will use this 

if you get too long. 

But, Mr. Kandel, if you could start. 

Mr. KANDEL. Well, getting back to your question, the TVPRA 

does treat Mexican children differently than children from Central 

America. So, if you look at the process, the rates are very high for 

Mexico in terms of return. For Central American kids, they get 

promptly screened, promptly referred or transferred to ORR custody, and promptly reunited with their families. The average time 

that they spend is 35 days at ORR custody. So, it is once they have 

to wait for an immigration hearing, that is when the time extends, 

and that largely explains the amount of delay that it takes for 

them to finally get removed. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Just for clarification, under the, I want to say, 

2007 law signed by President Bush, does it differentiate the way 

we treat kids from these Central American countries as opposed to 

kids from Mexico in terms of what we do with them and the turnaround times? It does, does it not? 

Mr. KANDEL. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That was the point. Ambassador Noriega. 

Mr. NORIEGA. My colleague, Eric Olson, referred to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and it is a very good model— 

it was initiated under President Bush and we were both part of it, 

as the administration—because it holds governments accountable 

to achieving certain requirements in order for them to participate. 

They made in September a disbursement of $287 million to El Salvador and everybody that I know of that knows anything of El Salvador is scratching their heads as how in the world did they rationalize that decision. 

So, MCC, a very important program because of the model, where 

you have to meet certain benchmarks and requirements. I mean, 

we have lost that, and El Salvador just—— 

Senator CARPER. What do you mean, we have lost that? I do 

not—— 

Mr. NORIEGA. They do not have a rigorous application of those 

requirements. That was a political decision, that we wanted to 

make nice with the new government in San Salvador, and so we 

gave them $270 million. March 1, they held an election for Congress. It went more than 2 weeks before they could even give the 

first results. So, you are supposed to have the rule of law and democracy. They cannot even hold an election, and the suspicion everybody has is that the government was figuring out how many 

people they wanted in Congress. 
626 

So, I mentioned before the senior folks involved in money laundering, billions of dollars for the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias 

de Colombia (FARC), the FMLN making ‘‘get out the vote’’ packs 

with the Mara Salvatrucha gang. I mean, there is something seriously wrong there, and I think if you want to start somewhere, look 

at what is going on in El Salvador and that is where we ought to 

see if we can have some real accountability. 

Chairman JOHNSON. In other words, your point, MCC lowered its 

standard. 

Mr. NORIEGA. Absolutely. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Franco. 

Mr. FRANCO. I was not really going to talk about, Mr. Chairman, 

about MCC, but since we were both involved in setting it up, I had 

to tell you, I completely concur and was disappointed. When we 

were in the Bush Administration, of course, the President, President Bush, was very centrally involved. It was really his idea to do 

this. And, there were a lot of push factors at the State Department 

and AID to say, well, you have got to help this country along, whatever—and, I am telling you, the criteria was so rigid. We have had 

one of the winners, it is the country in the Pacific with Hurricane 

Vanducho, that we said, what are we doing giving assistance to 

this? It met the criteria. 

Well, our instincts were to go to the hot spot, so to speak, but 

those were rigidly applied, and I think that is an example of something that they could all learn from, and I would hope that that 

seriousness would return to the program. 

Just quickly on the issues today, not to reiterate what I have 

said, but I think it is an important point, Senator Carper, particularly when you look at that, is—and there was a big debate here 

in the Congress and the public arena of why all these children were 

showing up and Mexican children were not showing up. The law 

is different. 

In a simple layman’s term here, and I hope this is being watched 

in Delaware and in Wisconsin, Mexican children are returned and 

Central American children are not. There is gang violence in Mexico. There are a lot of problems in Mexico. You had normalistos 

slaughtered in Mexico. A lot of people have traditionally immigrated illegally from Mexico. But, children were not coming, and 

the law was changed in 2007. If the same law were applied to Central American children, I do not believe you would have 110,000 

children show up in July or in an uptick immediately. 

Second, Senator Carper, I completely agree. The overstay issue 

is not—we do not focus enough on the overstay issue, because the 

border is symbolic. You can see it. You can actually see people. But, 

overstay—and it is not limited to Central America. The Brazilian 

overstay is quite high, the rates, and other countries are very high. 

The overstay issue is why we need to have the resources for the 

Immigration Service to modernize and to do the things you were 

talking about with the baby cell phone ideas, to modernize, to monitor, because what, frankly, has happened is they just do not know, 

and people just coming to the country, and we just do not know 

where they are. 

So, I think those types of resources and that type of enforcement. 

Again, it might not be the sexy thing to do or the type of thing 
627 

1The prepared statement of Secretary Bersin appears in the Appendix on page 683. 

when you see pictures of people coming over and so forth, but they 

are the things within the control of our government, and that is 

where the resources should be applied. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Franco. Mr. Olson. 

Mr. OLSON. I think the take-away here should be that this is a 

very complicated issue that is driven by both pull and push factors. 

I think it is clear that the United States broken immigration system is an issue that needs to be dealt with. But, my message to 

you, more than anything else, is to not lose sight of the importance 

of U.S. involvement in Central America to deal with these underlying issues. People are dying. For us to walk away from this carries with it a great deal of risk for both the United States, Central 

America, and Mexico, and I think we can work with the plans we 

have before us if we are careful to condition them, require people 

to comply, and stay focused. I think, for my estimation, that is the 

root of the problem and the root of the issue we need to focus on. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, thank you all for your thoughtful testimony and your thoughtful answers to our questions, and if we 

can call up the next panel. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks much. 

[Pause.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. Welcome, everybody. Is everybody all settled, all comfortable? 

Our first witness will be Secretary Alan D. Bersin. Mr. Bersin 

serves as the Assistant Secretary and Chief Diplomatic Officer for 

the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Policy. Mr. 

Bersin also serves as Vice President of INTERPOL for the Advance 

Region and is a member of the INTERPOL Executive Committee. 

From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Bersin served as Commissioner of U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection. In 2009, he served as Assistant 

Secretary and Special Representative for Border Affairs at DHS. 

He has also served as Chairman of the San Diego County Regional 

Airport Authority and as California’s Secretary of Education. Secretary Bersin. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ALAN D. BERSIN,1 ACTING 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY AND CHIEF DIPLOMATIC OFFICER, 

OFFICE OF POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. BERSIN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the 

invitation to address the issues regarding Central America, the factors of push and pull that bring us to this moment. Secretary Johnson appreciates this Committee’s interest in this important issue 

and I look forward to responding to your questions and to answering, as well, the questions of the Ranking Member. Good afternoon, 

Senator Carper. 

We have reached a turning point in Central America. The internal leadership in the region has shown a willingness and commitment to partner with the United States. Does this mean that they 

are where they need to be or their countries are where they need 

to be in terms of turning around the cycles that have led to the 
628 

push out of their countries? No. But, we can assure you, I think, 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, that if we take no action at all, 

that we should expect the situation to continue along the same vein 

that it has been moving. 

The wave of unaccompanied children crossing from Central 

America, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this summer, presented 

not only a security crisis, as you know, but a humanitarian one. 

But, it did get us to focus on Central America. It did lead this Nation to ask, what is to be done and what needs to be done in Central America and elsewhere to deal with the issue. I look forward 

to engaging in a dialogue with you with respect to that matter. 

The root causes for migration from Central America to the 

United States are not in dispute in terms of the push factors. I look 

forward to engaging with the Chairman and the Ranking Member 

with regard to those factors, but also with regard to the so-called 

pull factors into the United States. 

In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, we are 

dealing with a broken immigration system that has a whole variety 

of consequences and will continue to have them as long as we do 

not attend to this national challenge. 

Central America’s economic growth has lagged well behind that 

of the rest of Latin America, with economic productivity growing 

slowly or remaining flat over the last decade and under-employment hovering between 30 to 40 percent in the Northern Triangle 

countries. Thirty to 40 percent unemployment—we should not look 

very much beyond that, together with the violence that is attendant to the societies down there and the fact that there is a family 

unification issue that none of us in our own individual circumstances would deny. And, as I said, if we do not take action, 

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, we should not expect a different result. 

Demographic trends exacerbate every challenge we face. Sixtythree percent of the 43 million citizens of Central America are 

under the age of 30, with the highest growth rates in Honduras 

and Guatemala, where jobs are not being created fast enough to 

absorb the burgeoning labor pool. 

To address these issues, our best guide is to look back a generation to where Mexico was. In the previous panel, I understand the 

Chairman and the Ranking Member focused on Colombia, and I 

will be pleased to respond to your questions in that respect. But, 

I think the closer analogy in terms of the scale of the problem we 

face, in terms of the causes of the problem we face, I think Mexico 

is a better model for the actions that we might contemplate taking 

with regard to Central America. 

Over the last 5 years, the United States and Mexico have revolutionized their security and trade relationship, achieving unprecedented levels of cooperation. Mexico, over the last generation, has 

become the second largest economy in Latin America and the 13th 

largest economy in the world. The OECD in Paris predicts that 

within one generation, by 2042, Mexico will have a larger economy 

than Germany. Trade between our country and Mexico now 

amounts to $1.3 billion daily and more than $460 billion yearly. 
629 

1The prepared statement of Secretary Palmieri appears in the Appendix on page 689. 

Let me pause there, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, and I 

look forward to responding to your questions. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. We appreciate that. 

Our next witness is Francisco Palmieri. He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Caribbean and Central America in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Prior to this assignment, he 

served as Deputy Executive Secretary in the Executive Secretariat 

and as the Director of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs 

Office of Policy, Planning, and Coordination. He has served in the 

Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, and as a Senior Desk 

Officer for Venezuela. Secretary Palmieri. 

TESTIMONY OF FRANCISCO PALMIERI,1 DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY FOR CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, 

BUREAU OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. PALMIERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Carper, other Members of the Committee. This is an excellent opportunity to testify on the U.S. strategy for engagement in Central 

America. 

Last summer’s increase in migration of unaccompanied children 

provided a strong reminder that the security and prosperity of Central America are inextricably linked with our own. We also saw 

how a combination of U.S. leadership and rising political will in the 

region can successfully tackle shared challenges. It remains imperative that the United States support the leaders of El Salvador, 

Guatemala, and Honduras to address the region’s security challenges. The stakes are high, and our joint efforts demand more 

than business as usual. 

Last summer, in partnership with Mexico and the Central American governments, we achieved several important successes. The 

United States’ public messaging campaigns about the dangers of 

the journeys for the children and families, assisted by host countries’ efforts, effectively countered false rumors spread by alien 

smugglers about non-existent immigration benefits in the United 

States. 

The Mexican government has taken significant steps to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations and to effectively shut down the use of the la bestia train route. In 2014, 

Mexico apprehended 127,332 migrants, including 10,923 unaccompanied children. 

Senator CARPER. What time frame? 

Mr. PALMIERI. In 2014. Over the past 2 years, the U.S. Government took a hard look at our own approach in Central America. Although security is paramount and will remain so, we realized we 

needed to broaden our vision for how we achieve it. We developed 

an inter-agency strategy that balanced three inter-related and 

interdependent objectives. These objectives are prosperity, governance, and security. 

Without significant progress on all of these fronts, Central America will continue to face extreme violence and widespread poverty. 
630 

These conditions will compel tens of thousands of Central Americans to flee their homes each year. Conversely, a secure, democratic, and prosperous Central America can provide an environment in which its citizens can thrive at home instead of migrating 

elsewhere for safety and opportunity. The President requested $1 billion for fiscal year 2016 to support 

the U.S. strategy for engagement in Central America. Our request 

maintains and expands our current focus on security, including the 

investments we have made through the Central America Regional 

Security Initiative, and will support new investments for prosperity 

and governance consistent with the strategy. 

As Vice President Biden recently said, the cost of investing in 

Central America, where young people can thrive in their own communities, pales in comparison to the costs of another generation 

lost to violence, poverty, desperation, and immigration. Six million 

young people will seek to enter the labor force in the next decade. 

Without job opportunities, these youth may end up participating in 

the illicit economy or coming to the United States. 

Security is at the heart of our agenda, but it cannot be achieved 

without strengthening our efforts in the areas of governance and 

economic prosperity. Economic growth and good governance are security issues. 

As I said previously, we believe the essential condition for success is present, political will in the region. The Presidents of El 

Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have a plan. They are already 

making progress, and they have publicly committed themselves to 

near-term time lines for continued action. 

Northern Triangle leaders are implementing their own Alliance 

for Prosperity Plan. We want to work with the U.S. Congress to 

help Central America and strengthen U.S. national security. The 

U.S. strategy aligns with and supports the goals and objectives of 

the Alliance for Prosperity. If we join Central American governments who move forward in this way, we will help set Central 

America on a new trajectory. I believe doing so will help secure 

America. 

I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Secretary. 

Our next witness is Lieutenant General Kenneth Tovo. General 

Tovo serves as the Military Deputy Commander of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Florida. Southern Command conducts 

military operations and promotes security cooperation throughout 

the 16 million square mile area of Latin America and the Caribbean. Lieutenant General Ken Tovo was commissioned from the 

U.S. Military Academy into the infantry in 1983. After serving his 

initial tour in the 82d Airborne Division, he transferred to Special 

Forces. General Tovo. 
631 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Tovo appears in the Appendix on page 694. 

TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL KENNETH E. TOVO,1

USA, MILITARY DEPUTY COMMANDER, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

General TOVO. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. General Kelly regrets that he cannot 

be here with you. He is currently meeting with political leaders 

and defense officials in Central America to discuss many of the 

same issues that we will discuss today. 

I would like to echo my colleagues from DHS and State Department. A secure, prosperous, and well governed Central America is 

in our national security interests. The United States and Central 

America are bound by more than geographic proximity. We are 

bound by shared culture, values, and religions. We are bound by 

more than $30 billion in trade between our nations. And, we are 

bound by shared security concerns, like transnational organized 

crime and illicit trafficking. 

In the United States, we feel the direct impact of drug trafficking 

in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, and in our families. As a 

result of our demand for those drugs, we contribute to many of 

Central America’s challenges, including weak governance, corruption, and criminal violence. 

Last year, as we have discussed, challenges like violence and 

poverty drove almost half-a-million migrants from Central America 

and Mexico, including over 50,000 unaccompanied children and 

families, to seek a better life here. 

Unfortunately, children and families are not the only things moving along the smuggling routes that lead into our country. Criminal 

networks move hundreds of tons of drugs, hundreds of thousands 

of people, and countless weapons into and out of the United States, 

Mexico, Central America, and beyond. In return, billions of dollars 

in illicit proceeds pour back into criminal coffers, and some of that 

money winds up in the hands of corrupt officials or in the hands 

of terrorist groups like the FARC and Lebanese Hezbollah. Illicit 

trafficking and threat finance are real threats to our Nation’s security and the region’s stability. 

As General Kelly mentioned during his recent testimony, it takes 

the collaboration of all our interagency partners, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), DHS, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), 

and other law enforcement and security agencies, to protect the 

Southern approaches to the Nation. Our partners in the region also 

play a huge role in this mission. We are working closely with security and defense forces in Central America to help them disrupt the 

flow of illicit trafficking, dismantle criminal networks, and secure 

their borders. 

Our primary focus right now is the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, countries that have been dealing 

with citizens’ security crises in recent years, and we are seeing 

some remarkable progress in that region. 

But, we should not lose sight of the fact that challenges like illicit trafficking are regional issues. They do not just affect Central 

America. They affect every single nation in the hemisphere. 
632 

Many countries are understandably concerned about the balloon 

effect that may come with success in the Northern Triangle, which 

is why defense officials from the United States, Mexico, Central 

America, Colombia, and Chile are meeting in Honduras this week 

to discuss ways to increase our collaboration. This is one promising 

sign of many. 

At SOUTHCOM, we believe that there is a window of opportunity in Central America. Our partners are investing in their own 

security and economic prosperity. Organizations like the InterAmerican Development Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation are lending their support and expertise. And, most importantly, we are seeing real political will in the region. This is perhaps the most promising sign of all. 

We only have to look to Colombia to see the payoffs that come 

from a committed partner and a sustained U.S. engagement. With 

our support, I am optimistic that we can see the same sort of turnaround in Central America. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, General. 

I would like to just start, again, referring to that chart and graph 

over there, again, trying to get to the root cause. Do any of you 

three gentlemen, can you think of something—again, we have had 

the income disparity, we have had crime and violence in Central 

America for many years. We had 3,300, then 4,400, then about 

4,000 in 2009, 2010, 2011, then we had Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals and we got 10,000, 20,000, and then 52,000. To me, 

that looks like cause and effect. Is there another explanation that 

is plausible? Mr. Bersin. 

Mr. BERSIN. So, if I might, Mr. Chairman, the one thing that everyone agrees with in the context of discussing immigration is that 

our system is broken and that it has been broken. And, regardless 

of where you end up in an argument, everyone starts off with the 

premise that the system is broken. 

In fact, even when people argue that the executive actions are 

the cause of the increase in Central American migration, it seems 

to me that there is a little bit something disingenuous about it in 

this respect. This would be tantamount to a statement in a securities prospectus having to do with a business being willfully misrepresented by a broker who then fraudulently induces an investor 

to invest in the business, and then we end up blaming the business 

for having put the statement in the prospectus. 

Whatever people believe about the—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. My question was pretty simple. Is there another cause that you can point to—— 

Mr. BERSIN. Yes—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. That caused that surge or spike 

other than the proximate cause we see here with the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals? 

Mr. BERSIN. Yes. The smugglers—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. You have got a broken system, but you are 

breaking it further. 

Mr. BERSIN. The smugglers—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I do not know where you were going with 

your—— 
633 

Mr. BERSIN. The distortions by the smugglers and human traffickers of the State of facts is actually what caused the problem. 

I do not think there is actually any dispute about that. 

Then, I think you can argue about what is the cause and what 

is the effect of the particular executive action, Mr. Chairman. But, 

I think it jumps to an unwarranted conclusion to say that the 

cause of the rise was something other than the distortion of a set 

of facts by the smugglers and traffickers who profited enormously 

from this phenomenon. 

Chairman JOHNSON. What action caused the distortion of the 

facts? 

Mr. BERSIN. Well—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I mean, something started, and we had Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals and then the smugglers, the 

coyotes distorted the facts, which built upon the problem. But, the 

proximate cause was Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. 

Mr. BERSIN. With all due respect—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I mean, again, you said that was not in dispute—— 

Mr. BERSIN. With all due respect, it is in dispute, because that 

would be the same as blaming that businessman for having put a 

statement in a prospectus that is actually—you could argue whether or not it is a good business proposition, but the distortion of that 

proposition is actually the cause of the fraud, not the statement in 

the prospectus. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. PALMIERI. If I could add, Mr. Chairman, looking at your 

chart, there was also, as we know, a massive out-migration from 

the Western highlands of Guatemala, a very rural area that does 

depend very much on rural agricultural products. And, one of the 

things that has struck the entire Central American region is a coffee rust that decimated coffee harvests. We do include in the President’s request programmatic support to help stabilize rural farm 

incomes and to help these coffee growers get their feet back on the 

ground, as well. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I have got the information by country, and 

we went from about 1,300 in El Salvador to 16,000; 1,500 in Guatemala to 17,000; Honduras went from 900 to 18,000. So, this was 

across the board. It was not just simply at Guatemala. 

General, do you have any comments on it, or—— 

General TOVO. I would just add, Mr. Chairman, that I think that 

we all can agree that there are both push factors and pull factors. 

On the pull side, the misinterpretation and, if you will, the strategic communications plan used by the coyotes to spread the misunderstanding of the policy was one aspect. I think we could also 

probably look at the economic downturn in the region around this 

same time, as well as the increasing violence that was also probably a factor. I think it is a combination of a variety of things. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, we also had an economic downturn 

here. 

You have all testified, boy, if we have a secure, democratic, prosperous Central America, we have got no problems, which I would 

agree with. How do you create a secure, democratic, prosperous 

Central America when you have, from our previous panel, pretty 

much rampant corruption? We did meet with U.S. Ambassadors to 
634 

those countries yesterday, and there is corruption in the police departments. You can continue to add policemen to the force, but if 

that is a totally corrupt system—it was interesting to me talking 

about the gangs. I would have thought the gangs were related to 

drug trafficking, but it is really transit through Central America. 

The gangs are all about extortion rackets. 

So, how do you throw another billion dollars into that region and 

expect any kind of different result? 

Mr. PALMIERI. Sir, we think that the level of political will by the 

three leaders is an opportunity for us to join them in efforts to institute some very real reforms. 

For example, in Honduras, the government signed an unprecedented agreement with Transparency International to open an office in their country to ensure that their budget process is more 

transparent and to have an outside civil society organization holding its government officials more accountable. 

In addition, they have fired over 2,000 corrupt police in the last 

year and are committed publicly now to the Vice President on 

March 2 and 3 that they will begin hiring new police, vetting them, 

and putting them through a very rigorous training program that 

we hope will make them more responsive—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you think it would be—— 

Mr. PALMIERI [continuing]. To their local communities. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you think it would be prudent to make 

sure they meet those metrics and we actually see a measurable reduction in corruption before we dramatically increase the amount 

of aid we give them? 

Mr. PALMIERI. I think it has to go hand in hand, sir. They have 

to be willing to take some real steps. We have to be sure that they 

are going to follow through on those activities. But, it is very important that U.S. leadership be part of this effort, and U.S. assistance is a concrete way for us to hold them and the people who are 

actually below the government leadership level to follow through 

on the commitments their leaders are making by leveraging U.S. 

assistance to insist on those reforms. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. General Tovo, I was kidding you before. I said, 

I understand General Kelly could not be with us today, but I am 

told he sent his next best person, and that was you. That is a high 

compliment. If he were here, what do you think he would be saying 

to us? It could be just the same thing that you are saying, but you 

have heard him talk a lot about these issues. He is literally working on them today. What do you think he would be saying to us 

that relates to what Senator Johnson and I are asking? 

General TOVO. Sir, first and foremost, I will tell you that he will 

tell you that we have a window of opportunity that he believes— 

he has met with all of the three Presidents we are talking about 

in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and he believes that we 

have got a fairly unique opportunity where we have got leaders 

who are committed to providing their nations and their citizens the 

level of security and economic development that they deserve. 

He would also add that Central America matters, given the proximity to our Nation and, of course, the networks that pass through 

Central America and enter our Nation fairly freely, and that we 
635 

ought to be concerned and we ought to do everything we can to improve the environment in Central America that has allowed those 

networks to flourish and to help our partners be better able to control their land, sea, and air domain and prevent the flow of trafficking. 

Senator CARPER. The three of you had a chance to hear our first 

panel, and my guess is you heard from each of them something you 

agreed with and probably something you did not agree with. But, 

in terms of what you heard from the first panel, for each of you, 

what are some things you heard that you said, boy, that is right, 

they got it, and maybe in some other cases, no, I do not think so, 

each of you. 

Alan, would you go first. 

Mr. BERSIN. I thought the general conclusion that we had no 

choice but that there were significant problems and challenges facing us in this investment, I think the Ranking Member just raised 

the issue of corruption, and no question that corruption is an endemic problem, but also, it is a problem around the globe. And, the 

issue is by not taking action, the Edmund Burke term, all that is 

necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for enough good men 

and women to do nothing. We do not really have a choice just to 

say we are not going to take an action. I think the previous panel 

generally thought that we needed to be careful and prudent, but 

that we needed to take this action at this time, that there is a window of opportunity. 

I obviously disagreed with Mr. Franco’s depiction of the executive 

actions as being the prime cause of the pull into the country, as 

opposed to the traffickers’ distortion of the facts, however you agree 

or disagree with them. 

I also thought that Colombia is a guide, but as I indicated in my 

opening remarks, I think Mexico is a better guide. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. I would say with respect to Mexico, one of the—I think it has dawned on Mexico in the last year 

or so that they have a dog in this fight in terms of allowing our 

folks to come illegally into their country because a lot of them will 

want to settle in Mexico, and that is not always in Mexico’s best 

interest. 

And this train, it used to be people would get free transportation 

pretty much all the way to the American border and I am convinced that that just does not happen anymore. 

Mr. BERSIN. The growth in their economy has made them a receiving country, not the sending country. The outflow, as the Pew 

Foundation indicates, of Mexicans from the United States is actually greater than the inflow, legal and illegal, now. It is a function 

of economic development. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Mr. Palmieri, what did you hear from the first panel that you 

said, oh, they got it. That is right. And, maybe an example of two 

where not so much. 

Mr. PALMIERI. Yes. I would agree with Mr. Bersin that the role 

of Mexico in the way it was characterized in the first panel has 

been really a key element in helping us lower the levels of unaccompanied children reaching our border since last summer. Mexico 
636 

has really stepped up its game, and that would be one of the key 

areas of agreement I would have. 

Although I am not a member of the MCC organization, I would 

take great disagreement with the characterization that El Salvador 

somehow was given a more lax standard for its more recent compact. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Drill down on that a little bit. 

Mr. PALMIERI. The scorecard indicators that MCC uses are published. They are public. The countries have to meet them. If they 

do not meet those indicators, they do not qualify for a compact. In 

the case of El Salvador, my understanding is that they did meet 

all of those indicators, and not as it was portrayed in the previous 

panel, there was no relaxing of that standard. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. General Tovo. 

General TOVO. Sir, we have hit on it a bit already, but—— 

Senator CARPER. That is all right. Repetition is good. 

General TOVO. OK. Great. 

Senator CARPER. Do not worry about it. 

General TOVO. Last fall, we had hosted a conference in 

SOUTHCOM with all of the Central American leaders, Mexican 

representation and the Colombians, and it was designed—— 

Senator CARPER. At what level, presidents or—— 

General TOVO. We are talking Ministers of Defense. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

General TOVO. Ministers of Defense and their chiefs of defense—— 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

General TOVO [continuing]. So, SECDEF and chairman of the 

Joint Staff equivalent. We began the conference primarily with the 

Colombian Minister of Defense, but a bit from the Mexicans, as 

well, describing the actions that they took under Plan Colombia, 

and, similarly, what the Mexicans have undertaken to meet very 

similar challenges, with the idea that we would—once again, not 

apples to apples, comparison in the environments, but that there 

are lessons that can be drawn from both. 

And, really, you heard a little bit of it in the earlier panel, but 

the fact that much of the resourcing requirement, certainly about 

95 percent of the treasure, but all the blood and sweat came from 

the nations themselves, as well as the mobilization of the elites and 

the business leaders and all the other things that particularly Colombia undertook to really have the transformation that they have 

experienced in the last 14 or 15 years, and then had an opportunity 

to dialog with the various Central American leaders on how they 

could apply some of those same things. 

So, I do believe that the Mexican experience and the Colombian 

experience both provide opportunities to guide all of our collective 

effort going forward for our Central American effort. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

Can you all talk just for a minute about our relationship with 

Mexico. How do you assess their efforts to curtail Central American 

migration through their country to our borders? They have this, 

like, multi-tier approach on the border. But, would you, Alan, just 

lead us off. 
637 

Mr. BERSIN. Again, we should recognize, Senator Carper, that 

the Mexicans are doing this because they perceive it to be in their 

interest for their reasons, and we are, in part, the beneficiaries of 

that determination. So, they have introduced not just the enforcement action. This is part of an immigration system that they are 

starting to create. They have provided for all Central Americans 

have a right to get a border crossing card, in effect—— 

Senator CARPER. Into Mexico. 

Mr. BERSIN. Into Mexico, into the four contiguous border States, 

and they are permitted to stay there for a period of time—— 

Senator CARPER. What, a month or so? 

Mr. BERSIN. It is a month—I am not certain, Senator—— 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. BERSIN [continuing]. Whether it is a month or more than 

that. 

Senator CARPER. I think it is a month or so. OK. 

Mr. BERSIN. But, in any event, the point is that there is a legal 

permission to enter into Mexico, and what they have done is said, 

like very much as our border crossing card situation in the Southwest of the United States with Mexico operates. People can cross 

into California, for example, and move 25 miles north, 40 or 50 

miles in New Mexico, and the same in Arizona, but you cannot go 

beyond that. Mexico has then put an enforcement structure, a layered security system in that is actually checking people from going 

further north. And, we have been the beneficiary of that legal system, together with an enforcement capacity. 

Senator CARPER. OK. I know my time has expired. Do you all 

have anything you would like to add, General? OK. Thanks. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I have got a few more questions. 

General Tovo, you talked about Hezbollah. We had, yesterday in 

our hearing, we really did talk about the transnational criminal 

element, the whole big problem, which I really look at as sort of 

the root cause of all this, is the drug trafficking, human trafficking. 

Can you expound a little bit more in terms of what you know about 

the nexus between drug traffickers and terrorist organizations. 

General TOVO. Mr. Chairman, certainly in a classified setting, we 

can give you a lot more detail. But, suffice it to say from open 

source, I think we know that in at least several occasions over the 

past decade and a half, terrorists have attempted to use our borders, our open borders, to do us harm. I think you may recall 

around the turn of the century, we had some attacks that were 

coming out of Canada, the Canadian Northern border. And, of 

course, back in 2011, we had Iranian Quds Force reported in the 

open source to be working with Mexican drug traffickers to try and 

commit an assassination plot right here in the Capitol of the Saudi 

Ambassador. So, two instances. 

On a broader scale, however, we know that some of these organizations do receive financial benefit from the drug trade. A topic of 

much discussion amongst the intel community about how much cooperation and convergence, as we call it, there really is. There is 

dispute about that. But, I think it is fair to say that there is a good 

amount of profit that Lebanese Hezbollah makes off of illicit trafficking writ large on at least the order of tens of millions, and 
638 

much of it is funneled through the money laundering system and 

fuels their operations back in the Middle East. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I appreciate your answer. We will have a secure briefing on this. We need to delve into that further. 

You did mention balloon effect. Can you describe what you are 

talking about there. 

General TOVO. Sure enough. Essentially, it is the effect we have 

when we are able to disrupt the drug flow in a particular region, 

and being an adaptive and an agile business operation, the—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. It just flows elsewhere. 

General TOVO [continuing]. The traffickers find a new place. We 

have limited assets applied against this problem and, consequently, 

we cannot cover everywhere. And, so, in previous years, the Eastern Caribbean was the main vector, kind of right up into Florida, 

if you will. We were able to stymie that route and now it is primarily the isthmus through Central America. About a year or two 

ago, it was about 90/10, 90 percent through Central America and 

isthmus, 10 percent Eastern Caribbean. We have really concentrated on the last couple years through an operation we call Operation Martillo on the coastal waters around the Central American isthmus. It is now about 80/20. So, we do see the narcos adjust 

their flow based on where we place our effort. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Right. We certainly saw the effect there in 

McAllen, Texas. 

Mr. Bersin, you talked about the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. We have passed, and I have talked about this in 

my opening statements the last two hearings, we have passed, I do 

not know how many bills, six, seven, eight over the last two decades, starting with 1986, when we had, basically, amnesty for a little under four million illegal immigrants in this country. And, then, 

I just listed the number of bills we passed to solve this problem. 

I have also listed the number of illegal immigrants coming into this 

country. 

So, the purpose of my efforts here is to really lay out the reality 

and start passing laws that actually work. Tell me what in the 

Senate comprehensive immigration bill would have actually reduced incentives for illegal immigration. What would have worked 

about that bill? 

Mr. BERSIN. Mr. Chairman, I think there were border security 

considerations that were important in that bill—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, specifically, what was in that bill that 

was really good about border security, the elements we have got to 

be looking at to work—— 

Mr. BERSIN. Additional resources for protecting the border. 

Chairman JOHNSON. How would those have been employed? 

Mr. BERSIN. They have been employed to great effect over the 

last generation in a bipartisan way—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. No, I mean, in the Senate bill. Do you know 

specifically how those border resources would have been employed? 

I knew we threw a bunch of, a couple billion—a number of billions, 

tens of billions of dollars at it at the very last moment. Was there 

a really well thought out plan there? 

Mr. BERSIN. The combination of elements that would have included additional personnel, better technology. I mean, we actually 
639 

know and have spent $18 billion a year for a long time on border 

security and it has had its important effect in terms of reducing the 

flow of illegal migration into the country and creating a deterrent. 

And, we actually know and we have spent the money that has 

achieved that result both in Republican and Democratic administrations. 

In addition to that, Senator, there was a—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me just say, the number of illegal immigrants continues to rise in this country. After all those efforts, the 

Secure Fence Act of 2006, I mean, all those efforts, it just continues 

to rise. 

Mr. BERSIN. I respectfully disagree with you, sir. The number of 

illegal migrants coming into the country is actually at a 70-year 

low, and I was there, present at the creation when we were arresting a million people a year in San Diego alone. So, with all due respect, the number of migrants entering illegally in the country 

today is at an all-time low in my lifetime, professional—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I was referring to the number of people in 

this country illegally continues to increase. It has flattened out for 

a little, we have had kind of a sluggish economy, no doubt about 

that. 

Mr. BERSIN. The comprehensive immigration reform actually created a system by which people could actually earn their way to 

legal status and come out of the shadows, and that would have a 

great effect on the communities of this country, I think, by—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. You do not believe, like Deferred Action on 

Childhood Arrivals, that would create an incentive for illegal immigration prior to securing the border? 

Mr. BERSIN. No, sir, not in the way that the distortions that took 

over a summer ago had an effect. I think that, in fact, when there 

is a system that is operating and that permits people to move 

through specified stages, that, in fact, this would not lead to the 

kind of surge that we saw in the summer of 2014. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, I guess that is a basic disagreement, 

because I look at Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals as a huge 

incentive for what caused that. And, again, you denied that. You 

are saying it is the distortion of that. 

My concern would have been to offer a path to citizenship prior 

to securing our border would have been an incentive for illegal immigration, not having an adequate guest worker program, and twohundred-sixty-two billion in benefits for non-U.S. citizens, all those 

things are incentives for illegal immigration, and from my standpoint, what immigration reform has to be is eliminating those incentives, be honest, taking a look at things that we do, like treating 

children from Central America differently than we treat from Mexico, trying to look at those things honestly, lay the reality out there 

and say, let us try and eliminate or drastically reduce those incentives for illegal immigration. I do not believe the Senate bill did 

that. 

I just have to say that because I hear time and time again that 

if we just would have passed that bill, everything would have been 

coming up roses. No. We passed a number of bills. We have not 

fixed the problem. So, the purpose of this Committee is laying out 

the reality, accepting some of these truths—just accepting them, 
640 

and we are not. So, I do not want to delude ourselves in this hearing. 

Mr. BERSIN. Mr. Chairman, let me just respond to one point you 

made that I think may make the larger point. The difference that 

was made in the last panel between the difference of how we treat 

Mexican children and how we treat Central American children, 

that accounts for a difference. It does. But, let us actually look— 

and I was honored to be involved with Attorney General Reno in 

the original Reno v. Flores settlement that actually created a system for dealing with Mexican children. 

Dealing with Central American children who are further—they 

are not contiguous to our borders—created a problem. Republicans 

and Democrats together passed the Wilberforce Act in 2007–2008. 

It provided a certain judicial process. But, what has not happened, 

with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, is we never resourced the Immigration Court to be able to actually enforce the law the way it 

was intended to be enforced by the legislation. If, in fact, we had 

an Immigration Court that could timely deal with these cases, you 

would create a deterrent, sir, in very much the same way as we 

have seen in the Mexican system. 

Last year, the administration attempted to ask the Congress for 

three-plus billion dollars to deal with the unaccompanied minor 

surge. A significant portion of that was intended to remedy that 

problem and provide an infrastructure of law that would permit us 

to actually deport people if they could not establish asylum, if they 

could not establish other conditions that the Act provided for. 

So, that is part of the broken immigration system, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Let us just stay on immigration reform for a 

moment. I tend to be a glass half full guy. Some people say we will 

never get immigration reform. I hope that is wrong. But, when you 

look back at the legislation about a year and a half ago, I can point 

out any number of things that I was not enthusiastic about, but I 

still believe that part of the solution for the issues that are before 

us is comprehensive immigration reform done right. 

Let me just ask, starting with you, General Tovo, just think 

about immigration reform and give us a little advice, because we 

will have another chance to pursue this maybe even this Congress. 

I hope so. Give us some advice on maybe looking back at what we 

tried to do a year and a half ago, maybe some parts of that you 

thought made sense, maybe some that you did not. Just give us 

some advice on what to do more of or less of this time through. 

General TOVO. Senator, I would like to cede any time on that one 

to the right here. It is purely a policy question that I am not 

equipped to handle. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Palmieri. 

Mr. PALMIERI. Again, I would defer to the Department of Homeland Security on the issue. 

Senator CARPER. Oh, you do not want him to answer this, do 

you? 

Mr. PALMIERI. But, I will say one thing that I think a comprehensive immigration reform could have assisted, is in making 

clear what the ground rules are and taking away the ability of 

alien smugglers to distort what is happening in the United States 
641 

and to transmit messages and exploit vulnerable people who think 

that there may be some potential benefit for them if they can get 

to our border. 

In addition, I think a comprehensive immigration reform undertaken now, given some of the demographic patterns we see in Mexico and even in Central America over the next 10 to 15 and 20 

years, with declining birth rates, might be able to get us to a situation where we would not see increasing levels of illegal immigration in the United States. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Bersin. 

Mr. BERSIN. Senator Carper, I would like to defer to the—— 

[Laughter.] 

Genius to my right—— 

Senator CARPER. If you keep this up, we will have to bring back 

the first panel. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BERSIN. Senator, I will leave it to others to talk about specific legislation, but I will say that the elements that were in that 

bill, not perfect, to be sure, as the Chairman pointed out, actually 

had the four key pillars—— 

Senator CARPER. Go ahead and reiterate those. Just restate 

those. 

Mr. BERSIN. The need for border security. The need to provide for 

people to come out of the shadows, however you arrange that. The 

need to deter through workplace enforcement, the hiring of illegal 

labor in the United States. And, fourth, we need to actually address the business needs for high-skilled labor. Those are the four 

big pillars, and I think the legislation got those right, although reasonable people can differ about the extent to which changes could 

be made and improvements offered. That never happened in terms 

of any conference between the Houses, the Senate and House. 

Senator CARPER. We talked in some of our of our earlier hearings 

about force multipliers. We have not done that today in any great 

extent, but I think a lot of the force multipliers is the kind of technologies that can be deployed between the ports of entry to make 

our Border Patrol folks more effective, but also the force multipliers that we can deploy at the ports of entry to enable us to better pick out those who are bringing in contraband drugs, whatever. 

I also think of immigration reform as a force multiplier, done right, 

force multiplier in its own right. 

We talked earlier a little bit and with this panel, but especially 

with the last panel, about Plan Colombia. But, in Plan Colombia, 

we provided a variety of assistance to support the Colombian government in their efforts to combat the drug cartels, and in Mexico, 

we supported the Merida Initiative to help restore the rule of law 

in that country and provide more economic opportunity. 

Can we discuss, what lessons can be applied from those programs to the assistance that we are discussing today for the Northern Triangle? Some on Plan Colombia, if you will, but especially on 

the Merida Initiative. General Tovo, would you like to take that 

first, please. 

General TOVO. Sure. I will focus on Plan Colombia, because Mexico is in the NORTHCOM area and they are much more able to answer the Merida Initiative questions, as I think Mr. Palmieri can, 

as well. 
642 

I think—we talked a little bit about this already, but the keys 

of Plan Colombia were really the commitment and the national 

leadership to the plan. It was a Colombian—— 

Senator CARPER. National leadership in Colombia? 

General TOVO. In Colombia. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

General TOVO. Certainly, it had good support here in the United 

States, but it was a Colombian plan developed with support from 

the United States. It involved mobilization of the right sectors of 

society to support the plan. It involved their sacrifice and their skin 

in the game, if you will, and their money, their taxes. And, so, I 

think those are all things that have been emphasized to our partners in Central America and they have already started doing some 

of those things. 

Honduras has a security tax that largely funds their military. 

They are working to see how they can mobilize their business elites 

in the power sectors of Honduran society. 

So, I think they are on the right track, and I think taking those 

kind of lessons and then continuing to reinforce them with our 

partners in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are very important. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks for that. Mr. Palmieri. 

Mr. PALMIERI. Yes. I also agree with the concept of Plan Colombia as it could be applied in Central America. Alvaro Uribe did talk 

about making sure he first secured the environment, that he had 

mayors able to go back into communities. But, once they were 

there, he believed, too, that you needed to fill the vacuum with 

some economic opportunity and then to hold leaders, local leaders 

and government officials, accountable for the delivery of services. 

That is part of what we are trying to do with the request. It includes funds for good governance activities to help these governments hold their and improve their local officials’ ability to deliver 

social services. 

And, I agree with Chairman Johnson that we need a detailed 

plan and we need to see the countries taking actions. That has to 

be the leading indicator, that they themselves are doing things 

first. And, while we do see some evidence that they are taking action, I think it is an important requirement, as it was in Plan Colombia, that there be a detailed plan. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. Mr. Bersin. 

Mr. BERSIN. Just two points, Senator Carper. One is that, and 

without gain-saying anything that General Tovo, Mr. Palmieri have 

said, or the previous panel, about the importance of this being 

owned by the country, no question about that, but let us not underestimate the extent to which the United States was a partner with 

both Colombia and is a partner with Mexico, not dictating, but providing the technical assistance, providing funding, and let us not 

forget that General Alejo, who was President Uribe’s chief architect 

in the law enforcement area, started out as an officer in a transnational criminal investigative unit that was a vetted unit run by 

the—organized by the United States. So, this is a partnership and 

we need to help them jump-start it while holding them accountable 

and having metrics that would test the business proposition of the 

investment. 
643 

And, then, the second point I would make is this is—I wish it 

were not the case, but this is invariably a longer-term process. This 

is not 2 years. It is not 3 years. Plan Colombia was 10 or more 

years. We are just seeing the end of that investment actually possibly reaping the benefits. The same thing with Mexico. But, look 

at the progress we have seen in Mexico since Merida in 2006. It 

takes a while to do it, but there are milestones along the way to 

which we have to hold our partners accountable, but also ourselves. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I think we have gotten some good input here 

today, and we have certainly gotten it from this panel. We got it 

from the first panel, as well, and we thank you all very, very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. I agree with that, and let us give the 

panel the last opportunity. We will start with the General. Any 

final comments? 

General TOVO. Mr. Chairman, yes. Thanks. I appreciate it. I 

would just like to close with we believe the networks that bring 

people drugs, money, guns, north and south, and then south to 

north, are a national security threat to this country. I think we 

should be concerned about it. And, we should have the view that 

the defense does not start on the goal line. We should not start the 

defense of our Nation against those threats on the goal line. And, 

helping establish our neighbors’ ability to maintain stability and 

security within Central America helps extend that defensive zone. 

And then, last, I think what we have all talked about is the importance not only of the plan that the Central Americans have developed, but the supporting plan from the USG as a holistic effort 

that really works on more than security, because security is kind 

of first principle, but that it does need to have a focus on good governance, eliminating, as best as possible, corruption, and provide 

an opportunity, because if the people in Central America have opportunity and they can live in a secure environment, they will stay 

there. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, General, and by the way, thank 

you for your service to our country. Mr. Palmieri. 

Mr. PALMIERI. Yes, sir. I just wanted to follow up quickly on one 

item. I do think the Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala 

is a critical anti-corruption effort that we should see the Guatemalan government take, even ahead of any assistance arriving 

there. 

Second, sir, I do think—— 

Senator CARPER. I am sorry. Could you just elaborate on that 

just a little bit. 

Mr. PALMIERI. Yes. The Commission Against Impunity was established in Guatemala in the last decade. It is focused on improving the prosecutorial capabilities of the Attorney General’s office. It 

has tackled some high-profile impunity cases, some of them which 

dated from the internal war in Guatemala, others that have dealt 

with more recent phenomena, like corruption in the prisons. It is 

a critical force multiplier in terms of an external entity helping 

professionalize the Attorney General’s ability in Guatemala to attack corruption issues. 

Second, I just want to thank the Committee for this hearing on 

this topic. Vice President Biden has made very clear to all of us 
644 

working on this issue, and he has worked very hard on this issue, 

that we have to do this in partnership with the U.S. Congress, that 

to request this level of money to support our national security interest in Central America means that we have to constantly be 

willing to come up and have a dialogue, to keep you informed, and 

to produce the detailed plans that show that this money will be 

used effectively, and that what we do in Central America can 

produce a different outcome this next time. 

Thank you, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Mr. Bersin. 

Mr. BERSIN. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman. I give 

and have given my friends in several of the governments in Central 

America a copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, The Bully Pulpit, 

the story of Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and I do 

that because, in fact, it reminded me of something I had forgotten, 

which is that we had a very serious corruption problem in this 

country at the turn of the 20th Century and that it was Teddy Roosevelt, the Progressive Era, that actually turned that system 

around, with the help of the journalists, which is what Kearns 

Goodwin writes about. 

But, we need to engage with Central America, and I give it to 

them to demonstrate both that they are not in a situation they cannot reverse, and I would submit that we have to be at their side 

serving both as a model for Central America, but also as an example that you actually can renew your society and that we do it all 

the time when we have problems and we need to support their effort to do that in their society. 

Thank you, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you again. Thank you all for 

your thoughtful testimony, your thoughtful answers to our questions. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until April 9 

at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:24 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(645) 

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(771) 

SECURING THE BORDER: DEFINING THE CURRENT POPULATION LIVING IN THE SHADOWS AND ADDRESSING FUTURE FLOWS 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ernst, Carper, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. 

I want to wish everybody good morning and welcome. Thank you 

for your time and effort and your willingness to come in here and 

testify and lay out the reality of the situation. 

This is our fourth hearing in a series, and we will continue this, 

because the problem of trying to secure our border, trying to fix a 

broken immigration system, is pretty complex and the reality is actually quite difficult to describe. So, what we are trying to do is 

kind of a step by step approach here, and each one of these hearings is trying to focus on one of the issues, one component of the 

problem, trying to lay out that reality. 

Today’s hearing really is about defining the current population of 

people in this country illegally. I think we all zero in on that 11 

to 12 million person figure. But, what are they doing? Where did 

they come from? Where are they living now? Who is working? How 

much are they making? 

Rather than me continue to talk about it, I have seen the testimony and there is going to be a lot of information that will be revealed here today, so I guess I would rather just kind of leave it 

up to the witnesses and turn it over to our Ranking Member and 

then hop into the testimony. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks to all of you for joining us today and for your preparation 

and for your willingness to respond to some of our questions. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for calling the hearing. Too 

often, border security discussions begin and end with how to create 

more and better barriers at our Southern Border. We have been 
772 

down there recently. I have been down all along the borders over 

several years and have a lot of ideas we talked about, and the 

Chairman has a number of ideas. We agree on a bunch of them 

about how to better secure our borders, and there are a lot of 

things we can do, are doing, and I hope we will do more. 

But, I think, as we look deeper, we need to ask maybe three key 

questions, and one of those, as the Chairman has said, is basically 

who are the undocumented individuals that are living here? Give 

us some idea who they are. How and why does this undocumented 

population, why do these folks come to our country? And, also, 

what is a pragmatic way forward for these individuals and for our 

country? 

Finding the answers to these questions will help us better secure 

our borders and also finally address the immigration issues that 

Congress has been debating for a number of years now. I hope that 

we will actually address it. We tried to in the Senate, as you know, 

a year and a half ago. 

But, we are told there are roughly 11 to 12 million folks that are 

here living in the United States without permission. We probably 

do not know as much about them as we would like, but some 

things are pretty clear. 

Not all, but most of these individuals are productive, law abiding 

members of our communities. Indeed, some of them are children or 

young adults who literally do not remember any other home. Some 

of them do not even know they were born in another country. Many 

others are parents of U.S. citizens. 

Second, for all of the focus on unauthorized entry along our 

Southern Border, experts believe that close to half of the undocumented population entered our country legally and then overstayed 

their visa or violated its terms. I think maybe the number is about 

40 percent who were legal when they came here. They just continued to stay until they were not. 

That brings us to my third point, and that is jobs. Jobs are why 

the lion’s share, not all, but the lion’s share of undocumented immigrants came to the United States in the first place, and it is why 

a lot of them choose to stay. Some of them, frankly, have a hard 

time getting out of here once they get here, so that is a challenge. 

Some of them, as the Chairman and I have talked about in our 

other hearings this week, some of them like to come here and work 

for a while and be able to go back and forth. We are interested in 

exploring how that might be part of an immigration reform bill 

that we take up. 

But, we need to take a hard look at our labor needs and provide 

adequate ways for immigrants to work here legally when we do 

need their help, and also to make sure that when people come here 

to get advanced degrees, that instead of going back home and competing against us, we find a way for them to stay here and be part 

of making our Nation more economically robust. 

But, I think all three of these factors point in one direction, and 

that is comprehensive immigration reform, not amnesty, not just 

you are here so we are going to make you citizens. I am not interested in doing that, and I do not think many of us are. 

Congress needs to begin a new and real debate on a comprehensive and thoughtful immigration policy for the 21st Century. First, 
773 

we need a policy that is fair, one that will significantly reduce our 

Nation’s budget deficit and one that will strengthen our economic 

recovery that is now underway. And, that policy must also continue 

to slow the flow of undocumented immigrants to our borders with 

Mexico and allow those living in the shadows to step forward, undergo background checks, demonstrate proficiency in English, remain gainfully employed, stay out of trouble, pay a fine, and contribute to our Nation in lawful ways. 

Last Congress, two-thirds of the Senate came together and overwhelmingly passed such a measure. In fact, one of the co-authors 

was a member of our Committee, Senator McCain. It was not perfect, but it took significant steps to try to fix our badly broken immigration system while reducing our deficit by nearly $1 trillion 

over the next 20 years and increasing our gross domestic product 

(GDP) over the next 20 years by some 5 percent. Had it been enacted, it would also have improved our security, in part by making 

it easier for border security officials to focus on the people or things 

that pose a true risk, such as the transnational threats that we 

heard about earlier this week. 

I know that some of my colleagues would rather focus on one or 

two pieces of the immigration and border safety puzzle, for example, how many Border Patrol Agents we should hire, how much 

more fencing we should build along our borders. Those are legitimate questions. But, the issues and challenges that we have been 

discussing in these hearings are more complex than that and they 

certainly cannot be solved just by providing more security. They 

can be solved, in part, by providing much smarter security, a lot 

of force multipliers at the ports of entry (POE) and also between 

the ports of entry that we have talked about in previous days. 

But, I continue to believe our best hope for progress is trying to 

tackle several of these areas in a comprehensive way. Let us try 

to do all the above. Again, the bill the Senate passed two years ago 

was not perfect, but it was a good start and something that members of both parties were able to come together around, and I hope 

we can recapture that spirit and get to work on a bill soon—not 

this week, but soon. 

I also think we must look beyond our border and try to support 

efforts to address the root causes that are pushing some people to 

our country, and particularly dangerous and sometimes desperate 

circumstances that some Central Americans face, as we heard 

again yesterday. 

With that, I look forward to the hearing, Mr. Chairman. Thanks 

for all these hearings this week. I think it has been enormously 

helpful for us and, hopefully, it will enable us to provide leadership 

for our country. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, thank you, Senator Carper. I think 

you can tell by the emphasis we are putting on border security and 

our immigration system, that this is a top priority of this Committee and I want to work with you and start working toward some 

solutions to provide greater security and solve some of these problems. 
774 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 813. 

2The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 906. 

3The prepared statement of Mr. Passel appears in the Appendix on page 816. 

I guess as is some of my tradition, I have a written opening 

statement for the record1 that I would like to introduce, without 

objection. I have my fingers crossed here. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK, thanks. [Laughter.] 

And, I have a chart.2 It is just displayed over there. Every Senator has one by their desk, but it is just very quickly laying out 

currently where we think the population of the undocumented population is, and you can see California has the largest population, 

then Texas, then Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, 

400,000. Then it drops off pretty quickly. We have a complete list, 

as well. It is just, again, trying to lay out where they are, and that 

is really what I am looking forward to in the testimony. 

It is the tradition of this Committee that we swear witnesses in, 

so if you would stand up and raise your right hand. 

Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you, God? 

Mr. PASSEL. I do. 

Mr. GARZA. I do. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. I do. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I do. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness is Jeffrey Passel. Mr. Passel is the Senior Demographer at the Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project 

in Washington, DC. Mr. Passel has developed measures of immigration trends, especially estimates of the unauthorized immigrant 

population and components of change. The previous positions include Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute from 

1989 to 2005 and various positions at the Census Bureau from 

1974 to 1989. Mr. Passel. 

TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY S. PASSEL, PH.D.,3 SENIOR DEMOGRAPHER, HISPANIC TRENDS PROJECT, PEW RESEARCH CENTER 

Mr. PASSEL. Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Carper, 

thank you for the invitation to testify. I must say, this is the first 

time I have had to swear to the truth of my estimates, but I will 

take that—— [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. We will cut you a little slack. [Laughter.] 

Mr. PASSEL. Since the Great Recession began in 2007, there have 

been some marked shifts in the unauthorized immigrant population. This group peaked at over 12 million in 2007, having grown 

steadily by about half-a-million per year from 3.5 million in 1990. 

After 2007, the trend changed sharply as the numbers dropped by 

almost one million over the next 2 years, to 11.3 million in 2009. 

Since then, the unauthorized immigrant population has remained 

essentially unchanged. The number coming each year has plummeted, but arrivals and departures are roughly in balance. 
775 

The six States with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations saw their numbers grow after 1990, but their share of the 

total dropped from 80 percent to 60 percent in 2007. In the rest of 

the country, the unauthorized immigrant population grew much 

faster and increased roughly seven-fold, from about 700,000 to 4.7 

million in 2007. 

The stable numbers since 2009 mask some important regional 

variations. The unauthorized immigrant population rose in seven 

States, largely on the East Coast but including Nebraska and 

Idaho, and the numbers fell in 14 States spread around the country: six in the West, three in the South, three in the Midwest, and 

two in the Northeast. Many of these trends and shifts can be 

traced to the very large drop of unauthorized immigrants from 

Mexico, who numbered almost seven million in 2007, but 5.9 million in 2012. 

Although unauthorized immigrants represent about 3.5 percent 

of the Nation’s population, the 8.1 million unauthorized immigrant 

workers account for about 5 percent of the labor force. And, although the total number has dropped a little bit since 2007 overall, 

the number in the workforce has really not changed very much. 

My written statement addresses labor force participation and 

State variation, but in the time I have left, I would like to focus 

on the industries where the immigrants work. 

Because of lower levels of education and their status, unauthorized immigrants tend to hold low-skilled jobs and are over-represented in certain sectors of the economy. Three industry sectors 

combined have over half of all unauthorized immigrant workers: 

business services and related industries, leisure and hospitality, 

and construction. These three have less than a third of U.S.-born 

workers. Manufacturing and agriculture also have concentrations 

of unauthorized immigrants compared with natives. 

If we look at this a different way, looking at the share of the 

workers in a particular industry who are unauthorized, it becomes 

clear that they are found in particular subsets of each major industry. They represent about a quarter of workers in landscaping and 

private household employment and about a fifth of workers in apparel manufacturing and crop production. These shares are much 

larger than the 5 percent they are overall in the workforce. 

If we look at occupations, especially in construction and agriculture, we can see even higher concentrations. For example, unauthorized immigrants are about a third of drywall installers and 

farm laborers and about a quarter of roofers and painters. 

But, even with these high concentrations, it is worth pointing out 

that whenever we look at a job category, be it a broad one or a very 

detailed one, there are more U.S.-born workers than unauthorized 

immigrant workers. 

The industry concentrations of unauthorized immigrants vary 

considerably across the States, depending, in part, on where the 

immigrants have come from and the nature of each State’s economy. In 15 of the 44 States where we have reliable data, the leisure and hospitality industry has the largest number of unauthorized immigrant workers. These States are largely in the West and 

Northeast, but not surprisingly include Florida and D.C. Construc-
776 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Garza appears in the Appendix on page 848. 

tion leads in 11 States, mostly in the South, and manufacturing 

leads in another 11 States, mostly in the Midwest. 

If we go back and look at the share of the industry’s workers who 

are unauthorized immigrants, we get a slightly different picture. In 

almost three-quarters of the States, agriculture is the industry that 

has the largest share of its workers who are unauthorized. But, the 

agricultural sector is generally pretty small, so it rarely has the 

largest numbers of unauthorized immigrants workers in a State. 

Construction also tends to have a high share of its workers who 

are unauthorized. It is first in 11 States and second or third in 24. 

Here again, the States where the construction workforce has the 

largest concentration of unauthorized immigrants tends to be in 

the South. 

The construction industry, and to some extent production, have 

lost jobs overall since 2007. So, the number and share of unauthorized immigrant workers in these industries has dropped. As a result, the number of States where construction is one of the most 

concentrated industries is considerably smaller than in 2007. 

Again, thank you for the invitation and thank you for your attention. There is a good deal more material in my written statement, 

and we are releasing a report today at the Pew Research Center 

that goes into some detail on the occupations and industries of unauthorized immigrant workers. 

I will be glad to try to address any questions you might have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Passel. And, you are correct. You have provided us a wealth of information in your testimony, which we truly appreciated. 

Mr. PASSEL. There will be a quiz later, though. [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. I have a meeting. [Laughter.] 

Our next witness is Daniel Garza. He currently serves as Executive Director of the LIBRE Initiative. In 2006, Mr. Garza became 

the President of Televisa’s HISPANIC PODER Group and shortly 

thereafter joined Univision to host and co-produce ‘‘Agenda Washington’’ a weekly Spanish language news talk show covering the 

issues impacting the U.S. Hispanic community. Prior to that, he 

served as Deputy Director of External and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Interior 

and Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White 

House. Mr. Garza. 

TESTIMONY OF DANIEL GARZA,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE 

LIBRE INITIATIVE 

Mr. GARZA. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

today. 

As our G.I.s were winning the battles against the fascist powers 

of Europe, laborers like my grandparents and uncles came in 

droves to harvest the bounty of our fields and orchards, laborers 

with diligent hands to plant seeds and saplings, to cultivate the 

ground and irrigate the land, to make sure trees were pruned, that 

blossoms were kept warm from the cold, and sprouts were thinned, 
777 

and vegetables and fruits were fumigated, picked, sorted, packed, 

stacked, and transported to market and to our soldiers abroad. 

During the 1970s and 1980s, not much had changed. This was 

still the way of life for millions like our family, moving along the 

highways through the States of California, the State where I was 

born, Nebraska, and Washington, following the crop seasons. It 

was a way of life that took its toll. And, while my parents were 

legal residents, it was much harder for those living in the shadows. 

I recall at 16 a fellow worker walked over to my father and said 

he had decided he would be moving back to Mexico after 5 years 

of hard living in the United States. Overworked, poorly paid, 

unappreciated, and just tired, he said he had had enough. My dad 

placed his hand on his shoulder, held it there for some time, and 

wished him well. He was gone by the end of the peach harvest season, never to be seen again. Some would call it self-deportation. 

At 17, I had dropped out of high school myself, having to work 

the orchards and fields in order to help the family make ends meet. 

But, by the fall of 1987, Dad had determined it was time for us to 

leave the fields for good, and after 20 years of farm work, he had 

no retirement, no health plan, no vacation or sick leave days accrued. Quietly and without fanfare, we got in our car after filling 

the last bin of apples and drove home. 

My parents invested their entire savings in a small business, a 

motel in the city of Toppenish, Washington. And after spending 

borrowed money and renovating the place, Dad’s investment started paying off. I worked to get my General Educational Development (GED) and went off to college. 

Seventeen years after having dropped out of high school, I was 

appointed by President George W. Bush as his Associate Director 

for the Office of Public Liaison at the White House to serve as his 

representative to the U.S. Latino community. Honestly, growing 

up, I never would have thought it possible. 

And, that is what strikes me most about this exceptional country. 

It is that my parents, with their fourth grade education and all, my 

uncles, my cousins, and my friends from school who all started out 

as farm laborers left the fields long ago. They moved on to become 

professionals, middle class Americans living in urban and metro 

areas. Their children have become lawyers, teachers, engineers, 

counselors, and computer programmers. They have good, high paying jobs. 

And, my family is but one of millions of examples of that immigrant character that helped make our Nation the most powerful 

and prosperous nation on Earth, a Nation of second chances. Our 

Nation’s enduring ability to absorb waves upon waves of the least 

of these teaches me not to fear waves of poor immigrants coming 

to America. Instead, I fear a growing government that threatens to 

restrict our economic freedoms, resulting in fewer opportunities 

and in less opportunities. Part of our economic framework, if we 

are to adequately address market demand for labor, must include 

policy remedies that serve to legalize the relationship between willing employers and willing employees. 

Thirty years ago, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act 

(IRCA) provided legal authorization for the undocumented population at the time, but did little to accommodate for future flow of 
778 

immigrants. As a result, today, more than 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States. They risk their lives 

and endure the high cost of illegally crossing the border to find 

work because there is no viable legal option. 

In reality, the vast majority of immigrants reflect the best of 

America. They are entrepreneurs, hard workers, dedicated students, family oriented and God-fearing. Immigration reform should 

address the children brought here through no fault of their own 

and allow for the undocumented population to ultimately become 

citizens after paying back taxes and any other appropriate penalties. 

But, at a minimum, the United States should put in place a 

pragmatic, viable, market-based worker visa program that legalizes 

voluntary employer-employee arrangements in a way that provides 

immigrant workers fixed legal certainty and allows our private sector to adequately respond to market forces. 

To be successful, work visas must be provided for employment at 

all skill levels, avoiding the exceedingly complex, cumbersome H– 

2 visa program’s requirements that effectively serve as a deterrent 

to participation. The program must be flexible and induce participation. That means charging reasonable fees, matching a willing 

worker with a willing employer, approval of application extended 

to the applicant’s immediate family, renewal that is required every 

3 years, and a program that allows for circularity and time for visa 

holders to see improved job opportunities if they so wish. 

If those who qualify for the program are not to receive an advantage in applying for permanent residency, a path to citizenship, 

that is, they are not to be disadvantaged for having received work 

authorization, either. 

A more robust legal immigration system would serve to positively 

impact our economy, improve our Nation’s security, and decrease 

pressures on the border by dramatically reducing unlawful immigration. It is a testament to this Nation, to our free market system, 

and to the industrious character of those who came to America that 

so many of us, millions who started out with nothing, achieve beyond our expectations. It was the dream of our parents. It is the 

dream for so many to this day, as well. 

And, this is why our staff and volunteers work across the country 

with communities that are so often marginalized to provide services at no cost, such as English language tutoring, driver’s license 

exam training, and instruction to launch businesses, such as entrepreneurship workshops. Our aim is to help develop a person’s skill 

to better position themselves in the marketplace, allowing them to 

move on and up like millions of immigrants before them did. 

At the LIBRE Initiative, we believe freedom drives progress. It 

is the freedom enshrined in our founding charters that actuated 

the vast capacities of hard working, industrious Americans and 

made our Nation great, the kind of capacity so readily found in our 

immigrant community today. 

Thank you, and God bless you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Garza. That was a welltimed statement right there. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. And well delivered. 

Mr. GARZA. I went through it a couple of times. 
779 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Zavodny appears in the Appendix on page 853. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Our next witness is Madeline Zavodny. Ms. 

Zavodny is a Professor of Economics at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She is also a Research Fellow of the Institute for 

the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and an Adjunct Scholar at 

the American Enterprise Institute. Most of her research focuses on 

economic issues related to immigration. Ms. Zavodny. 

TESTIMONY OF MADELINE ZAVODNY, PH.D.,1 PROFESSOR OF 

ECONOMICS, AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE, AND ADJUNCT 

SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Senator Johnson and Senator Carper, thank you 

for inviting me to appear here today to discuss unauthorized immigration and how to structure a guest worker program. 

I have three things I will talk about. The first is why people become unauthorized immigrants. Second, what we know about unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. labor market. And, then, how 

best to design a guest worker program in the future. 

So, the first question is, why do people become unauthorized immigrants, and I think the answer here, if you think about it from 

a big perspective, is that almost no unauthorized immigrants want 

to be unauthorized. There is just no way for them to become legal 

immigrants, or there is a pathway, but it is so onerous that they 

instead choose to remain unauthorized. The reason for this is because of the many complexities and the many failures of U.S. immigration policy. 

Our current immigration policy results in large numbers of unauthorized immigrants because there is a large, broad-based demand 

for these workers. Yet, it is extremely hard for most people to receive a visa to live and work in the United States. If you do not 

have a relative here who can sponsor you or you are not highly 

skilled and can find an employer willing to sponsor you for legal 

permanent residency, you have very few other alternatives for how 

to enter and work in the United States. 

The current H–2A and H–2B temporary worker programs are 

costly and cumbersome, and the H–2B program is capped at 66,000 

visas a year. As a result, most employers hire unauthorized immigrants instead of using the H–2A and H–2B programs. Here is a 

startling statistic: the number of workers hired through the H–2A 

and H–2B programs annually is equivalent to about 1.3 percent of 

the unauthorized immigrant workforce in the United States. 

The wage gains to immigrant workers are considerable, and the 

unauthorized are no exception. Research shows that the average 

Mexican worker who migrates to the United States earns about 2.5 

times as much as he would in Mexico, taking into account differences in the cost of living. That is an annual wage gain of about 

$9,000. The gains are even larger for most immigrants from Central America. 

Of course, wage gains are not the only reason why people become 

immigrants or unauthorized immigrants. They also desire to live 

with family members here, to have their children attend better 

schools, and to live in safer communities. 
780 

The second question is, how do unauthorized immigrants affect 

the U.S. labor market? And, despite the large number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, their economic impact is 

quite small. Conventional estimates suggest that current levels of 

unauthorized immigration add about 0.03 percent to U.S. GDP 

each year. It is a very small number, mainly because the U.S. economy is so very big. 

Despite their small overall economic impact, unauthorized immigrants are very important as a source of low-skilled labor in the 

U.S. economy, and increasingly so over the years, as U.S. natives 

have become much more likely to finish high school and go on to 

college. So, low-skilled immigrants, in general, tend to be unauthorized. 

As Jeff Passel noted, they tend to be concentrated in construction, manufacturing, and food services. They also tend to hold jobs 

within those industries and occupations that are more physically 

arduous than low-skilled U.S. natives do, as my research with 

Tamar Jacoby shows. 

Several studies show that unauthorized immigration has little effect on U.S. natives’ earnings. In my written testimony, I cite a 

number of studies that have found that unauthorized immigration 

has not had a discernible negative impact on natives’ wages or employment. There is also a broader, sizable body of research on immigration in general, most of which also concludes that immigration has little adverse effect on competing natives. Meanwhile, lowskilled immigration creates jobs higher up the skill ladder and 

leads to lower prices for goods and services that low-skilled immigrants produce. 

Estimates suggest that about one-half of unauthorized immigrants are in the formal sector, or working on the books, and about 

half are in the informal sector, off the books, not paying taxes. Research suggests that E-Verify requirements drive immigrants into 

informal employment, or off the books. As these requirements have 

become more common across States in recent years, informal sector 

employment probably has risen among unauthorized immigrants. 

The third question I would like to discuss today is how best to 

design guest worker programs. The United States actually has the 

biggest guest worker program in the world—it is just not a legal 

program. We have the largest number of unauthorized immigrants 

of any country in the world. For decades, we have chosen to tolerate a large and growing population of unauthorized immigrants 

rather than adopt the substantial reforms needed to reduce unauthorized immigration. 

One of these reforms would need to be a well-designed guest 

worker program, combined with more interior enforcement. So, a 

well-designed guest worker program would, first of all, respond to 

the business cycle. As Daniel Garza noted, it needs to be flexible. 

Second, it needs to be market driven. Employers need to be able 

to hire the workers who have the skills they seek, not have those 

workers chosen by bureaucrats or a computer algorithm. 

Third, a well-designed guest worker program would encourage 

circularity. It would encourage people to return home. 

Fourth, and I think most importantly, a well-designed worker 

program would include portability. It would allow guest workers to 
781 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 862. 

easily move across employers. This is the best way, if you are concerned about effects on competing natives, to protect natives from 

unfair competition. We need to allow guest workers to move to employers who want to hire them and are willing to pay them higher 

wages than their current employer. 

The fifth component of a good guest worker program is to have 

more interior enforcement, particularly at workplaces. In particular, we should require all employers to use E-Verify. Research 

shows that this has been successful, in States that have done it, 

at reducing the unauthorized immigrant population there. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Zavodny. 

Our next witness is Randel Johnson. He is the Senior Vice President for Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits at the U.S. 

Chamber of Commerce. Before joining the Chamber, Mr. Johnson 

was Republican Labor Counsel and Coordinator for the U.S. House 

of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce. He 

has served in positions at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), 

National Association of Manufacturers, and the Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges (ALJ). Mr. Johnson. 

TESTIMONY OF RANDEL K. JOHNSON,1 SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LABOR, IMMIGRATION, AND EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, 

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Carper. As Senator Carper hinted at, we have been at this 

quite a while, and it was about 14 years ago when my boss testified 

just one floor down in front of the Judiciary Committee on the Friday before 9/11 in support of immigration reform. So, I am pleased 

to see the Senate is back at it and perhaps we can get some action 

in the House. 

Senator CARPER. Who was your boss? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Tom Donahue. 

Senator CARPER. OK. That is good. I have heard of him. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And, we testified before Senator Brownback and 

Senator Kennedy at the time. 

I am here to testify, as Madeline focused on, on temporary worker programs, how they, if properly structured, would help both increase national security and expand our economy, and I appreciate 

the opportunity, Senator Johnson. 

Now, my written statement is quite lengthy. It is full of wonderful footnotes, such as Mr. Passel’s, and I hope they are helpful to 

your staff. But, as I have been at this for a while, let me see if I 

can cut to the chase fairly quickly. 

With regard to temporary worker programs and national security, frankly, this ought to be a no-brainer. Madeline touched on 

this, as did Daniel, but, essentially, IRCA, one of the failures of 

IRCA—everyone recognizes this—that it did not provide a mechanism by which employers could legally fill jobs with immigrants 

when they cannot find Americans available and willing to do those 

jobs. So, vacancies occur and those vacancies created a magnet 

which drew migrants from other countries, and to reiterate, as 
782 

Madeline mentioned, because there is not a legal way to fill those 

vacancies, people came illegally. 

Thus, if we provide a legal mechanism in an expanded temporary 

worker program to fill those jobs, that would help end illegal immigration, particularly when combined with improved border security, 

which we all acknowledge has to occur. 

And, frankly, when combined with a mandatory employment 

verification system—and the Chamber does support a mandatory 

employment verification system, much to the shock of many people—these programs, to your point, Senator Carper, about 

overstays, would help eliminate the problem of people coming here 

illegally and not returning and disappearing into the fabric of our 

Nation, because people could be tracked in these expanded temporary worker programs, they could not find a job outside of that 

temporary worker program, and the new mandatory employment 

verification system, if properly run, would prevent them from doing 

that. 

Now, and, of course, to enter into these programs, and I have a 

lengthy footnote on this, people would have to go through a rigorous security clearance process just as they do under current temporary worker programs, and, frankly, when was the last time we 

ever heard of someone coming into the H–2B program or the H– 

1B program committing a felony in this country or whatever? And, 

I think the press tends to focus on those stories. I have never heard 

of that, just because these people come in, they are thoroughly 

screened, and then they leave afterwards. 

Now, so it is a two-fer. They come in, they are screened, and they 

also take pressure off of illegal immigration. 

Now, a few Department of Homeland Security (DHS) past Secretaries have said, ‘‘I do not see how you can have a good security 

policy without a good guest worker program,’’ Tom Ridge. ‘‘The only 

way to truly get enforcement done is to create legal pathways to 

satisfy what is an undeniable work need,’’ Michael Chertoff. ‘‘I am 

in favor of creating an effective guest worker program to regain 

true control of the United States-Mexican border,’’ Janet 

Napolitano. I also have other quotes from experts in my written 

testimony. 

So, let us go to the economics of it. I think Madeline and Daniel 

have touched on this. It certainly makes sense that if an employer 

cannot fill a job with a U.S. worker, they should be able to recruit 

from overseas to fill that job. If an employer cannot fill a job, he 

cannot produce the product or service it needs, and, therefore, the 

whole GDP will suffer, as will our economy. 

Now, look. General demographic trends dealing with educational, 

higher education among U.S. workers, an aging workforce, and a 

declining birth rate, tell us we are going to have shortages in many 

kinds of jobs. It does not tell us exactly where in this country, what 

those jobs will be, under what conditions those shortages will occur. 

So, you have to look at the demographic trends. Congress should 

get ahead of that curve for a change. But, also, look at how these 

programs are structured so that, in fact, a U.S. worker who tests 

the local labor market before—ensuring that a U.S. worker is not 

available before they can use immigrant labor. But, surely those 

are fairly simple concepts that we can agree to. 
783 

Now, when you look at the micro level of how these programs are 

to be structured, I spent much time in negotiations with the 

unions, people from all across the political spectrum. It is a very 

complicated area, but it can be done. 

And, we should not get hung up on shortages, as some Committees have, because no one can almost ever agree to what a shortage 

is because data is all over the place. I have talked to people at the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They cannot agree to how to 

measure it. But, it is clearly coming in certain areas, but it is general demographic trends combined with a well-structured temporary worker program can, again, help increase border security 

and expand the economy because it helps employers fill jobs they 

need to fill. 

Madeline has touched on the limited scope of the existing programs. I will not reiterate that except to say, again, looking at 

these limited programs needs to be read against the backdrop of 

145 million workers. I mean, we are talking about a pimple on the 

back of an elephant. It amazes me that these programs raise so 

much controversy. But, I think that also tells you there is room 

that they need to be expanded. 

Now, I know there are some who would argue employers simply 

use these programs to pay U.S. workers less or avoid paying U.S. 

workers and go to cheap immigrant labor. Nothing could be further 

from the truth. These programs are highly regulated. There are 

something like 250 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 

in small print telling what employers must do. There are protections built into these programs to prevent that, such as paying 

wages and prevailing wages. 

And, last, with regard to enforcement, let me just say to my 

friends on the left, who I work with quite closely on this issue, Senators, are never going to be satisfied with enough enforcement. 

There will never be enough Wage and Hour Inspectors. We can 

have that discussion, but it has to be combined with how do we 

limit frivolous lawsuits being brought against employers, such as 

having the Department of Labor pay the attorneys’ fees of the employer, et cetera, when he or she proves innocent. So, the discussion is not just about how do we have more enforcement, hire more 

inspectors. It is also, how do we make sure the Department is not 

chasing employers who are, in fact, good faith employers trying to 

do the best they can to comply with the laws. 

And, with that, Senators, I will close my statement. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Our next witness is Marc Rosenblum. He is Deputy Director of 

the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). Previously, Dr. Rosenblum worked as a Specialist in 

Immigration Policy at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) 

and served on the National Research Council’s Committee on Estimating Costs to the Department of Justice (DOJ) of Increased Border Security Enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security. 

I have noticed the really long titles of a lot of people coming before the Committee, but Mr. Rosenblum. 
784 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Rosenblum appears in the Appendix on page 881. 

TESTIMONY OF MARC R. ROSENBLUM, PH.D.,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR, IMMIGRATION POLICY PROGRAM, MIGRATION POLICY 

INSTITUTE 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. 

Why is the United States home to 11 million unauthorized immigrants and what can we do about it? People move to improve their 

economic prospects, support their families, and escape violence or 

other adverse circumstances. In addition to these structural factors, 

immigration policy matters because illegal immigration only occurs 

when more or different people move than the law permits. While 

the supply and demand of visas are never perfectly aligned, effective immigration enforcement can limit illegal immigration even 

when visas are scarce, but poorly considered policies may actually 

exacerbate illegal flows. 

So, to summarize 50 years of U.S. immigration history in about 

a minute, Mexican and other—and there are a lot of footnotes in 

my testimony, too—Mexican and other immigration grew in the 

1970s because, as America transitioned from an industrial to a 

service economy and as globalization increased competition, demand for low-skilled, low-wage workers swelled, especially compared to the increasingly educated U.S. workforce. 

Mexico experienced rapid population growth and poor job creation during this period, so the two labor markets were highly complementary. Most Mexican migration was illegal because these 

changes occurred just after Congress passed the 1965 amendments 

to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) imposing the first 

numerical limits on legal Mexican flows. 

Congress recognized these trends by 1971, but did not agree 

about how to respond until 1986, and IRCA’s enforcement policies 

were ineffective. In fact, enforcement during the 1980s and 1990s 

not only failed to prevent illegal entries, the rising cost of crossing 

the border also contributed to shifts in immigration patterns from 

mostly circular flows by single men to more permanent settlement 

by whole families. 

Further investments since 9/11 have begun to pay off. New border and interior enforcement has contributed to falling immigration 

apprehensions and a shrinking stock of unauthorized immigrants, 

as Jeff Passel described. But, these gains have been costly. The 

United States has spent $208 billion on Federal immigration enforcement since 2001, and we spend more money on immigration 

control than on all other Federal criminal law enforcement activities combined. We are now at a point of diminishing returns in 

terms of what can be accomplished through enforcement without 

addressing the underlying imbalance between the structural drivers of immigration and out-of-date admissions policies. I think we 

all agree on a lot of this. 

Changes are needed to all aspects of the immigration system, not 

just the H–2s, beginning with the basic rules governing family and 

employment visas. One challenge is that family-based categories 

and per country numerical limits are badly misaligned. As a result, 
785 

more than four million relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents have been approved for visas, but face wait times 

of up to 25 years for their visas to be issued. These backlogs have 

become an important driver of unauthorized immigration. Congress 

should create a fast track to process these visas and make immediate relatives of lawful permanent residents (LPRs) exempt from 

quota limits to reduce future backlogs. 

With respect to employment-based flows, the policy challenge is 

how to support economic growth by providing employers with access to needed workers while also ensuring that immigrants do not 

undermine Americans’ wages and working conditions. The current 

system fails on both of these counts. The system does not meet employers’ needs because visa limits were set up in 1990 and do not 

reflect today’s economy, employers face long wait times to hire permanent immigrants, no visa exists in most low-skilled industries, 

and temporary workers are subject to poorly designed recruitment 

rules that are a bad match to actual hiring practices. As a result, 

many industries do rely extensively on unauthorized workers. 

But, even when employers follow the rules, current procedures 

failing to prioritize U.S. workers and temporary visas leave immigrants highly vulnerable to wage theft and other forms of exploitation, which also harms Americans. 

To modernize this system, Congress should develop a mechanism 

to periodically adjust visa numbers up or down in response to 

changing economic conditions. Congress should permit foreign 

workers to change jobs and provide them with additional labor protections. Currently, employers own their temporary workers’ visas, 

which means workers cannot leave abusive situations. Most workers should be admitted on provisional visas that allow them to 

qualify for permanent residence after a given time period, assuming they meet certain additional criteria. 

And, Congress should simplify and streamline hiring rules, as 

previous witnesses have said, for foreign workers, replacing today’s 

complex bureaucracy with a simple fee-based system that favors 

U.S. workers by making foreign workers more expensive than 

Americans. Higher fees would be a bargain compared to the hoops 

employers jump through today. And, fees could be used to improve 

U.S. workforce development and job matching. 

An important step to secure the border is effective worksite enforcement. Employers now face about a one-in-10,000 chance of 

being fined for knowingly hiring an unauthorized worker. These 

odds give them no practical incentive to play by the rules. 

Finally, a critical step for border security is to regularize most 

existing unauthorized immigrants. Unauthorized immigrants are 

deeply integrated into American communities. Nine million of them 

have lived in this country for 5 years or more. Eight million are 

employed across every U.S. industry. Four million are parents, 

mostly of U.S. citizens. Nine-hundred-thousand are children and 

800,000 are elderly. 

Cities are refusing to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because Americans do not support the 

mass deportation of their neighbors and coworkers. But, the status 

quo is unacceptable because millions in hiding undermine national 

security, a large illegal workforce pits employers against needed 
786 

worksite changes, and a large unauthorized population preserves a 

magnet and an infrastructure for future illegal flows. 

Enforcement will always be an essential component of a wellfunctioning immigration system, but policy choices about the legal 

system are at least as important—how many may enter and under 

what conditions. As long as immigration policy fails to answer 

these questions more thoughtfully, our efforts to secure the border 

will remain expensive and much less effective than they need to be. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Rosenblum. 

Let me first start by saying there is very little that I disagree 

with in terms of what has been said in testimony. Shortly after the 

2014 election, realizing I would become Chairman of this Committee, I immediately said the top priority of this Committee is border security and looking at our immigration law, and I was always 

adding a twist to it. Certainly, part of any, I think, effective border 

security bill would be a guest worker program. Coming to the 

United States for work is the number one incentive for illegal immigration. Let us make that a legal process. There would be a 

whole lot less people that we would have to worry about coming in 

here illegally. It would be a lot easier to secure the border. 

The problem with this is that, unlike the way I started in business with negotiations trying to figure out things we agreed on, 

President Obama did poison the well. I mean, I was actually having those conversations and the minute President Obama issued 

those executive memorandums, those discussions stopped, and that 

is unfortunate. 

But, one thing I would disagree with is that I do not think the 

Senate comprehensive bill was a good first step, and I just kind of 

want to walk through that with you, Mr. Johnson, in terms of the 

disconnect of how that would have worked and how it would not 

have worked. 

Before there was any kind of path to citizenship, and we can 

argue whether or not that is the appropriate thing or not, we would 

have had to, I believe, according to the bill, obtain effective control 

of the border, 90 percent. Now, we have had testimony here in earlier hearings that the union of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) 

believes we are probably only apprehending 30 to 40 percent is all 

the people we are apprehending, which implies 60 to 70 percent are 

still getting across the border. 

We see the problems of the drug cartels and transnational crime 

units. General McCaffrey was in here saying that we are only 

interdicting somewhere between five and maybe 15 percent, is the 

testimony we have had from a couple different sources, of the drugs 

coming in. So, we are so far from that 90 percent. 

And, the guest worker programs that were set up in the Senate 

bill were meager. 

I just do not see how that bill would have operated, whatsoever. 

We would still have had these 11 million people, not really being 

able to do anything with them, about them, because the trigger 

that we were counting on, 90 percent effective control of the border, 

was pretty much unattainable in any kind of near-term future, and 

the guest worker program is just grossly inadequate I mean, 
787 

200,000 maximum low-skilled, 337,000 agricultural workers, high 

skilled, about 180,000. We are talking about eight million. 

So, I just want to understand your comment in terms of that 

evaluation of the adequacy of that bill. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, there was a lot of history to that bill, a lot 

of negotiations that went into it over close to a year and a half, and 

with regard to the temporary worker program in there, again, of 

course, that was created against a backdrop of lesser skilled workers, non-seasonal, of which there are zero programs now. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, I am stipulating—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON So, our system right now is completely broken. I do not see how this helped. That was my—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, no. It is zero now, so it certainly helps with 

regard to temporary worker programs. The numbers that were negotiated in there were a product of negotiations between Republicans and—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Do you disagree they were grossly inadequate? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I would say that we were looking forward to trying 

to raise those numbers in a—they were what we had to agree to 

at the time. And, the construct, however, in there, was very 

streamlined in terms of the recruiting process that employers 

would have to go through. It did allow for portability, which Marc 

brought up, which we supported to prevent bad employers from 

taking advantage of the system. The underlying construct of it was 

quite good. 

Some of the labor protections that were negotiated may have 

been a little over the top, in retrospect, for the record. But, yes, the 

numbers were a product of compromise. 

Chairman JOHNSON. From my standpoint, there are two glaring 

problems here. One is just a timing problem. I think there is a lot 

of agreement that we are not going to deport 11–12 million people. 

We are not. I mean, I think people recognize that. 

How do we put them on some sort of path of legalization and documentation? I think most people would like to do something like 

that, recognize that problem and get them out of the shadows. That 

is not good for anybody. 

The other question is, and this is going to Ms. Zavodny, there is 

a dispute as to whether or not the undocumented workers have or 

have not depressed wages. There was a rather interesting hearing 

in the Judiciary Committee last, I think it was last week, and 

there was testimony taken that Southern California Edison is terminating 800 American citizens, apparently highly skilled, and 

going to be hiring, I guess, probably H–1B visa workers. Eric 

Schmidt from Google says that there are a thousand applicants for 

every person he hires. 

So, we hear that there is a huge shortage of technical workers, 

and then you take a look at this and there is contrary evidence. So, 

I just kind of want you to speak to the contrary evidence on the 

record. It is very difficult to get the truth, and until we can really 

figure out what reality is and get people agreeing on it, we are 

going to continue to be at loggerheads on this issue of how do you 

create an effective guest worker program and how do you acknowl-
788 

edge the reality of what is the effect on American workers’ wages, 

because that is a legitimate concern. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Certainly, it is important to think about what happens to U.S. natives’ wages and employment when we increase immigrants, but the bulk of studies unquestionably find that there is 

almost no effect. This seems counter to supply and demand, if you 

think about what we teach in Economics 101 classes—what I am 

teaching tomorrow morning—but, the reason for that is because 

there is not a zero-sum number of jobs. 

When immigrants come, jobs also get created. Immigrants buy 

stuff. Having immigrants here may allow businesses to pursue opportunities that they otherwise would not pursue because they may 

have different skills than natives have. It may slow off-shoring or 

outsourcing. So, when you have low- or high-skilled immigrants 

coming here, the jobs that otherwise would go, maybe that Google 

would hire workers in Canada instead, or a low-skilled company 

would instead set up a factory in Bangladesh instead of keeping 

apparel jobs in Los Angeles or something like that, so that you get 

those jobs being created. Plus, immigrants themselves often create 

businesses, and they have high rates of entrepreneurship. 

And, so, I think there are lots of reasons to understand from a 

theoretical reason why immigration does not necessarily cost natives jobs. And then when you look at the empirical evidence, 

again, the bulk of it does support that. 

There are studies on the other side, of course, and I think 

that—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. They are used by both sides. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me quickly go to Mr. Passel. There are 

8.1 million undocumented workers that are working. There are a 

bunch of them in Wisconsin working dairy farms. I have talked to 

dairy farmers and they tell me that they need these workers. I 

mean, who else is going to milk our cows? Legitimate point. 

Looking at the demographics of America, I know some people say 

we should do workplace enforcement and make sure everybody is 

documented and then hand all those jobs over to Americans. Increase wages, whatever. Do we have enough Americans to fill those 

jobs demographically? 

Mr. PASSEL. Well, first, I have to start by saying I am not an 

economist, so take—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, I am just looking for the demographics right now. I am talking about the number of people needed to do the jobs that need to be done. 

Mr. PASSEL. The overall demographics of the United States point 

to kind of a bulge of workers at the upper ages, the Baby Boom. 

And if you look at what is coming down the pipeline in terms of 

employment and potential employment, it would probably be useful 

to have more people in their 20s and 30s over the next 20 years 

to help support the U.S. economy—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, I am just saying, you have laid out 

all the areas where undocumented workers are working. 

Mr. PASSEL. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. If they all went home, would we be able to 

fill those positions as a demographer—— 
789 

Mr. PASSEL. Looking at the education of the native American 

population, in the native population, the number and share with 

low levels of education has dropped dramatically. So, in that sense, 

immigrants with low levels of education move into jobs that, basically, there are not enough Americans who have dropped out of 

high school. We do not want people to drop out of high school. But, 

if you look at the jobs that the immigrants are doing, they are in 

a set of jobs where there are natives, but not as many, and not necessarily in the same parts of the country. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Before I turn it over to Senator Peters, does 

anybody else want to answer that question, provide input on it? 

Sure, Mr. Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I would just add that—and this sort of goes 

back to your first question, also—I mean, it is certainly more efficient to legalize those unauthorized workers than it is to deport 

them and recruit new people for those positions where they are already working. There is some debate about whether unauthorized 

workers drive down U.S. wages. There is no debate that legal workers have a better effect on wages than unauthorized workers. So, 

it is a win-win situation when you look at unauthorized workers 

who are working in the United States. Legalizing them improves 

their economic prospects and improves that of U.S. workers and 

that is a much more efficient sort of economic response than to deport them if they are here employed and to try to recruit new people into those positions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, Mr. Garza. 

Mr. GARZA. If I could just add, there are reports that show that 

for every deportation, it costs us over $20,000 per person. So, it is 

a costly proposition for us, and the premise of my presentation was 

to show that immigrants who start off in America, it is a natural 

progression that they are going to achieve the American dream and 

move on and up. So, you have to replace those folks that are going 

up the quintiles economically. So, it is just critical that we have 

that kind of reform that would accommodate for future flows, not 

just the current flow. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the 

panelists for being here today and adding to this very important 

discussion for our country. 

I noticed that in the title of the hearing was, ‘‘Defining the Current Population Living in the Shadows,’’ although I heard a lot of 

testimony related to visa programs and other aspects and less 

about defining the current population that is actually living in the 

shadows. I would like to spend a moment talking about that and 

then getting some reaction from some of the panelists related to 

that. It is an issue that I feel very strongly about, and that is related to young people who come here to this country, who obviously 

did not have a choice when they came. They came with their parents who came here on an undocumented basis. And, when you 

hear those stories, they are just so compelling as to why we need 

to have reform in our immigration system to make sure that these 
790 

young people, who really know no other life except that as of an 

American. 

I have examples of two individuals, a young woman who I know 

who entered the United States from Albania, when it was a wartorn country, and she entered this country when she was 5 years 

old, and lived here her whole life, knows no other life. Currently, 

her mother works, or worked 16-hour days at a bakery that she 

created when she came here in order to save for her daughter’s 

education. This young lady worked very hard in school. She graduated with a 4.4 grade point average (GPA), which is not an easy 

thing to do. I did not know you could get more than four points. 

I guess things have changed. But, she is a 4.4 GPA, and with her 

record, she was admitted into the University of Michigan. Her 

dream is to become a surgeon and a physician, and yet she is here 

on an undocumented basis and the government would like to deport her, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. 

We have another young woman who also had similar struggles 

who we have been talking to in our office, and she entered into the 

country with her folks in an undocumented basis when she was 10 

years old. She was on a 4.0 student, took all advanced placement 

(AP) courses, graduated in the top one percent of her high school, 

had many struggles, but she did graduate from the University of 

Michigan. She has a triple major in political science, psychology, 

and sociology with a 3.9 GPA from the University of Michigan. 

And, if it was not for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 

(DACA) protections from the President, she would have been deported, which makes no sense to me. 

I have no idea how this is good public policy for the United 

States, where we have these young people who have come here, 

have lived here, are living the American dream, or working hard 

in school, moving forward. 

So, my question is to you, Mr. Garza, I know in your prepared 

remarks you state that immigration reform should address the children brought here through no fault of their own and allow for the 

undocumented population to ultimately become citizens after paying back taxes and any other appropriate penalties, and I certainly 

could not agree more after these two examples, and there are other 

examples. We get a lot of cases. Michigan has a very diverse population. The congressional district that I represented prior to being 

elected to the Senate was extremely diverse. 

So, if you would comment and, first off, I guess, do you support 

the President’s executive action relating to DACA? 

Mr. GARZA. We do not call on rescinding the executive action—— 

Senator PETERS. You do not? You do not support it. 

Mr. GARZA. Not on rescinding it, no. We have made our feelings 

known about the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), 

the other one, that we felt was—— 

Senator PETERS. DAPA. 

Mr. GARZA. DAPA, right, exactly, that we felt was executive overreach, that the President must have the permission and the consent of Congress before moving on a policy that confers benefits 

onto anyone, that that is the role of lawmakers and that he should 

respect that role, so that there is not any opportunity for rescinding 

that law, that folks do not enlist and then they are exposed or to 
791 

deportation, possibly, and are victims of a good faith effort on their 

part, so we want to avoid all that. But, I could not agree with you 

more when it comes to Dreamers and the situation with the children who come here, who were brought by the parents, the parents 

who came here seeking opportunity. 

Senator, let me just say, back in the 1920s, we had an amendment. It was called Prohibition. And, that law said that nobody 

could produce, consume, or distribute alcohol, and it was illegal to 

do so. Yet, millions and millions of Americans violated that law. It 

was a felony to do so. Were they bad people? It was a bad law, is 

what it was. Sure, there were some bad elements during that situation, but the same is here. 

For want of opportunity, folks have violated the law. We can 

stipulate to that. But, it is to meet labor demand. They come here 

to work, not to violate the law. Are they bad people? No, it is a bad 

law and it is something that I think we can fix, that we can address and we can resolve, and it would alleviate the problem with 

these children, who have dreams, who have aspirations. And, we 

want to honor those aspirations and honor, really uphold, our own 

ideals as a Nation of immigrants and allow people to thrive. 

Senator PETERS. I appreciate your comments related to the executive action, but I think we will agree that this is definitely 

Congress’s action to take. It is unfortunate that Congress simply 

refuses to take this action. All of this debate we are talking about 

the actions that the President has taken or has not taken all could 

be moot if Congress just stepped up and passed comprehensive immigration reform, which deals with all the issues that we have 

been hearing about here today in this hearing, whether it is visas 

or the DACA program, the Dreamer program, go down the list, 

Congress needs to act. 

Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues are spending time 

pointing fingers and blaming the President for this or that, or accusing others for this, instead of getting the work done, just rolling 

up our sleeves and getting the work done. And, so, absent the 

President’s action, these two young ladies that I talked about, they 

would be deported. It makes no sense whatsoever. I cannot think 

of any public policy reason why you would take two outstanding 

young women who are going to be great contributors to this country, who are pursuing their dreams, the very basis of what this 

country was built on. 

I look around—I think everybody in this room who is a U.S. citizen came here from somewhere else, their family did. My mother 

came here as a naturalized citizen. But, we all came from something else, somewhere else, to make this country. So, we have to 

take action. 

I would hope that groups like yours, instead of spending time attacking the President, would instead tell Congress to get our act 

together. Roll up your sleeves. Quit making this a political issue. 

Make this the human issue that it is that impacts families and let 

us take action on that. So, I would certainly hope that everyone on 

this panel would do that, as well. 

I am out of time. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER [presiding.] I am Tom Carper and I approve that 

message. [Laughter.] 
792 

Let me just say, this is a great panel. 

Randel Johnson, do people ever call you Randy? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Randy, like the baseball player. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. I had the pleasure—we live in Delaware, and 

Philadelphia is not too far from us, so we had a chance to watch 

him pitch from time to time. Boy, he was good. He was really good. 

Mr. JOHNSON. He was making more money back then, too. 

Senator CARPER. It is amazing what they pay these guys these 

days. 

Well, happy you are all here, and I apologize for having to slip 

out. We had some people who came by to talk to me about building 

aircraft carriers. I am an old Navy guy. We are down, I think, from 

11 to 10 carriers and they were trying to tell me why we ought to 

build an 11th carrier. It costs $13 billion. We are going to overhaul 

the George Washington, which is almost 25 years of age. We can 

overhaul it for about $600 million and it will go another 25 years. 

Pretty good, huh? 

I was just telling them, I have taken a bunch of Boy Scouts down 

to the Norfolk Naval Station over the years for a weekend, just for 

a good experience for the kids. One year, we visited the Teddy Roosevelt, which is a nuclear carrier, and the captain of the ship came 

out on a Sunday morning to welcome the boys on board the Teddy 

Roosevelt. And he said to our Scouts, 25 or so of them, and about 

a half-dozen adults, he said, ‘‘Boys, he said, ‘‘when the Teddy Roosevelt goes to sea, it is 1,000 feet long.’’ And the boys went, ‘‘Ooh.’’ 

And he said, ‘‘Boys, when the Teddy Roosevelt goes to sea, it is 35 

stories high.’’ And the boys went, ‘‘Ooh.’’ And he said, ‘‘Boys, when 

the Teddy Roosevelt goes to sea, it has 5,000 sailors on board.’’ And 

the boys went, ‘‘Ooh.’’ And he said, ‘‘And when the Teddy Roosevelt 

goes to sea, there are 75 aircraft on board.’’ And the boys went, 

‘‘Ooh.’’ And then the skipper of the ship said, ‘‘And, boys, when the 

Teddy Roosevelt goes to sea, it refuels once every 25 years.’’ And 

the adults went, ‘‘Ooh.’’ [Laughter.] Every 25 years, we have to overhaul them for $600 million. And, 

having made a $13 billion investment, then we get another 25 

years out of the ship. That is smart. That is not cheap, but I think 

it is a good investment. And, as my dad would say, it is using common sense. My dad was an old Navy guy, too. 

But, let us think a little bit about common sense and let us think 

about not just values, but common views, a commonality of consensus. And, one of the great things about a Committee like this, 

or a hearing like this with a panel of witnesses like all of you is 

you are going to help us get to consensus. In fact, you are already 

making your contribution toward that and we appreciate that very 

much. 

Dr. Zavodny—that is a great name. Has that always been your 

name? 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Yes, I would keep that one. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Zavodny laid out for us, I do not know, 

about five or six elements of a well designed guest worker program, 

and you know what I am going to ask you to do is just mention 

those again, and then I am going to ask these men that are sitting 
793 

around you for them just to comment on your points. I thought 

they were well taken. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. I am a professor. I give the quizzes, usually. 

[Laughter.] 

Here are those points. First, it would respond to the business 

cycle. Second, it would—— 

Senator CARPER. Go through these very slowly. First—— 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Respond to the business cycle. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. That would be that you would increase the number of visas when the economy is growing faster. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Second, it would be market-driven so that employers would choose the workers with the skills that employers want. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Third, it would encourage circularity. I think this 

is the one on which we may disagree the most. 

Senator CARPER. That is the ability to move back and forth? 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Right. And so, the current programs—I will say 

very little, very few good things about the current H–2 and H–2B 

programs, but they actually do this. There are very few visa 

overstays that we know about from the current worker programs. 

Senator CARPER. That is interesting. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Because you get to come back if you went home. 

You can come back again and again and again and earn money for 

your family. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. The fourth category is portability, so this is being 

able to move across employers. 

And then the fifth is increased interior enforcement at workplaces, particularly through mandatory E-Verify. 

Senator CARPER. OK. All right. Let us just take them one at a 

time. Just go back to the first one. Just mention the first one 

again. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Sure. So, the first one is that it is responsive to 

the business cycle, that when times are good, we increase the number of visas. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. I would welcome—Marc, do you want to 

start us off with your thoughts, and then we will—— 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Sure. So, I certainly agree. I think everybody 

probably at this table agrees that the system should be more responsive to business cycles, but that means not only going up when 

the economy is booming, but also going down when it is contracting. 

Senator CARPER. Good. 

Mr. Johnson, the real Randy Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. Yes, well, I think it is pretty clear, I do 

agree with that. The question is, when we talk about escalators, 

what is the formula, and I can tell you that we spent many weeks 

trying to figure that formula out when we were negotiating with 

the AFL–CIO on the program that wound up in the Senate bill. So, 

the concept is easy. How do you measure that business cycle? What 

is the escalator in terms of how the numbers go up and down—— 

Senator CARPER. What did you all finally agree on, do you know? 
794 

Mr. JOHNSON. It was a mixture of weights and this and that. It 

is complicated. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. Dr. Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Yes, if I could just come back in on this. The 

complicated formula that they came up with in S. 744 is very complicated. One of the things that MPI has recommended is for Congress to commission an expert panel along the lines—— 

Senator CARPER. Like this one. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Yes, like this one, but along the lines of the 

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) or the Congressional Research 

Service that would advise Congress on how to adjust numbers up 

or down on a regular basis, because it is such a complicated issue 

and we are not going to come up with a formula just by looking 

at the unemployment rate and wages. You are going to want a bipartisan panel of serious people to figure this out and then make 

recommendations to Congress, and then ideally have a mechanism 

for those recommendations to be binding unless Congress overrides 

them. 

Senator CARPER. And, Randy, having gone through the negotiations with the labor folks, what did you learn about making the 

next negotiation, or should we just take in full cloth what you came 

up with in that negotiation? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, those were different times and different situations. There is the old saying, as you all know better than anybody, Senator, there is no deal until there is a whole deal. So, everything depended on other parts of the bill and what did we give 

here, what—— 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And, so, I hate to just make a category—it just all 

depends on lots of other factors. 

Senator CARPER. OK. That is a good point. All right. Mr. Garza, 

thank you very much, all of you, for your testimonies. I thought 

your testimony was especially heartfelt. 

Mr. GARZA. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. I appreciated that story, because, really, you 

told a story. I once asked Bill Clinton why he was such an effective 

communicator and he said, ‘‘Well, what I do is try to tell a series 

of stories in order to make more complex points. And,’’ he said, 

‘‘people understand stories. They get involved in the story and they 

understand.’’ So, you told us quite a compelling story. 

Mr. GARZA. Thank you so much. Well, it comes from my parents, 

who were just wonderful people, wise beyond their fourth-grade 

education, and so I learned so much from them, I wanted to share 

that. 

Senator CARPER. I always tell people—people say, why have I— 

or ask me why I have had some success in my life. I always start 

off with, I picked the right parents. [Laughter.] 

Mr. GARZA. That does have a lot to do with it. 

I could not agree more. I think it does have to respond to market 

forces. I think we have to have a sensible, predictable labor force 

that matches the right skills, but also, the market is dynamic. The 

market turns. It ebbs and it flows, and I think we need to have a 

system, or at least a reform that responds in real time. 
795 

So, I think folks get the information in Central America, in Mexico, and in other parts of the world about what is happening in the 

economy in Mexico and they also move in real time. Look, I mean, 

the fact is, man is in motion. Man has always been in motion, seeking opportunity. We need to have a dynamic program that allows 

to marry a willing worker with a willing employer. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Dr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. I am going to have to beg off on this. My organization, the Pew Research Center, is what we call a fact tank and we 

assiduously avoid taking positions on policies. We try to provide 

data that can be used to address them. So, we do not study the 

mechanisms for providing guest workers, so I will not venture an 

opinion on this. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Fair enough. 

Let me ask another question. This is a little off the beaten path, 

but how many of you have ever met anybody who was born in 

Iowa? Raise your hand if you actually met somebody born in Iowa. 

No? Iowa. 

How many of you have ever met anybody born in, say, in Montgomery County, Iowa? Montgomery County. 

And, how about in Red Oak in Montgomery County, Iowa? Well, 

if you have not, you are just about to meet one and she is going 

to ask some questions, as well, and her name is Joni Ernst. Joni, 

welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. I appreciate you having this hearing today. 

Senator CARPER. We did it just so I could tell them where you 

were born. [Laughter.] 

Senator ERNST. I do want to apologize. We do have a lot of hearings this morning. But, I appreciate your testimony today. This is 

a very important topic for all of us. 

So, my first question, Mr. Garza, if you would, please, in the eyes 

of someone that is crossing the border illegally from Mexico or from 

Central America, would you say it is their best belief or their belief 

that if they can just get into the United States, that they will be 

granted citizenship or legal status in a much faster manner 

through the President’s recent Executive Orders (EOs) rather than 

going through the legal process? 

Mr. GARZA. Regrettably, there is a lot of distortion, a lot of communication that gets down to Central Americans, people who are 

in desperate need to improve their lot in life, and unfortunately, I 

think when ‘‘la necesidad’’ exists, they are more prone to believe 

just about anything. There are coyotes and traffickers who will deal 

in distortions and appeal to people’s good faith and sell them a bad 

bill of goods, and that has happened. It has occurred, a lot of it directly because the executive action allowed for that opportunity to 

distort the truth, and a lot of folks came and surged the border. 

I mean, I saw that. I live five blocks from Anzalduas Bridge in 

Mission, Texas, and so we had to deal, then, with the result of that, 

with the repercussions. And, luckily, we have good people in our 

community in McAllen, Texas, who got together, who provided resources, who provided toys to the children and acted compas-
796 

sionately. But, yes, the feedback that we got from them was that 

there was a lot of distortion of the truth. 

Senator ERNST. Do you think a lot of that is coming from the 

governments in that area, or is it more from the traffickers that 

are trying to funnel people with other illicit types of goods to the 

United States? Where do you think a lot of that is coming from? 

Mr. GARZA. Honestly, I could not tell you with certainty, but I 

do know that it is coming from the traffickers. I do know it is coming from that illicit market, and they trade in human beings and 

sex slaves and the drug cartels that push this information. I cannot 

tell you with certainty that it comes from the governments. That 

would be a crying shame. 

Senator ERNST. Yes. I agree, it would be. 

Any thoughts from the panel on that, just belief—yes, sir. Go 

ahead. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I know that the governments are very actively 

discouraging that misinformation. I think the United States believes that those governments are working pretty closely on an information campaign to combat that. So, I would not hold the governments responsible. 

But, the other thing, I think it is also easy to overestimate the 

importance of the President’s executive action in enticing people to 

come, and the reason I say that is that what we saw in the last 

2 years is a huge surge of children coming from Central America, 

but no change at all, and actually a slight decline, in children coming from Mexico. So, if there is a general view that if you get here, 

you get DACA, you would expect that the Mexican numbers would 

come up, but they have not. They have been flat or slightly down. 

So, there is clearly something happening in Central America that 

is causing people to come. It is not just that everybody is responding to DACA because we do not see Mexicans responding to DACA. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Any other thoughts on that from the panelists? 

[No response.] 

OK. Well, I appreciate that very much. 

How many do you anticipate, in light of the Administration’s 

policies from 2014, how many do you anticipate, those that are living in the shadows now, how many do you anticipate will come forward after the declaration? Maybe you can address that, Dr. 

Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. From the executive action? 

Senator ERNST. Yes. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Well, I mean, as you know, there was the 2012 

announcement of the original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and we estimate that about 1.2 million unauthorized 

children are eligible for that program and a little over half have 

come forward. 

The 2014 announcement would have expanded the program for 

children and created a new program for parents, and both of those 

are on hold, pending the lawsuit in Texas. But, we estimate that, 

I believe the number is another 4.9 million would be eligible for 

those two programs if they are fully implemented. So, that is the 

maximum that you would expect to see, depending on what share 

of that population takes advantage of the program. 
797 

Senator ERNST. Anyone else? Yes, sir. 

Mr. PASSEL. Our numbers of the eligible are in the same range. 

They are a little bit lower. We have no idea who is likely to come 

forward. We have two examples. We have the 1986 IRCA legislation and we have the DACA program. In both of those, if you look 

at estimates of how many people might be eligible, it looks like 60 

to maybe 70 percent of the people who were eligible actually came 

forward. Under DACA, our estimate is at 1.1 million and about 

600,000 so far have come forward, and under IRCA, the estimates 

were there were about 2.5 million or so eligible and 1.6 million 

came forward under the general program there. 

So, in the range of half to two-thirds if you have decent estimates 

of how many might be eligible. The Migration Policy Institute, the 

Pew Research Center and DHS have done some estimates, and 

they are all in the same ballpark of four to five million people who 

might be eligible. 

Senator ERNST. And, it does look like the estimates vary, of 

course, by State. A lot of States will be impacted in a greater manner than probably most States like Iowa. I was surprised to see in 

the Pew research that we have in Iowa about 40,000 unauthorized 

immigrants. That is the information that was provided to us. And, 

that is about 3.5 percent of Iowa’s total population. Obviously, 

States like California or Texas or others would be impacted greater 

by any further executive actions or, one way or another, what happens with this court decision. 

So, I appreciate the testimony today. I look forward to hearing 

more as we move forward. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much for coming and for your questions—— 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. And for letting us introduce you. 

Before you got here, Senator Lankford, I queried the panel and 

gave them a little quiz on the background of Senator Ernst. I am 

not going to do that with you, but it was a lot of fun to do that 

with her. But, this guy has a great background and great preparation for this job, as well, so you are on. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Deal. Thank you. 

I have a couple of questions just about countries of origin and 

where I think it is pretty commonly understood that the population 

that is here without documentation, illegal, whatever term that you 

want to use, are really from four countries, and I want to see if you 

all agree: Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, the vast 

majority. Do we know what percentage, if the numbers are somewhere around 11 million, let us say, 11.5 million, what percentage 

of those are from those four countries? 

Mr. PASSEL. I will take that. Actually, Mexico is truly an order 

of magnitude larger than the others. Our most recent estimates are 

that Mexico accounts for about 5.8 to 5.9 million of the 11.2 million, 

so it is over half, about 52 percent. 

El Salvador, we estimate around 675,000, so it is a good deal 

smaller, but does represent about 5 or 6 percent of the total. And, 
798 

Guatemala and Honduras are a little bit below that, around halfa-million to 400,000. 

So, if you put all of those numbers together, it is a little bit over 

seven million. So, somewhere around 70 percent of the unauthorized immigrants are from those countries. But, again, it is really 

Mexico that is the driver of this. The others are large relative to 

the populations of their countries and relative to the number of 

legal Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans here, but the 

numbers are just a lot smaller than the Mexicans. 

Senator LANKFORD. So, what percentage do you think of those 

are connected in some way to the protected temporary status from 

Hurricane Mitch back in the 1990s or from the temporary protected 

status was given to the Salvadorans from the 1980s? 

Mr. PASSEL. The numbers, if I recall correctly, are about a third 

of the Salvadorans that are included in that are covered under the 

temporary protected status. For the others it is a little bit smaller, 

a quarter of the others. 

Senator LANKFORD. Do you assume that a majority of those that 

are coming, then, as family members, are connected in some way 

as family or connection to those that were given temporary protected status before? 

Mr. PASSEL. I really do not know. 

Senator LANKFORD. Did we see a large influx before that, I guess 

is part of my question. So, you go back to prior to that temporary 

protected status. Was there a large influx of individuals from Honduras and from El Salvador into the United States, or did that accelerate after that temporary protected status? 

Mr. PASSEL. I think the numbers, in general, from all countries, 

accelerated in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It seems that the 

ebbs and flows that we have seen are more tied to the economic 

booms and recessions so that we did see the numbers, in general, 

particularly Mexicans, grow rapidly in the 2000s and in the 1990s. 

They slowed a little after 2001, and then they picked up as the 

U.S. economy picked up. And then after 2007, the numbers dropped 

a good deal. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right, but we are not seeing the large influx 

of Nicaraguans or folks from Costa Rica or Belize, Nicaragua obviously having a very tough economy right now, as well. 

Mr. PASSEL. No, but there are only about 2.5 million Nicaraguans. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Mr. PASSEL. It is not a big country, so—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Has there been a breakdown that you have 

seen that you would consider reliable within the United States of 

where these different groups land? So, that is, Salvadorans end up 

typically in these three or four areas. Obviously, Mexicans, the 

largest population, very diverse around the United States. But, of 

those from those three Central American countries, have you seen 

a reliable breakdown of where they land? 

Mr. PASSEL. We have put out some of that and we have some unpublished data on that. A report we put out back in November had 

the top three countries for every State in terms of their unauthorized and we have some more detail on it that we have not published. 
799 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. I would be interested in getting that, so 

thank you all for your work. Thanks for allowing me to be able to 

step in. 

Senator CARPER. We are just glad you came. This man has been 

down in that part of the world and shows every intent of going 

back and being a part of working all of this out, which is good. 

Senator Ernst, do you have other questions? 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course. I will just 

quickly follow up. 

So, it is very frustrating, because we do have a legal immigration 

process in place. I think many of us would agree or disagree, that 

it does need to be modernized in some form or manner, and I know 

you have had some discussions on that already. Mr. Garza, you did 

mention, also, in your written testimony, that most immigrants 

would not risk their lives to illegally come to this country if we had 

a viable legal option, and yet we do have 41 million immigrants 

that are here in this Nation and most of them have come here legally. 

So, it is very frustrating, I think, to many of the other legally immigrated populations to see illegal immigrants come here and gain 

some sort of status, whether it is through executive action or other. 

Can you give us some more information, maybe, from those populations on their frustration with this, or are they not frustrated at 

the fact that people come here illegally and then are granted status? 

Mr. GARZA. Sure. I think, like all Americans, folks who came 

here as immigrants have a vested interest in, obviously, having a 

healthy society, a vibrant society, where rule of law is respected. 

You see that both in the Latino community, in the black community, and in the Anglo community. 

Look, as Anglos, I think we are just as proud of our country as 

anybody else. We have shed our blood on foreign battlefields to protect this country and our ideals, our Constitution. Ideally, what you 

want is everybody to respect the rule of law. But, sometimes you 

have a broken system where labor demand is—cannot be accommodated, where, also, those who seek opportunity, there is no viable 

option for them to come to America. And, so, what you have is a 

misalignment of labor demand and what the law is. 

The IRCA Act did accommodate for the three million, at the 

time, that were here illegally, but it did not accommodate for future flows, which is why we have the condition we have today. And, 

these are, like we have all said, good, decent, hard working, otherwise law-abiding folks who are searching for opportunity. Public 

policy must allow people to thrive and people to participate in a rational activity of selling their labor and buying labor. 

Remember, because in all of this, if I could say in parentheses, 

that there are millions of Americans who are also violating the law 

by hiring folks who are here unauthorized. 

Senator ERNST. That is correct. 

Mr. GARZA. And so, in a way, the law has to be accommodated 

for them, too, where we can legalize their relationship, for these 

kind of business relationships. So, we are unable to do that with 

the current law, Senator. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that. 
800 

And, I am sorry, Ms. Zavodny, is that correct? 

Thank you so much. Immigration bills typically, they score high 

from the CBO because CBO estimates that many will become part 

of the formal economy. What percentage of the unauthorized population is currently already working in the formal economy? 

Ms. ZAVODNY. The best estimates that we have are from 2007 

from the Congressional Budget Office and they are that about half 

of unauthorized immigrants who are working are on the books, so 

that they are paying payroll taxes and, in many cases, Federal income taxes, as well. 

The one caveat I would add to that is that the 2007 estimate and 

my best guess would be that the fraction is maybe a little bit lower 

now because of States that have adopted E-Verify. In those States, 

there has been a move out of those States, first of all, by unauthorized immigrants, but among the unauthorized immigrants who 

have stayed in States that have adopted E-Verify, there is also a 

movement toward working off the books because it is much harder 

to get a formal sector job. 

Senator ERNST. Right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. 

I do think that most of us agree that we are a Nation of laws. 

We are a Nation of immigrants. We need to enforce the laws, but 

I do think that there is room for movement with our legal immigration process. It is just finding what we can agree upon and implementing those changes. So, I do appreciate your testimony today 

and look forward to working with all of you in the future on this 

tough issue. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for being so 

faithful in your attendance. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. How many other Committees do you serve on 

now? 

Senator ERNST. I am on three other Committees. 

Senator CARPER. I said to her yesterday when she was leaving, 

there was a time I served on five Committees, and we have some 

people who do that today, and it is really hard to be able to do justice to all of those. 

I am going to go back, Dr. Zavodny, to the five points that you 

made, and I would ask the other witnesses to just quickly walk 

through them. The first one, I think, dealt with being able to respond to the business cycle. And the second point dealt with enforcement. And, one of the things that you said in your testimony, 

I just want to repeat it again. You said a well designed program 

would allow employers to hire workers who have the skills they 

seek. But, you also go on to say, of course, a guest-worker program 

needs to involve enforcement of minimum wage laws, overtime pay 

requirements, and workplace safety and health relations. Payroll 

tax treatment and employer-sponsored health insurance requirements for guest workers must also be equivalent to those for domestic workers. 

Let me just ask, do each of the other four witnesses agree with 

that statement? And, just say yes or no. Dr. Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Certainly, and there has been—— 

Senator CARPER. OK. That is all you have to say. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Yes. [Laughter.] 
801 

Senator CARPER. Good. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. Yes, the Chamber does agree on all those 

principles and we long have agreed on those. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. Mr. Garza. 

Mr. GARZA. I am sorry. Could you repeat those principles—— 

Senator CARPER. I would be happy to. 

Mr. GARZA [continuing]. Because you drilled down, is what you 

did. 

Senator CARPER. Sure. I will just use Dr. Zavodny’s words. Of 

course, a guest worker program needs to involve enforcement of 

minimum wage laws, overtime pay requirements, and workplace 

safety and health regulations. Payroll tax treatment and employersponsored health insurance requirements for guest workers must 

also be equivalent to those for domestic workers. 

Mr. GARZA. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Dr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. Pass. 

Senator CARPER. OK, good. 

The third point that you made, Dr. Zavodny, dealt with circularity, and I think you said a guest worker program should encourage circularity by allowing guest workers to come back to work in 

the United States in the future if they return home when their contract is up. Another good way the current H–2A and H–2B programs encourage circularity is by not allowing temporary foreign 

workers to bring their family members with them. 

Dr. Rosenblum, your reaction to that. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Certainly, if we had more legal visas, we would 

likely see more circularity. Historically, workers have traveled back 

and forth between the United States and Mexico a lot more than 

they do today. I think that I would prefer to see a guest worker 

program that had provisional visas that would allow people to potentially remain in the United States. So, you do not want to compel circularity if people are successful workers in permanent positions and their employers want to promote them and they may 

have families here. So, a flexible system allows but does not require circularity. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Fine. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. May I interrupt? I am not an immigration lawyer, 

I am an economist, and Randy Johnson points out that I was 

wrong. The H–2A and H–2B programs do allow workers currently 

to bring their immediate family with them. 

Senator CARPER. OK, good. Thanks. Thanks for noting that. 

Gosh, he is even smarter than I thought. 

Mr. JOHNSON. See, we have a small business guide in immigration law. It is very useful. 

Senator CARPER. There you go. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We will send up a couple of boxes. 

No, we agree with those principles. I think there is often an issue 

in these debates in terms of what conditions would someone who 

works in a so-called temporary worker program be able to move to 

green card status, and the Senate bill had a very complicated sort 

of deal on that depending on points. And, then, there are those who 

would prefer that a true temporary worker program be temporary, 

which is people can come, but they must leave, on sometimes a 
802 

three-to-one—work 3 years, stay out of the country for one year, 

come back, and that sort of thing. So, that is an area of much debate within both Republicans and Democrats. But, we certainly 

agree that there needs to be circularity. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Mr. Garza, just very briefly. 

Mr. GARZA. Absolutely. I think we feel that circularity is fundamental to any temporary worker program. I think the current focus 

on border enforcement right now is trapping people here and keeping them from actually going back to their countries of origin and 

that should change. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Dr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. Just to pick up on that point, one of the things that 

we have seen over the past 7 or 8 years, and the mechanism seems 

to be the one that Dr. Rosenblum addressed in his testimony. The 

enforcement at the border seems to be keeping people in the country as much as stopping people from coming in. So, when we look 

at the unauthorized population today, over 60 percent have been 

here 10 years or more. And, if we go back to 2007, it was about 

a third of them who had been here 10 years or more. So, the period 

of enforcement has led to people staying longer and we are not seeing many new people, but the ones that are here are definitely 

staying. 

Senator CARPER. OK. The fourth point that Dr. Zavodny made is, 

unlike the current H–2A and H–2B programs, a well-designed program would allow visa portability or for guest workers to easily 

move across employers. Would you react to that, Dr. Rosenblum? 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. It is a very important issue and definitely a 

way to strengthen workers’ ability to sort of defend their labor 

rights. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, with a caveat, which is I think you have to 

look at the degree and the length of the program. For example, 

Senator, if it is a very short-term program, you cannot expect an 

employer to go through a lot of these costs of recruitment, and then 

they can part within 10 days, by the time they come over here with 

the employer that went through all that work. 

So, sometimes in these programs we have talked about portability after 3 months. But, it sort of depends on the length of the 

program. The shorter it is, the less sense it makes. Also, those you 

have to port to—you can port to—should also, of course, have gone 

through a process of showing there is a shortage of American workers, and the construct we had in the AFL-Chamber deal went 

through that. 

So, that is a little bit of a longer answer than you perhaps wanted, but yes, we agreed with portability with some exceptions depending on the program length. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. Mr. Garza. 

Mr. GARZA. We feel portability honors and upholds the ideals of 

a free market and the free market should benefit both the employer and the employee. And so, I think the employee who comes 

in under a visa should be free to seek either better opportunities, 

and they have, I think, the preference, really. And, look, let me just 

say, also, that when I was 15, I was working with my father in the 
803 

hot fields and a crew came over and asked Dad if he could go to 

the farm owner and ask for a raise, because he spoke English. Dad 

went in and asked for the raise and the farm owner fired him for 

asking for a raise. My dad was a permanent resident. He had options. What if he had a visa? What was he going to do? 

So, there should be opportunities in the free market for folks to 

sell their labor to who they want, when they want. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Just very briefly, Dr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. And, again, that is something that we do not take 

a position on—— 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

I am going to come back, and we have a fifth point, but on the 

next round, I want to come back to the fifth point and ask for your 

reaction to that one related to E-Verify. Thanks. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON [presiding.] Thanks, Senator Carper. 

I think it is a reality that the more we have secured the border, 

the more we have locked in here and we have reduced that circularity. 

I am by no means an expert in the Bracero program. Anybody 

here able to speak to that? Mr. Rosenblum. So, what I have done 

in the past, and let me do it real quick, we have a history of passing laws that are going to fix these problems. They do not fix the 

problem. So, I have been starting in the 1986 Immigration Reform 

and Control Act, and we had about 3.9 million illegal immigrants. 

Then, the 1990 Immigration Act, about 3.5 million. In 1996, another act, 6.2 million. In 2001, part of the PATRIOT Act, 9.6 million. In 2002, we are up to 10.2 million people. In 2004, a piece of 

legislation, we are up to 11 million. The Secure Fence Act of 2006, 

11.7 million. It just has not worked, and that is kind of my concern. 

So, talk to me—when we had the Bracero program, I do not 

think we had good, accurate information in terms of how many people might have been in this country illegally, but it is, by the way, 

a rational economic choice for people to come from Central America 

and Mexico. With that kind of wage differential, I mean, you can 

literally come up here, work agriculture for 2 or 3 months, earn a 

year’s worth of salary, and go home, as long as they can go back 

and forth. So, just talk a little bit about how the Bracero program 

worked and why it was ended. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Well, so the Bracero program was a very large, 

mostly—eventually all-agricultural guest-worker program. At its 

peak, it admitted about 450,000 Mexican temporary workers a 

year. It did succeed in, for the most part, most Mexican immigrants 

working in the United States during the program worked in the 

program. There was certainly some leakage. Some people left and 

became unauthorized immigrants, but I think the view is that a lot 

of people moved back and forth—it was a circular program—the 

way it was intended. 

I think the program was very criticized on the left because, although it had wage and working condition guarantees, they were 

not enforced, and this is an issue that will matter in any new or 

expanded temporary worker program we have today. I mean, to say 

you are going to have wage and hour guarantees and working con-
804 

ditions guarantees does not mean very much if they are not going 

to be enforced. And, when you look at the—so, just to give one 

quick statistic, between 2009 and 2013, there were 251,000 H–2B 

visas issued and 60 H–2B employers investigated. So, just to put 

wage and hour requirements on paper does not mean they will be 

enforced, and so that was what the real critique of the Bracero program was—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I would argue, just passing a law does not 

necessarily mean we are going to fix the program. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, Mr. Johnson, I hate to pick on you, 

but, again, I just kind of want to go back, because I hear it all of 

the time, if we just would have passed the Senate comprehensive 

immigration bill, literally, everything would be coming up roses 

and we would have fixed this problem. 

I just want to go back to, from my standpoint, why this just was 

not going to work. So, you have 8.1 million undocumented workers 

in this country. The Senate bill called for 90 percent control of the 

border, basically, when we have heard testimony, again, it is 

maybe only 30 or 40 percent, maximum 75 percent. We have heard 

other things. We have 40 to 50 percent. Nobody knows. That is the 

problem. Nobody knows. 

So, we have a guest worker program, a number of guest worker 

programs, just quick off the top of my head, maybe allowing a halfa-million workers of the 8.1 million. So, that is 7.5 million workers. 

What is happening to those folks? I mean, how was this ever possibly going to work? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Senator—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, again, I will stipulate, I realize it was 

a negotiated bill, but I am just trying to get to the point, this was 

not a panacea. This was not the solution to the problem. Trying to 

find solutions, I am afraid I have to highlight that reality so that 

we do not delude ourselves saying, all we had to do was pass that 

bill and we would have fixed it. We would not have fixed it. Unless 

I am wrong. Tell me where I am wrong. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Senator, I worked 10 years in the House as a 

staffer. I would never call what came out of the Senate a perfect 

bill, just as a matter of principle. [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, again, would it have any chance of 

working even slightly? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We always thought there would be changes in the 

House and we always told our negotiators in the House, let us do 

something different and let us meet in conference. So, we knew 

there had to be improvements along the road. 

The Senate bill was—yes, I know you do not want me to say it 

to you—it was a matter of compromise, but it got us down the road. 

And, no, it would not have worked perfectly. There is no perfect 

mousetrap, but at least it would have gotten—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. What would have happened to the 7.5 million people in this program? I mean, what would have happened? 

Do you really—when do you think—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, no—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. When do you think it would have changed 

from 90 percent—— 
805 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think you are missing the—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. Over the border? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The 7.5 million, who I think you are referring to, 

are the undocumented who are here. 

Chairman JOHNSON. They are working right now—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. The bill is—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. No, they would—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. Calling for about a half-a-million, but again, you would not—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right, they would—— 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. None of those things would 

kick in until we had 90 percent effective control of the border, 

which I am seeing as kind of a tough thing to do in any short time 

period. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I think how you would have defined effective 

or not would—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, I think the definition—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. The problem of triggers, actually, because triggers 

are no good unless you can define what the trigger is, because then 

you would never trigger the trigger, and that was an issue of definition that, I think, would have needed some more work—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I guess my point—we had a real timing 

problem here. 

Mr. JOHNSON. But they would have been put on a sort of probationary status that would have allowed them to work. However, 

they could not become citizens, at the earliest, within 13 years. So, 

during that probationary period, they would have been tested out, 

had to keep their nose clean, keep a job. If they lost their job, I 

think, 60 days, they would have been deported. So, there was a 

process. That was different than the process we created for the 

temporary-worker programs. 

In past bills, I think the McCain-Kennedy bill, we actually had 

a system by which the undocumented would move through the expanded temporary-worker programs. We did not do that this time— 

not we—you guys did not do that this time around. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I was not—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. You were not. So, in those cases—but, in the Senate bill, the legalization problem was separate from the temporaryworker program issue, which was the AFL-Chamber deal, than the 

undocumented. 

Senator, the Senate bill was not perfect. There is no perfect 

mousetrap. It could have used some work. We would have done 

that if we had been able to get to conference and I think we could 

have gotten a decent bill out of a conference. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Does anybody else want to speak to 

that? Mr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. It seems to me you are talking about two different 

things. One is the stock of people who are here and the other is 

the new flows of people who are coming. The stock of people who 

are here is this 8.1 million workers, and what gets done with them 

is up for discussion. 

The question is, what about the new flows of people, and what 

we have seen. If you look back at the periods you were talking 
806 

about in—oh, right around the first 5 years of this century, there 

were on the order of 800,000 new unauthorized immigrants coming 

into the country every year with, based on the data we have, 

500,000 to 600,000 of them were coming into jobs. 

For Mexico, the peak flows of people were around 2000, when 

over 700,000 Mexicans came to the United States. Almost 80 percent of them came as unauthorized immigrants. 

What we are seeing now in the case of Mexico is 150,000 people 

coming every year, and 80 percent of them are coming as legal immigrants. So, the number of folks that are coming ever year as unauthorized immigrants is down to maybe a third of what it was at 

its peak. We are talking about maybe 200,000 or so. And, roughly 

that many are leaving each year. So, that is why the numbers of 

unauthorized immigrants are constant. 

So, I do not know what sorts of programs might work or might 

not work, but the current flows of people who are coming as unauthorized immigrants are much smaller than they were 10 15 years 

ago. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, thank you. I really do not have 

any further questions. 

Did you want to ask a couple more questions, or—OK. Go ahead. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, we are drilling down 

on five recommendations made by, or characteristics or qualities 

that Dr. Zavodny suggested should be used and kept in mind as we 

design a guest worker program, if you will. 

The last one we got to, it says—I will just read it. It says, your 

words, Dr. Zavodny, more interior enforcement, particularly at 

workplaces, is vital to the success of a guest worker program. Requiring all employers to use E-Verify would help choke off the jobs 

magnet that attracts most unauthorized immigrants. That is what 

you said, and are you going to stick to that? 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Dr. Rosenblum, would you respond? 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. Sure. So, let me make two points. One, more 

worksite enforcement is essential. It cannot just be E-Verify, as Dr. 

Zavodny also testified. What we have seen in E-Verify States is 

more off-the-books employment. So, E-Verify does not prevent offthe-books employment. It does not prevent identity fraud, either, so 

you have to have physical inspections at work sites to check and 

see if people are actually unauthorized and to check and see that 

they are actually enforcing whatever wage guarantees are in there, 

because those are the two huge problems that we are not upholding 

the provisions that are written into law. 

And, just one other point, if I could quickly make. There is this 

mantra of, well, it should be market driven, and free markets, we 

all love free markets. But, what we are talking about, making a 

free-market, temporary-worker program, is expanding labor and 

not changing business. So, to just open it up and make it free-market does not help U.S. workers. You have to open it up and make 

it free-market and include protections for U.S. workers. So, that 

can either be through a higher fee or through some kind of elaborate non-market recruitment mechanism. So, to just make it freemarket, what that does is undermines the positions of U.S. workers, unless you also build in protections. 
807 

Senator CARPER. Thank you for making that point. 

Mr. Johnson, what do you think—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Marc is putting out a lot of things there. First of 

all, the free market is a misused term here. There are many protections laden throughout existing temporary-worker programs. There 

are many protections we put into the AFL-Chamber deal, and there 

would be many protections in any new temporary-worker program. 

So, the free-market or market-driven is a little bit of a misnomer 

here, including paying exactly what you are paying U.S. workers 

to the immigrant workers, or prevailing wage, which could actually 

be slightly higher. If the community, if the wage is higher, the immigrant worker in some cases would be paid more. The unions like 

that because it deters so-called hiring. There would not be recruitment from the domestic labor. There are a lot of protections that 

would be interlaid in any of these kinds of programs. 

With regard to enforcement, my members comply with the law 

as long as they can understand it. It is obviously not always clear. 

But they are concerned about over-zealous regulators coming in on 

workplace raids, on fishing expeditions. And, as long as there is 

some kind of deterrent built into these kinds of negotiations that 

make sure that what the government is doing, they do it carefully, 

and when they overstep their bounds, there is some kind of penalty 

for doing that, we are all in. But, just adding more Wage and Hour 

Inspectors to the Department of Labor or whatever because it feels 

good, because there is a suspicion employers are out there violating 

the law, is not going to pass muster with us. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Mr. Garza. 

Mr. GARZA. I would agree with Mr. Johnson, and this is where 

the Libertarian in me comes out, that we resist further excessive 

enforcement in the private sector. I think we have enough bureaucrats. We have enough laws. Fines are good enough. Any addition 

to that, I think, would have to be resisted if not completely looked 

at. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Passel. 

Mr. PASSEL. Again, I have no position on this. 

Senator CARPER. OK. We have several million people in the country who are looking for work. Our congressional delegation has 

hosted over the last several years job fairs up and down our State, 

and we just did our latest one in the central part of our State on 

Monday. We had, I think, oh, maybe 40 or more employers who 

came. We had close to 500 people who came looking for work. I 

made some brief remarks to the people that were there as we 

kicked it off with Senator Coons and with Congressman John Carney. 

There are several million people who are looking for work, and 

some of them—a bunch of them are long-time unemployed. And, as 

we all know, there are several millions of jobs that need to be filled 

and we do not have—the employers have a tough time finding the 

skills. So, a lot of the folks who are here looking for work, a lot 

of jobs that we hear need people, there is a mismatch in the skills. 

And so, part of what a guest-worker program would be able to 

do is help better fill those jobs. Meanwhile, we still have all these 

people over here who need work and they need to be productive 

and making contributions in our society. 
808 

So, part of what we had at our job fair were University of Delaware, Delaware State University, Delaware Technical Community 

College, Wilmington University, and other job programs, training 

programs for folks, including those who work with our GIs coming 

back and who have a great, robust G.I. Bill, as you know. 

But, I also have concerns, and some of you voiced these, as well, 

about sometimes you have employers who do not play by the rules 

and who do not—they hire folks they know that they are illegal 

and they hire them and they do not pay them well, they do not 

treat them well. And, sometimes, you have folks who are over here 

in the couple million people looking for work, they want to work 

desperately. They want to work desperately, and they are just fearful that somebody else is going to come in from another country 

and maybe work as hard as the person desperate for work here. 

How do we, on the one hand, try to be fair to the American or 

the Americans who are desperate for work, looking for work, maybe 

do not have the skill sets, but maybe they are in the wrong State. 

Maybe they just do not live in the right part of our country. What 

do we do about them? How do we sort of protect their interest, if 

you will? And, Dr. Zavodny, if you have any thoughts on that, I 

would welcome them. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. Sure. 

Senator CARPER. I just put my—I am the Golden Rule guy—I 

think we all are—and how do I want to be treated if I were in their 

shoes? That is the question I am sort of asking here. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. The long-term unemployed are certainly a concern, 

that as the economy has begun growing again and the unemployment rate is falling, we do have a pool of people who are going to 

have a difficult time finding a job, and some of them have exited 

the labor force completely and we would like them to come back 

into the labor force and be able to make the economic contribution 

that they can and that they want to, certainly. 

So, what I would think is the best solution here, as Marc 

Rosenblum has mentioned, is to have fees for visas and use those 

fees for training programs that would operate probably through 

community colleges. We have an excellent system of community 

colleges in the United States that work with local businesses and 

local workforce development agencies to ensure that workers in the 

community develop the skills that businesses in the community 

want, and I think that that is the best solution that we could come 

up with. 

I do not think it is ever going to be perfect. Not everyone who 

wants a job is going to have one at every point in time. But, cutting 

off immigration is not the way to help unemployed natives find 

jobs. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Others, please. Just briefly. Dr. 

Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I mean, yes, obviously, I agree with Madeline 

since she agrees with me—— [Laughter.] 

But, to have more programs to help U.S. workers with training 

and things like that would be very important. I just also observe 

that, there are, as Randy points out, there are all kinds of provisions in the existing H–2 programs that try to put U.S. workers 

first in line, but those are not well designed, and the reason is that 
809 

employers want to make their own hiring decisions. But, the two 

audits that we have of those programs found that in 1998, just 0.05 

percent of people who applied to the certification process ended up 

hiring a U.S. worker, and in 2003, just 2 percent. 

So, those programs are not the answer, so we need some other 

answer, and I think using fees to fund better retraining and job 

placement is a better answer. And then, you do let the employers 

make their own decisions and you put the U.S. workers in a better 

position to compete for those jobs. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Let me step in here, because we are going 

to start having votes and I want to wrap up. I do want to give everybody a chance to summarize if you have a final quick thought. 

I will make a comment, though. We have a lot of job-training 

programs. I would check the effectiveness of those, as well, on the 

Federal level. We spend a lot of money. 

I do have two questions, either in your closing statements or before that, I would like you to respond to. One of the points I was 

making when I was talking about trying to incorporate a guest 

worker program would be something where the States have far 

greater participation in it. Let the States set the number of guest 

workers for their State in their different industries. Let them set 

the prevailing wage rates. I mean, I would kind of like anybody 

who would want to comment on that, quickly. 

And, then, the other one. I did talk about the hearing they had 

in the Judiciary Committee, I think it was last week. It was pretty 

powerful testimony running totally counter to what we are talking 

about here in terms of guest workers. And again, I would like 

somebody on this panel providing some kind of rebuttal, if you can. 

But, I will leave that, and then we will just go down the line and 

let everybody have a closing thought. Does anybody want to respond to those first two points? Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, Senator, first of all, on the State idea, I 

mean, because you would have to authorize the States to do that, 

I think that because labor markets on one hand, labor markets are 

not as national as we like to pretend they are. Employers have to 

recruit from certain pockets of workers, though it depends on the 

kind of job they are recruiting for. But, I think State boundaries 

might be too—I am just throwing this out—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sure. 

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. An artificial boundary for setting 

shortages, because workers, of course, can cross State lines, et 

cetera—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Yes, but the employer is confined to a State, 

potentially, but—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right, but Metropolitan Statistical Areas, depending on the certain kind of jobs, I mean, it is an interesting idea. 

I would say defining shortages, again, by occupation is a difficult 

conundrum which lots of experts quote-unquote, will disagree on 

how you do that, as distinguished from a more market-driven employer-based system, which is not sort of artificially driven by 

quotas set by the government. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, again, I would hope that those industries would be inputting the system on a State basis rather 

than inputting to a national model, national number. 
810 

Does anybody else want to comment on that or speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee—— 

Mr. GARZA. I like the idea of Federalism. Anything that decentralizes decision-making from Washington and gets it closer to the 

private sector when it comes to responding to market forces in real 

time, we would be open to that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Does anybody want to—yes. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. As much as I think States’ rights are important, 

Federalism is good, I do not think it works here with a guest-worker program because you want the portability, the ability of workers 

to move to better jobs. And, if you restrict them to remaining in 

the State that brought them in—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. It would be a problem. 

Ms. ZAVODNY [continuing]. Then they cannot do that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Senator, I would, with regard to the Senate hearing in the Judiciary, we did submit a lengthy statement on that. 

I am sure Senator Grassley and Senator Sessions will probably disagree, but frankly, the witnesses were not—it was not a balanced 

panel. Had the panel been more balanced, there would have been 

more people talking about the shortages of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workers and what employers do now 

to try and recruit in the domestic labor force before they use the 

H–1B program. So, I do not think it was a fair and balanced hearing with regard to what is really going on out there in the real 

world under the H–1B program. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, I would appreciate information that 

would be the—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Good. 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. Bring the fair and balance to 

that, because, again, I am trying to determine the reality of the situation. 

We will start with Mr. Passel there, and if you have a quick closing thought here. 

Mr. PASSEL. I think we are at a very interesting time. We have 

seen the numbers drop and then we have seen the numbers level 

off in recent years. The driver of the growth in the unauthorized 

population over the last 30 years has been in Mexico, and right 

now, the number of unauthorized Mexicans in the United States is 

continuing to go down, meaning that more are leaving than are 

coming. And, we have gone through a period here of about 6 or 7 

years where what seems to have happened in Mexico is that the 

United States is not viewed as the primary outlet for labor. Also, 

Mexico as a result of falling birthrates, does not have the population surpluses that it used to have. 

So, the dynamic going forward could be quite different, especially 

with regard to Mexico and the Southern Border, so that, yes, apprehensions at the Southern Border went up in the last year, but 

the apprehensions of Mexicans actually went down. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Right. So, that speaks to the supply and demand—— 

Mr. PASSEL. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. Equation changing. Mr. Garza. 
811 

Mr. GARZA. I would say that in the absence of a reform that 

would put people on a path to citizenship, we feel that a work visa 

program is a viable alternative that would offer a predictable legal 

and needed workforce necessary to meet our Nation’s labor demand. Immigrants seeking opportunity, willing to work hard, and 

make sacrifices for their children to improve their lot in life, that 

is the American dream. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Ms. Zavodny. 

Ms. ZAVODNY. We are never going to have any unauthorized immigrants, and if we do, I do not want to live here, because what 

would that mean? It would mean we had a horrible economy and 

we had no civil liberties, right? 

And so, the goal really needs to be to minimize or at least reduce 

unauthorized immigration substantially, and the best way you are 

going to do that is to have a viable guest-worker program, in addition to the interior enforcement. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I agree with Madeline on that. Senator, I 

agree with Madeline on that, and it is a two-prong combination of 

expanded temporary-worker programs and a sensible pathway to 

legalization. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Mr. Rosenblum. 

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I would echo those comments and observe that 

we really have made extraordinary investments at the border and 

in the interior on the enforcement side. And, to go to your point, 

Mr. Chairman, about sequencing and triggers, I mean, in terms of 

sequencing, we have done a lot of enforcement first, and the way 

we are going to get a bigger return on those investments is by addressing these demand-side issues. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Well, again, thank you all for all of the 

hard work that went into your testimony and your thoughtful answers to our questions. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until April 10 

at 5 p.m., for submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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