>> former homeland security department officials from the trump administration including former acting secretary chad wolf testified on migration at the southern border on related issues including migrant exploitation and trafficking, asylum and legal migration, and stopping fentanyl at ports of entry. the committee is three hours. >> committee on foreign affairs will come to order. purpose of this hearing is to

examine prior successful policies aimed at addressing the international migration crisis at the southern border and the effects of the biden administration decision to terminate those policies. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. in my 20 years in congress, including when i was chairman of the homeland security committee, and as a former federal prosecutor, in texas, our task was securing our border. i've never seen our border this chaotic. simply put, the border is broken. what we are witnessing today is unprecedented. in total, since president biden took office, we've had more than 7.5 million encounters at the southern border. this is the population of nine states combined. this includes 7000 special interest aliens and nearly 300

apprehensions of individuals on the terror watch list compared to 14 under the previous administration. the security risks to our country are real and our adversaries around the world are capitalizing on our open border policies. it only took 19 terrorists to perpetrate 9/11 as the fbi testified before the homeland security committee just two weeks ago. this crisis is a self-inflicted wound and a direct result of this administration's policies. upon taking office, the biden it illustration rescinded the migrant protection protocols also known as remain in mexico. under the protocol, migrants were removed to mexico while asylum claims were adjudicated in the united states. now, without it, they are released under a fail, catch

and release program. this graph shows the ports of entry in which mpp was instituted. yet, one stroke of the pen ended that. it ended mpp. one of the first days of office is what the biden administration did was to rescind this policy that was working and it allowed the chaos that we see now at the border to reach historical levels. as someone who is both a federal prosecutor, chairman of homeland and now this committee, every major port of entry is covered under this program. yet, one rescission, one stroke of the pen, ended this successful program and allowed this chaos at the border to reach these levels, historic levels. so in my many meetings with order patrol agents at the border, and i've been there

many times, they tell me very bluntly, when i say, was there cause and effect, they say, yes, sir, yes, mr. chairman. they tell me very bluntly the rescission of this policy had a direct cause and effect on the chaos at the border. the sad thing is, we had the policies and they were working, over 25 years were spent on this and i never thought we would actually see it fixed. the sad thing is, we had it fixed and now it's absolutely devastating. we need to turn off the pull factor, the magnet driving this that will also shutdown the cartels. mpp did that. under mpp, u.s. apprehensions of migrants at the southern border fell by 62% from may, 2019 to august 2019. imagine that, a 62% decrease from just may to august in one

year. that also, importantly, financially crippled and to their knees, the cartels who were profiting off human trafficking and other illicit activities that we know now, they are making upwards of billions of dollars. additionally, asylum cooperative agreements were integral to stemming the tide of illegal aliens. they required asylum-seekers to apply for asylum upon arrival in the first country. by allowing aliens to enter the interior of this country freely, we are signaling to them, come on in, we are open for business, the border is wide open and we all know when they get in we don't have the space and guess what? the very first bill i introduced in congress 20 years ago was to go

and catch and release. here we are today, 20 years later, back to the policies that have failed our country and the american people. catch and release. and what will happen to these 7.5 million encounters? many of whom are in the country now with no legal status, living in the shadows? i will tell you what's going to happen. the young girls are going to be trafficked. the young males will go to ms- 13. they will be paying the cartels off. they will be involved in drug trafficking. and we've already seen this. they are going to be forced into gangs and labor rings. over 2000 migrants and counting have died trying to make the dangerous journey across the border in the last three fiscal years. and 35% were women and children who were sexually abused throughout their journey at the hands of these brutal cartel members. it was just reported that there

are rape tense and the daring gap that leads into from south america to mexico. 400 women and children have been brutalized and raped and when they get here, what happens? we see 30 children being sent to the same house. sponsors, family members sponsoring 30 children to the same house. that cannot be a familial thing. they are brought there for one purpose. for money. for human trafficking. and to exploit them, sexually. sadly, they have not even been vetted in many cases, because our secretary, mr. mayorkas, lifted those restrictions. this is turning into a major human trafficking event. the biggest i've seen in my lifetime. and it's right here in the united states. and it's only going to get

worse if we don't change the policies back to what worked. this administration has created a criminal enterprise right now in the united states of america that will have ramifications for years to come. and, tragically, most tragically, over the last two years, nearly 150,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning. i've had five children, just their high school alone, they've been to five funerals. five funerals. tell that to the parents they took what they thought was a.d.d. or xanax and they never woke up. that number is nearly triple the number of american deaths due to the entire duration of the entire vietnam war.

and we only expect these deaths to continue and get worse. i've always said the borders are our last line of defense. as we look at this national security bill that we are working on, and i agree with it, what are the major threats to the united states? there is putin in europe, chairman she, pacific. -- middle east what he's doing right now with hamas and israel and the last line of defense is our southern border. and we have no defense. i've always said we need to push our borders out. push the borders out. stop playing defense one-yard from our goal line. push it out to their end zone and that is what mpp did. that's what remain in mexico did and regrettably, i believe this administration has been derelict in its duty and its responsibility to protect the american people. put simply, the president, and

secretary mayorkas are aiding and abetting this crisis at our southern border and i told them so in our hearing at the homeland security committee aiding and abetting under the federal statute, human trafficking, hundreds of thousands of deaths. fentanyl poisoning. as i said, i've been dealing with this issue for almost three decades. i thought we had it solved. i really did. and i could go on, home, finally to my constituents and say, you know what? we got it done. well, guess what? this administration, this administration, by abandoning policies that worked, have royally messed it up. and, in my -- am i a little

emotional about this? you are darn right. when i go home to texas and talk to my constituents, they are angry and i am their only voice up here, but my voice reflects their voice of their anger that is happening. my state has been the brunt -- on the brunt of this. billions of dollars of costs to the people of the state of texas and my state legislature appropriating all this money when it's really a federal responsibility. i think it's well past time to get back to what worked. i don't care -- i told my organization, i don't care what you call this, i know you are doing this because of the prior administration but you know it worked. call what you want but let's get back to what worked for the american people. i hope that in this national security package we are working on, we finally have a chance to get order security back front and center and i hope we can get it done. i've talked to the ranking member. he is open. i've talked to the secretary of state. i believe they are finally opening their eyes to getting back to what worked so well.

but as reagan said, trust is verified. we will see. we will see. elections have consequences. this one had a really grave consequence. and i believe that if we don't get this thing back on track we are going to have another consequence in the next election, because the american people who are set up with this are sick and tired of having borders that are not secure and it is within the jurisdiction of this committee, while homeland that i chaired had many, this committee has jurisdiction over the principle that worked the greatest and that is the migrant protection protocols and remain in mexico. that is why we marked that up out of this committee am a we passed it out of committee and we put that provision in hr too, which was the house

republicans border security bill that now we are trying to get on the national security aid package, as i talked to the senators on the other side of this congress to work to get this in and when i talked to them, please put this provision in because this is the driving thing. this is the thing that really made the difference. we can put up all the stuff we went down there, barbed wire and all that stuff, but if we don't change the asylum policies, like this, we are not going to get to the root cause of the problem. i want to thank the witnesses for being here today, particularly jean hamilton who, if y'all don't know, was the architect of this program. he worked at department of homeland security and he worked at doj where i worked for many years. chad wolf, as you all know is the former secretary of homeland security implemented this policy and adam, sir, thank you for being here to

give -- i appreciate the human rights perspective here and we have some ideas of how to deal with that as well and i know the tent cities was an issue but, i think detention space, adequate, that is humane, is one consideration we should be looking at but i want to thank the members who are here because we have a vigorous and honest debate about this about what's best for the american people and i want to thank the witnesses and i would normally turn to the ranking member. he is on the floor with my $6 million being sanction from going into iran. he's a little busy right now but with that, i will now turn to the witnesses for their testimony and when mr. meek shows up we will give him a minute to give him an opening statement but acting secretary of homeland currently serving as chief strategy officer and chair of america first policy

institute. mr. jean hamilton serves as counselor to the attorney general. senior counselor to the secretary of homeland and is currently vice president and general counsel of america first legal and mr. adam is director of defense oversight at the washington office of latin america. i want to thank you all for being here and i want to recognize mr. wolf for his testimony. >> german mccaul, ranking member, meeks, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the border about the ongoing crisis at the border. as someone who previously led the department of security, i can say without any doubt or equivocation that the security and the integrity of our southern border is the worst that we have seen since 9/11. and it is the direct result of intentional and ineffective border strategy by the biden administration. it is no coincidence that the three fiscal years that correspond with this administration are the three

worst fiscal years of illegal alien border apprehensions ever recorded area today, there are no deterrence policies in place and no consequences for violating our immigration laws. this administration has been three years prioritizing the processing of illegal aliens and releasing them into american communities and has refused time and time again to change their strategy. as a result, approximately 9.6 million illegal aliens have entered the u.s. in the last several years. a population that would make it the 11th largest state. the security concerns at this level of unchecked immigration cannot be overstated. today we know of a record number of known and suspected terrorists, special-interest aliens and other public safety and national security threats attempting to cross the border daily and those are the ones that we know about. there's another 1.8 million known got a ways that should concern every member of this committee and every american.

clearly, today's border security system is unrecognizable from the america first border security policies of the trump administration. and in all candor, the biden administration is the first administration in my lifetime of either political party to actively take steps to diminish the security along our southern border. one such example is the determination of the highly successful migrant protection protocols to remain in mexico. in 2008 and 2019 -- 2018, 2019. the administration was confronted with caravans of illegal aliens approaching the border including family units from the northern triangle countries, surging to the border and making fraudulent asylum claims in the hopes that they would be released into american communities. misguided court rulings limited the time we to detain those family units given that there were across the board -- making fraudulent claims. unwilling to perpetuate the

destructive catch and release policy dhs worked in tandem with the department of justice, the state, and the white house to find solutions grounded in the rule of law. what we found was previously untapped legal authority and immigration and naturalization at -- act that -- at the border to wait in mexico for the duration of their immigration court proceedings. establishing mpp was not easy but with president trump's leadership, the mexican government worked with us to get the program started in january 2019 at three locations across the border and agreed to implement mpp to the fullest extent authorized under u.s. law. the goals of the program were simple, to provide asylum protections quickly to those who truly qualified. quickly return aliens who lacked a valid claim and to discouraged future asylum fraud and the results speak for themselves. aliens enrolled in mpp who qualified for asylum received those protections in a matter of months instead of years. over the course of mpp, around

77,000 aliens were returned to mexico. those whose claims were denied returned home and many others abandoned their fraudulent claims and by the end of fy '19 there was an 80% reduction in border apprehensions of northern triangle family units which was the main driver in the 2018 border crisis. mpp was the recognition also of mexico's joint responsibility of illegal immigration in the region and while mexican officials were not enthusiastic about the program initially, they quickly realized and recognized that the benefits of reducing the illegal flow through mexico, and in addition we worked with mexican officials to deploy over 20,000 mexican soldiers and national guard to both the southern and northern borders to curb the flow and push them to severely curtail the use of freight trains by migrants to come to the southern border area and in stark contrast, today we see a border in chaos and crisis because this administration refuses to impose consequences and does not demand the same level of cooperation from the government of mexico.

this administration consistently points out that major u.s. immigration law has not changed since the mid- 1990s. they are correct that the laws have not changed between administrations just the refusal of the current one to follow their legal obligations. the mpp authority is just one of many examples of enforcement tools on the books that the current administration refuses to use. today's historic border crisis is a policy crisis not a funding crisis, proven effective policies -- border patrol officials are not being implemented and it is by design. simply throwing more funding at the problem will never solve the issue. rather, we should use common sense and return to policies and programs like mpp that have proven successful and legal to secure the border. thank you and i look forward to answering your questions. >> mr. hamilton for his opening statement. >> thank you, german mccaul, ranking member, meeks, and all members of this meeting for this important hearing. the biden administration knows

using tools like mpp and asylum cooperative agreements and other effective uses of the laws that congress has provided would end the crisis at the border. they know it because it's been done before. they did it under the leadership of president trump. but they do not appear to desire an answer to the self- inflicted crisis for a variety of reasons. including their failure to acknowledge the basic fact that releasing illegal aliens into the united states results in more illegal aliens coming. sadly for the american people and our republic, the biden administration's intentional sabotaging of our immigration system and defamation of our borders is not just some experiment in an ivory tower with no consequence. we cannot capture the true extent of the long-term effects of the biden administration's decision with presently available data. but, by all available measures,

they can be described in two words. catastrophic failure. indeed, southwest border encounters are at record highs. there have been more than 6.5 million encounters at the southwest border during the biden administration. and there are no signs of stopping. in fact, internal dhs sources indicate that the number of encounters this month in november will accede 240,000. those numbers do not, of course, include the number of got a ways which are in the millions over the last three years. dhs is releasing the overwhelming majority of the illegal aliens it encounters at the southwest border. as of march, 2023, there were 2.4 million illegal aliens that dhs had released during the biden administration who were still here today.

nationwide encounters are at record highs. there have been roughly 7.86 million nationwide encounters since february of 2021. most significantly, that number includes the biden administration's abuse of the parole tower, through programs like the ch mv which brings in an additional 30,000 aliens into the united states every single month. the abuse of the parole tower is essentially a shell game which allows the administration to claim that it's reducing the number of illegal crossings at the border when in actuality, their policies are making it worse. this shell game is apparent throughout their policies across the administration as reflected in their counting of cases they terminate or dismiss as completed cases at eo ir. deportations are statistically

nonexistent. at the same time, cbp is releasing millions of illegal aliens into the united states, ice is not deporting anyone. in short, there is no credible threat of deportation for these millions of illegal aliens that the biden administration is releasing into the united states. the consequences of these radical policies are significant. the united states cannot possibly vet and screen millions of illegal aliens pouring across our borders into the united states. anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or they sincerely believe wrongly that the absence of derogatory information in our databases is the equivalent of a determination that an individual does not threaten the safety and security of the american people.

it's a practical, factual, and legal impossibility. aside from the harmful consequences this situation creates for the american people, our adversaries are undoubtedly taking advantage of this situation. further, and particularly time in -- timely given saturday's anniversary of the announcement of the monroe doctrine. these policies exacerbate existing international problems. they create increasing regional and global instability. so long as the young people and prime working age populations of countries believe they can illegally enter and be released into the united states to work for with or without formal authorization, they will continue to attempt to do so. consequently, they will not be in their home countries to create businesses, to create economic and political stability, and improve conditions in their home countries. and so, instead, their home countries can and will increasingly rely on predatory lending and investment from china for economic development

which further bolsters authoritarian governments and destabilizes local populations. this perpetuates an endless cycle of economic and political failure that nefarious state and nonstate actors can and will exploit. if we desire increased ability in and influence over the western hemisphere, we should start by enforcing our immigration laws. the situation is dire and the consequences are significant. the only question is what we do about it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. hamilton. the chair now recognizes mr. isaacson for his opening statement. >> german mccaul, ranking member meeks, thank you for holding this hearing and inviting me to participate. you are holding it at an important time. we are seeing the most migration since world war ii and not just here but in the whole hemisphere. the agency estimates right now in the western hemisphere there

are more than 22 million people on the move and of those, maybe 3 million try to come to the united states in 2023 and many were deported. the united states is getting less than 1/7 of the regional total. many people are seeking asylum. that population started increasing 10 years ago. we've been seeing it for a while but either the united states nor most countries around the region have adjusted to it. that's why so much migration looks chaotic right now. adjusting to and managing asylum seeker flows is an administrative problem. it's solvable. it's about throughput and due process but we don't solve it by abandoning a core value of preserving human life. its value solidified after world war ii. it's in our laws. it says if someone on our soil says they fear for their life or freedom if returned to their country, you at least have to give them due process before deporting them and allow them to stay if they prove that fear is real.

due process is key. if we improved it we would see fewer asylum-seekers than we do now because they wouldn't be here so long. due process means not having to wait years for your immigration court hearings to start. that is the piece right now because we have 659 immigration court struggling to hear 2.2 million cases. many of them asylum cases. the weight inside the united states does become a factor but we can fix that but we don't fix it through deterrence. people who fear for their lives aren't going to stop coming here. you've seen the video of people crawling through the barbed wire. they're not going to stop coming just because the experience is miserable. that's never worked and if you look at the data over the last 20 years, it shows that. instead, there's not really much time to talk about it right now but we need more processing on the line too. if we had more processing coordinators, weights would less. there would be greater efficiencies and we would have freed up a lot more water patrol agents and cbt officers. but in fact, asylum shouldn't be the center here. it's pretty terrible that people need to travel overland for hundreds or thousands of miles. very dangerous miles, just to set foot on u.s. soil and ask for protection.

this year i've spent two weeks each in honduras and columbia. i've seen entire families with tiny kids, some with strollers getting on boats to go walk through the dottie and gap. i find myself talking to people from pakistan, fleeing religious persecution in dusty border towns on the honduras, nicaragua border. i've watched people from china fleeing authoritarianism across the border from ecuador into columbia online with me with no idea what awaits them. that's awful. asylum really should be a last resort for people who need protection and we have to make the journey unnecessary. there need to be other pathways. until we can change our 1990s laws, the presidential humanitarian authority is not ideal but it's one of the handful of existing options and u.s. diplomacy -- have to work with people who need to migrant feel welcome and prosper in other countries throughout the region. that's a key element of the 2022 los angeles declaration on migration and protection and it's a key element of a lot of u.s. aid since 2021 and some aid has gone to target the root causes of why people are migrating today.

security, education, poverty reduction. especially fostering democracy and getting squarely on the side of people fighting corruption and defending human rights. people don't flee countries that have responsive, accountable governments. when i talk about helping other countries do more to integrate migrants, you might say, isn't that making them remain in mexico? no, it's not. instead of letting people assimilate and start a new life in a safer part of mexico, remain in mexico sends people to some of mexico's most violent cities. homeless, separated from support networks. more than 5000 of them that we know of were kidnapped, killed, raped, or assaulted and monitoring stopped after the covid pandemic began. when i visited during the second half of 2019 i talk to family stuck in shelters that were not set up for month-long family stays. the shelters were always on the edges of town were criminal groups operated freely and intimidated them. the workers showed me the area near the port of entry gate

where kidnappers were waiting many days for the mpp arrivals to come so they could grab them. yet, still, people persisted with their u.s. asylum cases because they had genuine fear. remain in mexico took people who are already victims and re- victimized them and we can go back to doing that and even if we tried to, it's not clear whether mexico would go along with it. even during trump years, remain in mexico was 70,000 people. that is just a fraction of the flow today. and ultimately we have to remember that title 42 started in march, 2020, before remain in mexico had been around for a year. and remain in mexico certainly made asylums harder to reach but that was little league compared to what title 42 did but during title 42 years, the numbers went up. in closing i know we disagree on policies like remain in mexico and some of those disagreements are philosophical and values-based but we all agree that the current system is failing badly. we require one that is

pragmatic but humane and thank you. i look forward to discussing more. >> thank you. i agree with you that the current system is not working and i appreciate your candor on that and i agree with mr. hamilton that, what happened to the monroe doctrine? and as you stated, sir, with all of the -- when i was growing up, this was coming from mexico, primarily. now, even if there were a handful of special-interest aliens or a handful on the terror watch list, that was a big event and our member secretary jeh johnson and i talking about it, who are these people. but now you have 7000 special- interest aliens and almost 300 on the terror watch list. those numbers alarm and concern me. to mr. hamilton, you were the one -- the legal architect for the migrant protection protocol program, remain in mexico working both at the department of homeland security and later, my old alma mater, the

department of justice. what i was interested in -- this is not some new law. a lot of people think this is some sort of novel approach by the trump administration when, in fact, the law had been on the books for nearly 30 years and that is under the ina, 235, section b to c. the federal statute. can you explain to the members? you are taking a 30-year-old federal statute and implementing that statute to achieve security at the border. can you explain how you did that? >> thank you, mr. chairman. you make an important point because precisely that. it authorizes a program that we know as remain in mexico/mpp. that was part of a broad package of enforcement tools that congress provided in 1996

in ira ira. there was a whole host of tools that congress provided during that statute including another one called -- removal. the administrations didn't use expedited removal in any meaningful sense until the bush administration and even then they only did it for a limited population in a limited timeframe. so, what the thinking here is, when you use a program like mpp, it's to take the tools that congress provides you and you respect the laws that congress has said they have created and you use those tools to create security and to create a situation that works for the united states. and the whole point here is, as i said in my opening statement, is the whole goal of anyone crossing the border, very few of them are true asylum seekers. most people are just opportunists and that's just how it is. folks are coming here to seek a better life. they are not actually seeking asylum so you can put their

claims, where the rubber meets the road is when you say if you want to pursue your claim you're going to do it but you will do it by waiting outside of the united states. a lot of folks abandon their claims. you called their bluff. and the folks who were truly oppressed and were truly persecuted, were the ones who stuck it out and had their claims adjudicated >> imagine that, enforcing the laws congress has. a 30-year-old statute and it worked. in three months, you had a 62% decrease and we were on the path to finally securing this border until the new administration came in. secretary wolf, you saw this under your watch. now we have 7.5 million encounters. god knows what we are going to do with them in the united states. 300 special-interest aliens, 300 terror watch list, hundreds of thousands of fentanyl deaths, human trafficking larger than i've seen in my lifetime as both the federal prosecutor and chairman of the

homeland. do you believe there is direct cause-and-effect between the rescission of this program and what we currently see today? and i associate myself with mr. hamilton's words, they know better. secretary mayorkas knows better. and that goes to intent. they know better. and they don't care. >> without a doubt. i would say, absolutely, there is causation there and it's not just mpp. it's all the other programs that were torn down, whether the asylum cooperative agreements and a number of regulations, during the trump administration they've all work together as a system. some were more effective than others. but it was a patchwork of policy programs and regulations that helped secure that border and as each one was taken down starting with mpp, but others were taken down as well, we started seeing the unraveling of the border and you could say, maybe they just didn't know better.

that's not true. we briefed them during the transition. we told them what would happen. if they started tearing down these, you would run out of border patrol space. you would run out of processing. everything that we see today, we talked to them, this is what's going to occur. and of course, it happens anyways. >> can i follow-up? my time is running out. if the administration is not changed, and this may get to mr. isaacson's point about detention space and infrastructure on the border. what would have -- implementing mpp , had the administration stayed in power, what was the plan? >> i think a first step, obviously we end up we had implement it mpp a handful of months. we would've continued to improve it and we would've continued to see more facilities along the border hearing mpp cases. you would've seen better facilities there, both ice

officers and attorneys would be in. immigration judges. you would've seen conditions in northern mexico we were working with the government of mexico and other not ngos there. i think you would've seen the program continuing to progress and get better and better over time. when we implemented it was at the very beginning. >> mr. hamilton? >> mr. chairman, i completely agree with mr. wolf. one of the things it's missing at our ports of entry, in terms of physical infrastructure are spaces for immigration courts and that's one area in which we could have made massive improvements and i think likely with the work of working with folks in congress here, that could've been an actual possibility and creating an actual immigration court facility at every port of entry along the northern and southern borders, you would've had a much more streamlined situation on top of all of the things -- >> i couldn't agree with you more. mr. isaacson, what do you think about that approach if we had the ports of entry?

>> if you had the courts at the ports of entry, people would not have time to prepare their cases. they would not be able to get the evidence they needed. they would not be able to find counsel. due process usually -- >> no it's in the united states ports of entry. due process would have to detach and apply because it's under the constitution. my time is expired but i respectfully disagree and i know you are in an outnumbered situation here. i will recognize mr. sherman. >> i'm sure mr. hamilton isn't suggesting we need an immigration court at every northern port of entry. i don't know that many canadians who are claiming asylum as they cross from the north. well, they are moving south. they are from the north. yes. but, i do agree that we do need more immigration judges. where they would be housed is a detail i don't have an opinion on. america needs immigrants.

if we don't have immigration, our population starts to decline , in 2038. this is a country that has typically had two or 3% population growth per year. our population starts to decline. we start having the problems of italy and japan. even with immigration our population will start to decline in 2081. that's because for all of these talks of giant numbers of people coming into our country, currently, net migration documented and undocumented is only 875,000 people. that's according to the census and that takes into account the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, some american-born, some who were born elsewhere, leave the united states and so our net migration is 875,000. as to fentanyl, i think it's

simply wrong to blame immigrants. the fentanyl comes in the vehicles. we have hundreds of thousands of containers coming in from mexico. but we don't inspect but i believe a quarter of them. mr. isaacson, do i have that right? and can you think of a reason we shouldn't charge the importers to have every container inspected except perhaps if we are worried about walmart's profits? >> it would make sense to have the equipment there to inspect. there is some logistical stuff that has to happen but yeah, 90% of cash >> and the vast majority of those crossing our borders now and asking for asylum, the first person they talk to is border patrol. does border patrol look inside the backpack? when the people turned

themselves in? >> border patrol confiscates the majority of people's belongings, yes. >> sounds like a really bad way to bring in fentanyl. now, there's this idea that terrorists are going to come into our country. we have a system designed to -- that is dealing with a lot of people who aspire to come to the united states and work for minimum wage. we all, in our -- we've all encountered undocumented immigrants in this country. none of them impressed me as being james bond. they are hard-working people who want -- who aspire -- to move up the ladder but they start at the bottom. do we really think that foreign intelligence agents could be deterred? how difficult would it be for them to get a tourist visa?

simply by claiming to do -- to be tourists claiming to be -- all you have to do is steal a norwegian passport. can you think of a system that would be successful in preventing iranian or russian agents from sneaking into the united states perhaps with a visa. >> it's something we have to worry about. you are right. more in our airports and other ports of entry than at the border. it is something we always have to be vigilant about at the border but it is at the border, there are many things to be concerned about and i suspect if we ever got our hands on a list of the countries of those 300 people who were on the terrorist watch list, we would find they are mostly from columbia. people who had demobilized from the armed conflict there. >> and then you have a lot of people just with a similar name.

>> right. >> we have a $485 million humanitarian aid assistance program identified by president biden to help latin america. you describe how millions of people in latin america are on the move. will that $485 million help create stable economic conditions and reduce the number of people leaving their home countries in latin america? >> it will, especially if going after corruption and human rights abuses and the reasons that people leave but the results won't be felt immediately. it's not a short-term fix but it is a more permanent long- term fix. >> i yield back. >> the chair recognizes mr. smith. >> thank you. thank you for calling this hearing and welcome to this committee, gentlemen and thank you for your testimonies. one of the many shocking but predictable consequences of nonenforcement of u.s. immigration laws is the cruelty imposed on victims of human tran14 and labor trafficking.

i created the -- efforts and every thing else. the bipartisan efforts. but that said, i am shocked by the lack of cash seeming lack of concern by this part of the administration when it comes to how many people are being forced into trafficking. we are providing the predators the ability and proximity to victims, especially children and at a hearing just a few months ago, i asked ambassador dyer, i created that position in 2003, i told her, before hand i'm going to ask you about the 85,000 unaccompanied minors that we lost contact with. o.r. are as well as homeland security and hss. how many of them have been ported into trafficking and she says talk to homeland security. i deeply respect her but she did not have an answer and i still don't have an answer and i wonder if some of you might have some insights into that. i have a bill called the secure act called safeguarding

endangered children unaccompanied at risk of exploitation act and it will penalize the various agencies if they do not do welfare whereabouts and get to the bottom of this because those children, we believe, are at great risk of sex and labor trafficking. your thoughts, mr. wolf? >> well, i am certainly concerned. during the biden administration there's been 500,000 unaccompanied alien children that have come across that border. unaccompanied meaning they come across with no adult. no parent of any kind and almost all of them are trafficked. almost all of them are trafficked. they stay in border patrol dhs custody for a very short period of time. usually hours. 72 hours or below, then they are transferred to hss or orr where they are processed and placed with sponsors. unfortunately what we've seen from this administration is a loosening of the sponsor requirement. because their facilities were

backing up because you had so many children coming in, early on in this administration, they've stopped the full vetting and background checking procedures of sponsors and all household members in that sponsors household. they've also done away with fingerprints. they did away with rapid dna testing along the border. and we use that border patrol, dhs border patrol use that to establish that familial relationship because if it didn't occur we were going to separate and we were going to rescue that child from that trafficking situation that was occurring. rapid dna testing is no longer occurring along the border and i have no idea why. there is no valid reason to stop that. it goes to the heart of making sure these children are safe and the fact that we now have three years of this policy that i have outlined in one manner or another and it has not changed is unfathomable. >> thank you. the issue of the cartels and everyone else who are exploiting these people, one of the presidents of a central

american country told me that 80% of the women and young girls are sexually abused somewhere along the line during their trip and in some it becomes more permanent as they are put into a trafficking ring. your sense of that? i mean, why is it -- and he was speaking how upset he was about it all when i talk to him but they couldn't stop it and they are looking to us to try to mitigate that harm by having a board up attraction -- border protection. >> i think most of our partners to the south of us, whether mexico or central america, or saying, why is the u.s. not doing more to secure its border and stop the flow? we all have a responsibility and a partnership to stop the illegal immigration that we see today. and as they look north to the united states and they see

almost nothing is being done along that border to actually deter it, they are less incentivized to actually take steps in their own country. to address your first concern, absolutely. i would say most individuals along that journey, everyone crosses that border at the hands of a cartel member and they are subject to all sorts of abuse. during my time at dhs, we gave most females crossing the border over the age 9 or 10 a pregnancy test for obvious reasons. we had to understand what we were dealing with and so that gives you an idea of the depravity and the situation that a lot of these migrants subject themselves to at the hands of cartels. the most humane policy i would say is to prevent that type of transit and transportation in the flow to begin with. >> thank you. i yield back. >> the chairman recognizes mr. castro. >> thank you, gentlemen for your testimony and mr. wolf, during your time in the trump administration at dhs you oversaw the design and

implementation of the monstrous and cruel family separation policy, tearing children away from families, many of whom are yet to be reunited with their parents. here are a few examples of those kids that you ripped from their families. you suppressed a dhs report about the dangers of white supremacy. your tenure at dhs was marred with significant ethical and legal concerns. your communications during january 6th mysteriously disappeared. there are serious ethical questions about your relationship with a lobbying firm. you explicitly defied congressional subpoenas to testify in front of the then democratic congress, yet you've shown up today voluntarily. yet feel comfortable testifying here today. federal courts even rule that your tenure is quote unquote acting secretary of dhs was illegal. in your testimony, you've described many of president biden's efforts as illegal.

but i find it ironic that we should trust you on what is lawful given your extensive disregard for american law. so, let's discuss one of those egregious policies you implemented that was eventually struck down by american courts. mr. wolf, you were one of the key architects of the trump administration's efforts to separate families at the border. children as young as four months were mercilessly taken from their parents with almost 1000 children still not reunited with their families years later even though the biden administration set up a task force to reunite them. i'm a father of three kids. a nine-year-old daughter, seven- year-old son, and an 18-month- old daughter. do you have kids, mr. wolf? >> ideal. >> what you did is unimaginable, inhumane, and despicable. and, quite frankly, i'm surprised the chairman invited

you to be here today. yet earlier this week when you were asked about revisiting family separations you said that all options need to be on the table. as we all know we are having important debate about them gratian -- immigration in congress and the presidency. i would like you to answer the question. yes or no. you are from texas after all, i'd like you to be a straight shooter. would you advise this or a future administration to once again separate families as the trump administration did. >> i will stand by my statement that i think you quoted earlier that all options should be on the table but i would say there've been a number of programs including mpp and others i will talk about that address the situation along the border in the crisis that we face in 2018 is different from the crisis we face today. >> thank you. that means you do think it should be considered and possibly used. >> that's not my response. >> for the record, i will remind you, mr. wolf, that what

you did is inhumane. and i will be requesting that the biden administration release all documents related to family separation policy and we will settle the matter once and for all on your involvement in that policy. i also want to ask you another important question. it's often the case that folks who give testimony before congress, folks who serve in one at illustration, if there is a second administration, they will often serve again. that's true for democrats and republicans. there's a chance that president trump is elected office, that you might be considered to serve in the administration again. regardless of what my opinion or the opinion of others here may be of you. so, mr. wolf, do you or your organization support the use of military use in mexico even without the consent of the mexican government as many

leading republican officials called for? >> i've been on record as supporting all hands or all options should be on the table when we look at the threat of cartels and the violence against americans. >> so you might counsel a yes. >> i think all options should be considered. this idea of taking options off the table for a variety of different policy issues that we have makes no -- and i should say all of the other things that you leveled against me are all just absurd on their face. >> listen. your policy institute is closely related with president trump, so i just have one final question for you and your colleague if you wish to answer it. what happens to the american policy -- american first policy institute if president trump goes to prison? >> the america first policy institute will continue to be around for hundreds of years. >> thank you. >> the gentleman yields. the chair recognizes mr. wilson. >> thank you, chairman.

we appreciate the witnesses being here today. i especially want to thank secretary wolf. you've made a difference on behalf of our country protecting american families and thank you for the inadvertent attack on you which really proves that you are making a difference to protect american families which is the main thing we should be doing here to avoid future attacks on our country. and i'm really grateful for the leadership of chairman mike mccall. he is obviously passionate about his concern. this is not political in holding the hearing today about the security threat of the biden open border. in fact, i agree with alabama senator tommy -- he stated two days ago that america is going to be subject to 9/11 attacks, imminent, quote, every few days across america do to biden's open border of terrorism.

imminent quote, every few days across america, due to biden's open order of terrorism. i will also take it a step further, each of our congressional officers have a rally point where if there is an attack or any other event that would require safety for our personnel me there is a rally point and i would encourage every american family that they should also have a rally point. with the open borders we have, every american family is subject to risk and they should have a rally point where they come to be safely protected, that if communications is interrupted, which it will be by sophisticated terrorists in our country, that they should have a place to come so that you will have accountability for your family. america has a long tradition of helping legal immigrants and petitions with legal silent-- asylum claim to seek the american dream to escape oppression legally. what we are

seeing today is an insane, dangerous, deliberate massive flooding of the southern border and trafficking children with deadly drugs like fentanyl, enriching the cartels. when i visited the southern border, i was told that they cannot tell me how many people were on the terrorist watchlist that had crossed. we now know with the fiscal year 2023, that customs and border patrol have identified 151 persons or terrorists who have come into our country. these are highly educated, well- paid, hard-working, skilled mass murderers. we know the presidentr himself has said, a it takes is one lone wolf. we know that the new york post has reported, the american families are at greater risk today than they ever have been since 9/11. he thought that we would have people here not understanding this is just inconceivable, a different planet from where we sadly are today.

we know that criminal put in, the chinese communist party, the iranian regime have increased their presence in america. the iranian regime with their terrorist puppets work, as president trump has rightfully stated, quote, fueled the fires of violence. secretary wolf, we are at a high risk of a terrorist attack in america. what is your view on the importance of addressing the tw influence and network of dictators, putin, the chinese communist party, the regime in iran to protect american families? >> the security of the homeland starts, obviously, overseas, on a variety of all of the instances you just said. dhs works with the departments of state, defense, others to help protect americans here at o home by first making sure the threat never reaches the homeland. yes, you have to address all of the above and more. at the end of the day, you need

to have some sovereignty over your borders and understand who is coming into the country. >> thank you very much. mr. isaacson of the largest number of russian g are you, secret agents in the world are in mexico. putin's fellow agent and top spy, nikolai, established russian outpost in cuba, venezuela, nicaragua, and mexico. they provide weapons to dictators. what should we do to stop putin's efforts in latin america? >> to stop putin's efforts in latin america, really it is a good effort with intelligence, making sure those armed cells and other things don't go on responded to. at the border, you have a lot of russian people coming now. we have to sort out i think nearly all of them. maybe all of them are trying not to be recruited. >> i agree, i was told by the

board, large number of russians and chinese coming. in my error-- era, that meant defectors. i yelled t back. >> chair recognizes phyllis to mccormick. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have a line of questions in your testimony to-- i believe mr. hamilton and mr. wolf, said most of the people coming to the border were opportunists, is that correct? >> that is absolutely correct. >> i wanted to talk about the parole program also. this situation, this hearing is personal to me being one of the only haitian americans in congress. in addition to that, i wanted to give a description of the people you call opportunist. we recently had a hearing in september where we had people from haiti talk about the circumstances. there was a a mother there who talked about, as she was taking her daughter to school, she thought over 50 people who were lynched hanging

from trees, so she wanted to come to the united states. is she an opportunist? >> yes. >> she is an opportunist lien from destruction and terrorism in the country, you would consider her an opportunist? >> unless you are describing a person who was targeted by the government of haiti-- >> are you aware right now there is-- excuse me, i am claiming my time, thank you very much, sir. are you aware of the state of the government in haiti, that there is no government right now and the gangs are actually taking over the country, yes or no? >> i am quite aware. >> thank you. my next question, there was a father whose entire family was kidnapped and he watched his daughter and wife get raped repeatedly by 50 men and they too went through the program to the united states, are they opportunists? under your circumstances, they are opportunist?

>> yes. >> my next question, when my parents were fleeing a dictator, on my mother's way to school, she saw them hanging children and shooting them in front of her. was my mother, who for lead the dictator an opportunist? >> that is the difference, in that description, you said, your mother was fleeing a dictator. no, your mother was not an opportunist. >> excuse me, sir. >> i'm trying to give you an answer. >> excuse me, sir, your time. i am claiming my time, thank you very much. segment thank you very much. >> i want to explain right now with the state of haiti and with no government and the gangs actually running the country, there is no difference between the dictator and what they are suffering now. i wanted to make sure that these assumptions that you are making, trying to say that they are opportunist and that the biden administration is abusing this humanitarian parole privileges are actually false. the fact that you cannot see that these people actually need help and they deserve

humanitarian parole shows the cruelty of your heart and you not understanding what our greatness and strength is as americans. i wanted to go back g to anothe question, which i had for you also. i was looking at your background . could you talk about your diplomacy experience you have had? yes, because in our committee, we have jurisdiction when it comes to diplomacy. i would like to hear more about your diplomacy experience so we can talk about how we can treat the root causes me because your testimony was focused on opportunists, negative ideas. i wanted to ask also, do you es believe these people coming in under the parole program it is not just haiti. if we are looking at venezuela, nicaragua, also cuba, they have similar situations where they can't exist in these countries. i wanted to know, what was your diplomatic experience, because you mentioned something that was interesting. you said, these young people are coming because the doors to are open, and that is what is leaving the countries to lean on in china. from a diplomatic

standpoint, did not make sense. i want you to go into the full detail of your diplomatic experience. >> i would say, over the course of four years during the trump administration, i was engaged in many discussions with many foreign partners including international travel to several of these countries we are talking about today, including haiti. i don't know what kind of experience you think i need to have-- >> the diplomatic experience i was looking for-- >> testifying on american laws. >> once again, i wanted to make sure your testimony and the affectations you are making about diplomacy, saying, these are the root causes, it does not make sense. i wanted to get back to my last question actually will be for mr. isaacson. can we talk about what would happen with the va removal of the parole program? >> if the parole program was removed, you would see 30,000 more people who do not qualify for it, a large number of them are in some danger, and will try to seek asylum by coming

all the way to the u.s. mexico border. >> the room -- believe that the removal of the program would exacerbate what we have at the border, or would it preclude people from coming to the border? >> when the parole program went into effect the number of people from nicaragua, haiti, cuba plummeted. yeah, you would see a reversal of that peers >> thank you so much, i yelled back. >> chair recognizes mr. perry. >> thanks, mr. chairman. secretary wolf, do you know how many children have been lost in the united states in the last three years by the biden administration? >> i can go by a number that i believe was reported in "the s "new york times"" where they talked about losing over 85,000 unaccompanied alien children peers >> 85 to 100,000 unaccompanied alien children in our country lost by this administration. do you think that is humane or inhumane? >> extremely inhumane. >> you think any of them were

placed with sex traffickers in this country, 85 to 100,000 unaccompanied minors who came across the board illegally? >> i don't have any data, my experience tells me, yes, they have been. it is inhumane. >> do the cartels ever separate children from their families? >> every day. >> humane or inhumane? >> inhumane. >> little girls being raped on their way through mexico to the border, little boys being raped, sold into sex slavery, humane or inhumane? >> very inhumane. >> yet, these are all the policies of the current administration. do you know what they are doing to find these hundred thousand kids that they have lost? >> i don't. obviously, they don't talk to me. i would assume that once these children are released to sponsors and out of orr custody, they are gone. orr does not track where they go.

they know which household they have released them to, but they are not required to stay in that state or city, so they can go anywhere in the country and elsewhere. >> do you know of any civilized country in the nation whose government is a part of a human trafficking scheme at that scale? >> i know of no other country that treats their order and policies associated with the border in the manner in which we do. >> i would agree with you, secretary. it is staggering to us to hear these statistics to know that our tax dollars pay for the sex trafficking of children in our country. it is my understanding that unfortunately, america is number one or two, the number two target on the planet for child sex trafficking. yet, we have a wide open border , offered by this administration and this president and the party that supports him. mr.th isacson, you talked about

folks coming from pakistan, china, and russia . i would agree with you. i have been on the border. i have seen people from pakistan, china, and russia when i have been there. would you say that all of them are very for their lives, that a is why they come to america? >> these are authoritarian countries. many are hearing. >> many or all? >> meteor all? are there any countries between here and pakistan that are more safe than pakistan, china, or russia? >> there are some and there aree some that are not. >> which ones are not? >> honduras, el salvador-- >> i said pakistan, china, or russia. >> they all take a path and go up the land. >> is there any path between this country and that country that would be safer, according to you, every single one of

them should flee for their lives? >> like in the pacific ocean somewhere? i don't understand. >> there is no island in the pacific ocean, indonesia maybe, japan, no place on the planet that they can get to before crossing the pacific ocean to get to the united states of america. >> many probably would not want to, but-- >> why would it they want to? >> because they would rather be someplace where there is more culture. >> that is awesome. is there any reason that you can think of that a country should have a border? >> sure, countries have different legal systems, different ways of governing. >> but other than that, there should not be a border in any country around the globe? people in mexico, russia, china for that matter could elect a president of the united states

because there is no border, right? >> i said there are different legal systems. >> is there any other purpose for having a border? >> is there any other question- - purpose for having another country? there are a bunch of people that share common values and a legal system that siemens these rules into place. >> when people are not abiding by a law from another country, illegally to this country, that is a country because of a different set of laws, you are good with that? >> if it is asylum and they're coming legally. >> you said, it is all asylum. >> is up for our administration to decide whether or not they get asylum or not. >> i yield. >> the chairman recognizes mr. stanley. >> chair recognizes mr. dean, ms. dean!

>> oh my lord, chairman! i think you are having the same experience i am having! i feel a little out of body in this conversation. i don't blame you for calling me stanton or mr. dean. >> i was going to say, sometimes i go by mr. dean. >> i have a brother, jimmy dean. i am trying to lighten the mood. i look around this room, honest to god, didn't every single one of us come here as an immigrant somewhere in our past? isn't it possible that every single one of us has an immigrant past and yet, we hear conversation from two on this panel who like to talk about illegal aliens. they are human beings, seeking refuge very, very, very often, and the numbers are staggering. we can agree on that. but if we want to solve a problem, why don't we tell the truth about it, instead of demonizing those seeking refuge in this country? let's stop the lie about fentanyl and the illegal aliens

bringing fentanyl. again, fentanyl is a serious problem in this country. the cartels are bringing it in and we know the precursors are coming from china to the cartels . let's deal with that problem seriously. they are not coming in in the backpacks and handsets of migrants desperately fleeing persecution, economic deprivation, starvation, and other things. i ask you, gentlemen, in particular the two who served in the previous administration, speak with humanity. mr. wolf, nothing is off the table. the separation of children under the previous administration that you were a primary architect of, not off the table in the future? >> what i would say, again, i answered that and i am happy to answer it again. >> not off the table. >> what i said, i think there

are a number of different policies-- >> i'm asking about one policy. >> that we put in place after 2018. those folks want to talk about two weeks-- >> i own the time, answer the question as posed. >> i answered several times, all options should be on the table when trying to find a solution. what i would say is that, a number of other policies, including-- >> excuse me, excuse me! mr. chairman, would you please restore some time for me. >> order, let's have order. >> i asked for a restoration of 20 seconds. >> i will restore you 20 seconds, and you may continue. >> mr. wolf, are you in the previous members of the administration doing everything in your power to get those 1000 children separated from their parents years ago back to their families? >> we are doing everything in our power. >> what have you done?

>> to address the current situation over the last three years where we have had over 500,000-- >> you have done nothing. i am moving on now, thank you. i am moving on. >>-- want to talk about the 85,000 children that have been lost over three years. >> when i said i was moving on, i meant it. i am surprised you are the two who are testifying here today. let me go on to mr. isacson . i wholeheartedly concur with your assertion that asylum is necessary for an important american value. can you get at, quickly, i know i have very little time, some of the root causes by we are seeing such a spike in numbers? this is not a problem underwent administration. we have seen high numbers over the years, certainly over the last three years. we have high numbers, what are the root causes marks >> often, when you talk to someone they will give you more reasons, but often those reasons are authoritarianism, violence, targeted or violence

governments can protect people from, sometimes discrimination, sometimes sexual or gender- based violence. quite often, more recently, it is natural disasters often caused by climate change. >> and in what countries are we talking about? after all, we are the foreign affairs committee. this is not all people just sitting on the border. >> about a quarter, from mexico. another third or so coming from central america. another third or so coming from south america, and the rest, about 15% and growing are coming from outside this hemisphere. >> can you talk to that issue, those coming from outside the hemisphere? >> the opening of the gout route has made it more possible for people to come by land. they are coming from countries like south america that have looser visa restrictions, that is why they come through indonesia or japan, and make this incredibly long journey to ask for asylum. >> i thank you for that. mr. chairman i am dismayed here this is a very serious problem. the border is a serious

problem. we need to put more resources there. but we need to do it with humanity and understanding of what people are seeking and what rights they actually have. everybody crossing the border is not an illegal, nor is he or she an alien. i yield back. >> ms. waggoner is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think our witnesses for their expertise. i find some of this conversation absurd. also, we are talking about 1000 children, about a. of time of three to four weeks. i know the last administration was working out protocols to keep families together, yet, we have an administration now that has lost 85 to 100,000 children to cartels, and trafficking, and gangs, and sex exploitation and

it is just incompatible to me. secretary wolf, i agree, and let me reiterate, secretary wolf, and i am sorry that you were politically and personally attacked, and one of my colleagues at the nerve to even bring your children into it, i apologize to you, sir. let me just say, i agree that this crisis is not a funding problem, it is a policy problem and a huge national security risk and a huge humanitarian atrocity. earlier this year, this committee advanced registration to codify the previous administration's programs and the asylum cooperative agreement. these policies worked, because they required migrants and asylum-seekers to follow the law , to remain in mexico for the first-- or the first safe country while their claims were pending. do you believe that codifying mpp and aca into law,

as opposed to the executive order that was used before could make a significant impact in addressing illegal migration crises that is that our southern border? >> absolutely. quantifying-- codifying the aca is a step forward. mpp is already in law. you can mandate it because it is an option now. i think both of those together are very important. >> to that point, mr. secretary, and mr. hamilton, per the cpp's website, believe it or not, the current administration is still using mpp. listen to this, although on a much, much smaller scale, if the data shows 147 migrants were returned to mexico through mpp last month. are you surprised that the data indicating the continued use of mpp, and by with the administration keep quiet about their use of the program, and not expand it as we did in the

last humanitarian expanded as we did in the last administration? we are talking about 7.5 million encounters at the border, number 1.8 million got away, and some 3000 known terrorist. >> i believe they are mandated to continue remaining in mexico, or mpp, by court, they are doing it in such a small numbers that it is virtually ineffective. it is an ineffective program because you have to do it across the board. the cartels no when you are doing it, not doing it, and will adjust their procedures accordingly. just to take two seconds here, this idea that we are somehow against immigrants is a falsity. we are the most welcoming. >> absurd! 1 million a year that come here legally, as my ancestors did. >> i want to be clear on that. we are the most welcoming nation and we continue to be.

this is about illegal activity. if certain members want to excuse the illegal activity, i guess you would say, i will not be a part of that. >> let me go on. we obviously have a full-blown unitarian crisis that has unfolded here, resulting in an explosion of deadly fentanyl trafficking, and it is coming and feel cartels and those that are being trafficked through our borders. human trafficking, rapid violent violence against women and children. divided administration's blunder are directly responsible for this. i recently read a report in which regional director of latin america from the international coalition against trafficking in women stated, up to 60% of latin american children attempted to cross our southern border are caused by cartels and exploited in child sexual abuse material, also known as child pornography. this is heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable. mr. wolf, based on your experience leading the department of homeland security

as secretary, can you speak to the dangers of sexual violence, particularly facing children during the trek to our southern border? >> absolutely. they are subjected to any number of abuse, rape, worse murder, the journey that they embark on is one that, you know, is incomprehensible. the idea that during the trump administration, that i think most americans would agree with , let's not subject those children, individuals, adults, or anyone, to that dangerous journey. let's make sure we give them the protections if they truly need it, closest to home. >> i thank you for your service, the sacrifice of your families, and for saving others here in america, my friend. mr. chairman, my time has expired and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. isacson , i want you to speak into that microphone. we want to hear you as loud as the

two gentlemen on your right have been. mr. wolf, i am sorry, mr. isacson , why do people come here illegally? why not just go through the system, like apparently ms. wagner's relatives did, and be right with the lord, and everything is hunky-dory. >> if you are coming here illegally, which means, you're not even asking for asylum, you just want to come and start working, that would probably be property and likely that our laws from the 1990s have not changed to make citizenship, residency, or work permits more available to you. >> one of the programs that was created to deal with the border situation was remain in mexico, is that right? >> apparently, yes. >> if you are seeking a asylum, a special category in immigration, isn't it? >> yes it is. >> historically, receives a

certain respect. certain protocols are triggered when someone appeals for asylum? you are not just any immigrant, you are in a special category. so, people who were subjected to remain in mexico, seeking asylum, what percentage of those people were adjudicated in that program, do you know? seeking asylum. >> they were all asylum- seekers, roughly half got to court and only 2%, fire lives in the regular immigration courts, only 2% were able to get protection. the approval rate was about 2%. >> that does not sound successful. >> certainly not for the asylum- seekers, it wasn't. >> was administration did this remain in mexico program get started? >> the middle of 2019, donald trump's administration. met >> oh, got a failure on our

hands in the trump administration. let's pick one that was successful. if you remember the 2016 campaign, that same individual became president. we recognize election results on this side of the aisle. he promised two things, we are going to build a wall, and who is going to pay for it? >> mexico.>> he would even get audiences to answer that question. so, how much of the wall-- a 9000 mile border, how much of the wall got built? >> all total, including replacements, i want to say about 600 miles of fencing. >> who paid for it? >> united states taxpayers. >> not mexico? >> not a peso. >> another failure of which administration again, remind me ? >> trump administration. >> trump administration. mr. wolf has said, everything is on the table with respect to addressing the border.

did you hear him say that? >> yes, i saw the quote in the media. >> we've actually had republican candidates running for president who have included in that, i don't know if mr. wolf would include it, i'm not asking because i have little time, let's invade mexico. we can do something about cartels, we can do something about crime, we can do something about illegal immigration, crossing the border. do you think that would be a wise policy to invade mexico? >> absolutely not. >> why not? >> it would go against the rule of the sovereign country, but we have taken on cartels for years. i guess that would be on the table, but i don't know what purpose it would serve having that on the table. >> what about putting kids in cages? how about that? >> that is not proven to deter kids from coming, and of course it is cruel. >> presumably, if we are going

to have everything on the table like we did in which administration where the kids in cages? >> trump administration. >> another success story. if we are going to put everything on the table, should that be on the table? >> i do not think that would ever be on the table, the detention of children should never be on the table. we are not a country that sees itself that puts kids in prisons. kids should be in proper settings. >> you are telling us, we have got values we should be honoring as we deal with any kind of situation at the border? >> it is what makes us a democratic nation. >> thank you, i yield back. >> chairman recognizes mr. mast. >> mr. connolly, i hope you stick around for a minute. >> i am not here for your pleasure and enjoyment. i have a schedule to keep. >> you rarely offer me leisure and enjoyment. >> i assure you, the feeling is mutual.

>> goes to you and mr. isacson, your conversation. should i expect that any mile not built you consider a failure? >> will you repeat the question, you want me to answer? i'd be glad to. >> i always give you time to answer. i will ask again. based upon the way i heard you asking questions, any mile of wall that was not old, would you consider that a failure? >> i consider the fact that a presidential candidate campaigned on the issue of, i will build a wall that covers the entire state of the border for mexico and did not. yes, i consider that an abject failure, and i consider-- >> every mile not built? you think we should yield every single mile of the wall? should we build every single mile of ball?

>> i don't think it is practical and i don't think it will work. >> i think it shows how little you know about physical security. >> i don't take it is your business to speculate what i know and don't know. >> it is my business on physical security. >> why don't you speak to what you know. >> i can speak to what you know, what it appears you know. >> you are good at throwing insults. i have seen it with mr. meeks. mr. chairman, i am sorry. i thought i was being asked questions and being able to answer. >> of course. does the gentleman from florida yield? >> i did. i will move back to the panel now. i thought it was interesting. i thought it was a point of agreement that any mile of wall not yet built is a failure, that we should get to every single mile of wall being built, because physical security does matter. doesn't mean some but it will not try to jump in, whirled under it, cut through it in some other kind of way, sure me

somebody will try to do that. as someone that has been on a wall in afghanistan and other places, it certainly makes a amount of the difference that that all is there. how tall it is, how much of an area it encompasses, you name it, it makes a huge amount of difference. mr. isacson , i want to ask you a question. your testimony was interesting and the testimony of everyone was interesting. this is not the border situation the u.s. government prepared for. expand a little bit. >> absolutely. in the 1990s, and after 9/11, we built up a border infrastructure design for mexican males or potential terrorists, now, two thirds of who are coming are people asking for asylum, and often families and children. >> i think the numbers bear that out. i don't think addressing something that is not true. i think it layers upon things, the other panelists have said. it works very well to say, we have a situation that was not

prepared for, but are we going to follow the law, or are we not going to follow the law? do words have meaning or do worse not have meaning? are we going to say that someone is granted asylum, because we will not define the word humane or inhumane and just say, if there is meanness in your country, you are allowed in? if there was poverty in your country, that constitutes a credible threat to life, so you will be allotted. you used the word, intimidation, in earlier questioning. if there is intimidation, does that constitute a credible threat to life? the fact of the matter is, the situation at the border is not what we prepared for, because we are allowing people in under definitions that don't meet what we prepared for. we prepared for an actual, credible threat to life. and we have moved to a situation where everybody that makes a complaint about their

country is unwilling to look at a different city in their country, a different territory in their country, an adjacent country to them, because they are unwilling to look at that. i will give the last word to the other panelists here to just simply talk about what you see in terms of the lack of truly looking at the word of the law and the word of the law that we must follow as the united states government. >> thank you for that important question. did congress have the ability to change those laws. if he does not like the grounds on which someone could be granted asylum, it could change them if it wanted to. doing so i think would be a serious problem to cover all of those areas. we cannot become the place where everyone across the world to come to this one country. god made a wonderful world. it has a lot of great places across it. we cannot be the only place in

the entire world where every single person who wants more money, or better protection of crime, comes to the united states to be saved. what i would say, one of the other things that is critically important about this entire situation is that factually speaking right now at the border -- the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of aliens crossing the border aren't even being subjected or assessed for credible fear screenings. they are not testing if these people have an asylum claim. they are issuing court papers and letting them go. i think yesterday, there was something like 94 crossings at the border and out of that 9400, plein air reporting indicates at least 5200 of them were given paperwork to show up in court someday. this is a significant and serious problem that the administration is not even assessing these people for any potential asylum claims. >> gentlemen's time has expired. we have a boat coming up in

five minutes and we have a lot of members. in fairness, i meant to limit the members to two minutes, which i apologize. this has been great to have a discussion, but i want to make sure i get in as many people as i can. mr. keating is recognized. >> mr. wolf, american first policy sounds pretty good to me . you are the executive director ? i have got two minutes, please. [ laughter ] >> yes, i am, sorry. >> chief strategy officer, would that be you? >> yes. >> chair, that is you too? >> of the homeland security. >> you know a lot about this. tell me, who pays your salary? $20 million at least you have got, you should know in those positions, where is the money coming from? >> donors. >> who is the money coming from exactly?

>> we have a number of donors. we have 44,000-- >> you are here, credentialed in that capacity, tell me, who is paying you? don't say, donors, tell me who, what organizations, who is behind it? i know one of them is the trump political pact, is that correct? >> that is incorrect. >> it has been reported, correct me. >> we are 44,000 donors. >> i've got two minutes, sorry. you are here, credentialed, with a nice sounding name, not telling us who is paying your salary, even though you have those credentials. number one, you are also credentialed because you are a former secretary of homeland security. let me clear the record on that and make sure everybody gets this. two courts have ruled, two courts that existed under the trump administration ruled that you had that position illegally. there is your credentials.

your testimony today said, it is okay for the united states to take military action to deploy young men and women, soldiers from the united states in mexico, even though the mexican government does not want them there. you also said it is okay-- >> it is not my testimony. >> it absolutely was. i was here and i listened to it. you also said, the u.s. can separate children, as they have in the past. that indeed cert was your testimony and that is a fact. listen, i think our border is in crisis. i think we have to do something about it. i just hope the senate while renegotiating can come up with a bipartisan solution to really do something meaningful, and not listen to failed past. i yield back, mr. chair. >> i appreciate the passion. well, let's entertain this issue. there are a lot of members here, it is a very vigorous debate. the witnesses-- we have a vote

until probably 5:00. i want to respect the witnesses' time. do they have time to come back, remain here until after votes, at which time we can reconvene? >> i do. >> mr. hamilton? >> seeing how i am a fan of making people wait, yes. >> so, mr. keating, everyone will have five minutes. i will yield three minutes. >> mr. chairman, appreciate that. if i am not back that early, don't call everyone else up, but i will be around. >> chair now recognizes mr. burchard. >> mr. speaker, thank you, or mr. chairman. quickly wasting my time here. t thank you. mr. hamilton, does border

patrol have the authority to refuse to allow illegal crossings? >> depending on the context in which you are speaking. at a point of entry, they certainly do. certainly, that is why they are building physical infrastructures to prevent the illegal entry of illegal aliens in the united states, which is a federal crime. >> what legal authority does a state like texas have to protect its border? >> under current interpretations of various courts, those authorities remain limited under certainly supreme court's decision in arizona, under the constitution i think those would have different thoughts about that. >> mr. wolf, vice president paris put in charge of the border crisis by president biden, what has she done? >> little to nothing, in my opinion. >> what can you tell us about the trafficking of children across the southern border? >> again, over the last 32, 33 months, we have had about 30,000 unaccompanied alien children being trafficked across the border. that is a record number in the

last almost 30 years. >> american companies invest in a country like guatemala and created jobs there, with that help with the flow of migrants? >> undoubtedly. >> how is secretary mallorca's hiding illegal immigrants? >> well, again, the number of aliens are using that app to come into the country. they are waiting in northern mexico. they have their version of pp, which is using that app you can only access in northern mexico, and having to wait in northern mexico to receive your appointment at a point of entry. >> is mayorkas fulfilling his constitutional duty ? >> that is a negative, no, sir. thank you mr. chairman, speaker, whatever. yielding the rest of my time. i am reclaiming my time, which means nothing. maria, i would like to yield

the remainder of my time to maria salazar. i think i have about a minute and a half. >> thank you very much. maria salazar from the city of miami. i want to say, thank you, congressman. we have the same goals. i agree with the border, i voted for hr 2, and i am just like you, nauseated by the fact that kids are being trafficked. you know, those children belonged to my community. i belong to the hispanic minority, the largest minority in the country, so i am with you! i didn't has done a horrible, horrible job, right? we are on the same page. my problem is that hr 2, which is the wall-- law that we passed, needs some teeth for it to become the law of the land. do you agree with me? do you think, mr. wolf, that hr 2, will become the law of the land? you think it will pass the senate? it will be passed and signed by

president biden? >> i think it would be a good step forward. >> we understand, it will be fantastic, the problem is, there is something missing, which is, what are we going to do with those 10 million people who are here and that we understand under president trump, who had an effective immigration policy, sir, i am looking at you, sir, mr. wolf, mr. trump deported 8000 illegals a year. if we do the math, we are talking about 10 million in land , that is 123 years we would need in order to deport everybody. all i am trying to do, and i repeat, i am on your side, is try to really get something on the books so we can seal the border, and stop having those kids being raped! what do you think we could do? >> i think the question here is

, what do you do with the number of individuals here in the united states? do you deport them, remove them ? >> stop right there, let's try to deport them. we have tried that. am i right in saying, we don't have enough agents? >> without a doubt a challenge. >> mr. trump tried it, obama tried it, every single president has tried it. they are working on the fields in construction and hospitality. am i right in what i am saying? >> it has been a challenge, no doubt here it's >> republicans should be the party so the democrats will not call us a bunch of racists anymore, they do not have the monopoly on compassion. we are compassionate too because you are concerned about those kids that speak and sound like me that are being raped right now , correct? don't you think that republicans should be the party that should be a head? finding a solution so we can stop this and put some order at the border, stop the asylum system being gamed, because you

know what, my people are gaming it every single day. do i make sense? >> yes, congresswoman. >> so, what do you think we should do as republicans? >> i think hr 2 is a good step. i think there is a lot more that can be done to secure that border. it is really an issue for congress. as you deal with the immigrants here illegally, you have to close the loopholes that continue to funnel more and more folks here illegally. >> i agree with you! let's seal the border! let's seal it! i have presented a law called me the dignity app, which does that! >> time expired. >> we want to burn at the stake the child sex traffickers, but how-- congress needs to do it. thank you. >> the chair recognizes ms. titus. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i did not realize i would have

time before we left. i want to go over a couple of things. we have got to close the borders so that would stop kids from being raped. many of them are being raped in their home countries, that is why they are leaving to come to the united states, because it is so dangerous there. you have statistics that show how to keep them stay in mexico has resulted in 1544 cases of kidnap, raped, murder, torture, and also. that is not sound like a very good policy to me. when you keep talking about children, what is the definition of children? anybody under 21, 5, 6-year-old children? who are these children you are talking about? then, i heard the statement, we are the only country in the world that people want to go to . we are the only ones where immigrants are coming. i would ask who said that, the guy in the middle there, what

he thinks about all the migration within latin america? you are going from el salvador, to other countries in latin america, from peru to argentina, from venezuela, to a number of countries. how about those countries? how about all of the north african countries going to europe? how about the people in syria and turkey, who are going to europe as gas workers? how about all the people of former colonies in africa who are going to europe? we are not the only place where people are going. in this world, you have got climate change, authoritarian regimes, you have got ethnic cleansing, a lot of things are driving people out. and you have social media, so people can see what these other countries have to offer, of course they want that for their families. and on social media, they can figure out perhaps how

to get there and try to make that happen. i want to ask mr. wolf something . i saw that name and thought it looked familiar but when i got here and saw you, it dawned on me. i was on the homeland security committee when you were the acting director and i am still there now. we have talked about this order problem at nausea, without coming up with any solutions. one of the things, in addition to mr. castro mentioned, as i recall, you wanted to get rid of the daca program. this is a program where children who are brought here by their parents when they were little, did not even know that they were not here legally, went to school here, speaking just as well as you do, thinking, this is the only country they've ever known me you want to send them back. now, that is going through the courts, leaving a lot of people in the shadows, don't know what their future might hold. i would just ask you, you still think getting rid of the daca

program is a good idea? maybe mr. isacson , you can take some time to put some of this stuff into perspective for us. it has gotten totally out of hand, it is ridiculous. you still think getting rid of daca is a good idea? >> i think it is a good idea to follow the law and court after court has said, the daca program is illegal. i've been on record saying, this is a solution for congress to fix and time and time again, congress has punted on that and not adjust the daca population. >> the latest on record in texas, all over the places with a lot of different courts, but it has put a stay on sending the ones here home and taking away that daca protection. don't just say, the courts have said it is illegal. >> they don't have to go to an individual's back that are currently enrolled. >> could we please move on? >> sure. if i can take a minute

to talk about the children, a law signed in 2008, passed by president bush said, any kid that comes in unaccompanied gets brought into the united states, on u.s. soil, given an asylum process, they get placed with sponsors or family members and we are supposed to know where they are, yes. i think the biden administration has fallen down on tracking them. they have not had enough resources. that goes back to my original point about, we did not prepare for this sort of reality. often, a kid that is lost often means, they could be going to school in fairfax county right now, but they have lost their phone number, but we don't have the resources and have not hired people to track everybody down, and it is a shame, but it is an administrative problem in most of these cases. can the driver has an amazing reporting about some of these kids have to work at night, they get brought into child labor, often with illegal work permits, but the conditions are terrible.

this is something we have to look at, but it does not mean shutting down the 2008 law that protects those vulnerable kids. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary wolf, i want to address the issues that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to be forgetting about the actual facts and circumstances related to the so- called family separation during the trump administration. during the trump administration , when you served as acting secretary up the department of homeland security, did the department have a blanket policy of separating families at the border? >> certainly not what i was acting secretary at the end of november, november 2019, throughout 2020, the zero tolerance policy had concluded by then, but even if you go back , no, there was no policy on separating families. >> the department under the trump administration had a responsibility to protect all minors in your custody?

>> absolutely. >> if there was a reason to question the claimed familial relationship between the adult and child, do you think it would be appropriate to detain those adults and children together? >> it is appropriate to both detain families together, and to separate a child from what is presumably their parent, but in many instances, it is not, because they are being trafficked. before the trump administration today, and the biden administration, they separate children that are at risk, because border patrol are doing their job and has ascertained that the quote, parent, or adult they have, over the border with is not actually their parents, they are being trafficked. >> true or false, dhs witnesses constantly illegal aliens using children to pose as family units to gain entry into the united states? >> is 100% true. what we saw

during my time, we called it child recycling. we saw the same children being used across the border multiple times to get the adults into the country. >> though, you me as secretary in the trump administration, protect the children by taking them away from child lester's, is that correct? >> we certainly did that during the trump administration. previous administrations have did that come in the biden administration continues to do that. >> is it more likely that families would be separated by having an open border or more secure border? >> less likely having a secure border. >> let me ask about the success of the mpp remain in mexico policy. over the course of the implementation of mpp, tell me about what you saw in terms of apprehensions at the southern border, encounters and apprehensions. >> over the course of the life of mpp, certainly throughout fy 19, and a little into fy 20, before covid hit, we saw a

number of illegal apprehensions reduced quite significantly, particularly as it relates to family units from the northern triangle, the driver behind the 2018 to 2019 crisis, which is why we instituted mpp. we saw those drive down upwards to 80% . >> 80%. border encounters with central american families dropped 80% of the implementation of mpp, is that right? remain in mexico. did the biden administration reversed the remain in mexico policy? >> they eliminated mpp. >> and the fiscal years, the three fiscal years that correspond with the biden administration are the three worst years of the illegal border apprehension ever recorded. is that because we don't have a remain in mexico policy anymore? >> it is not only because we don't have mpp, or remain in mexico, it is because we don't have any enforcement policies along that border and we are sending the wrong message to the cartels, the aliens, and

everyone else that wants to come to the country illegally. >> more than 24,000 chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing the u.s. border from mexico in the past year here 24,000 chinese citizens. this is more than in the preceding 10 years combined. who are these individuals? do we have any reason to believe that ccp is taking advantage of our order, but also, these individuals-- is there any reason to believe the cpp's united front work is using the border to infiltrate the united states? >> i think we have to assume they are. this naivety that everyone is coming here for humanitarian protections and not here to do bad things to the united states, i get that. it makes sense if you have never worked in border patrol or dhs and you have just thought about this issue. if you're down there, on the line, talking to the agents, understanding who they pick up and about individuals coming

into the country to harm americans every day, absolutely. i don't have the data. i have not seen the intelligence. you have to assume the communist party of china is taking advantage of the situation along that border. >> my time is expired. i appreciate your service would you were here, the situation is far better with you leading the department. >> you very much, mr. chairman. i represent arizona. arizona indians know all too well that the situation at the southern border is unsustainable. a record number of migrants have been apprehended both and the unrelenting pace that has made tucson the sector the country over the last five months. agents in southern arizona apprehended more than 15,000 people last week alone. i spoke earlier today with cbp agents in the tucson sector. their message to me, to congress is, and additional resources cannot come quickly enough. they are triaging, leaving anterior checkpoints on man and

surging staff to deal with the influx of migrants. officers at the point of entry where most illicit fentanyl is smuggled through our being reassigned to help with migrant apprehensions. without adequate staff, vehicle processing's have been reduced at ports of entry, which is devastating to arizona's cross-border economy. that is why for months, i've been calling for more federal resources to support border communities. this administration has sent this congress a request for more than $13 billion to hire 1300 more border patrol agents, upgrade technology, and 1000 more agents to catch illicit fentanyl to hire 1600 asylum officers, and almost 400 new immigration judge seems to quickly adjudicate asylum cases. all to ensure a safe, orderly,

and humane border. and more than 1.$4 billion of that would go to replenish the shelter and services program to help ease the burden on overstretched local partners. that would make a massive difference right now on the ground in arizona. the majority, unfortunately, has yet to take up that critical request. if hearing is entitled quote, the u.s. border crisis and solution to an immigration problem. we know migration issues are not unique to the united states. increased migration is an issue in which the developed world is putting pressure on countries like ours. managing our border effectively, humanely, is a collective responsibility. republicans and democrats working together. i believe the trump administration did get it wrong . their approach was inhumane, and ultimately, ineffective. their policies caging kids,

separating families, and the children did nothing to deter migrants from coming to our borders and inherited the long- term ability to process migrants through the system, creating enormous backlogs we are still trying to climb out of. business as usual is not working either. first, this congress must get the emergency resources that dhs has asked for, and the cbp agents on the front lines desperately need. this body needs to get to work on real, comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border once and for all, fully enforces our nation's immigration laws this committee cannot lose sight of how important our relationships are with mexico and latin america. we can afford to lose the benefit to the united states

particularly border states it'll take a all hands on deck approach. they simply can't wait any longer. >> yields and chair recognizes. >> dinky chairman. i want to talk about the crisis idealist as i represent a district in southern california that is so close to the southern border and is reeling from the fact that sentinel -- fentanyl is having. it is taking over my stay and especially in southern california so close to orange county, riverside county, that i represent. i just wanted take this into

consideration. one in five youth deaths are related to fentanyl and the fiscal year 2022 nearly two thirds of that non-that came across came through the port of san diego counties. fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are coming to our seven border and have killed more than -- i want to talk about my stay in san francisco and he talked about fentanyl precursor and talked about forming or establishing a working group but as we know the devil is in the details. i have still yet to see what the working group will do.

what you think this administration should do to stop the precursors and ultimately entering united states to address this? >> the current discussion for president biden is a good first step. i think like you said the devil is in the details. whether they live up to it is suspicious but doubtful. the idea that i heard earlier which was we can't go after the hotels, that'll continue the status quo. address the underlying issue of the cartel to the ports of entry and i think it is important we need more technology there. it is false to say all the

fentanyl is coming into the ports of entry. of course you will see data that comes through there. >> let's also talk about what chairman said reportedly making the commitment to crackdown and if you a call and 2019 he made those same commitments when he banned the production, sale and export of fentanyl precursors from china to mexico. but then the former speaker made their trip to taiwan. i just want you to know that he is using my constituent as a bargaining chip we just cannot tolerate that behavior. knowing what we know, today, it

is clear that we should have not trusted his commitment on fentanyl precursors back in 2019 and do we have any reason to believe it'll keep word today. >> i don't believe so. think it's important to remember over the last 3 to 4 years mexico is developed capacity to produce fentanyl and it is a highly lucrative business. i think there is still work at china can do but simply stopping the precursor is not going to dominate the fentanyl coming into united states. >> can you explain how the current administration's relationship is failing to combat fentanyl. >> i think it is failing i number of incidents , whether we talk about fentanyl, human trafficking, it all stems from the cartel and there is not

enough being done when it comes to the cartel or to stop the illegal flow. talked about it in my opening statement, you have to put pressure on the government of mexico. you have to push in the places they are uncomfortable with >> thank you. >> the chair recognizes. >> thank you. appreciate your recognition. it is great to be a part of the procedures, as a son of immigrants i look forward to bringing forth my unique background during this important time helping shape

our nation's foreign policy. it is grounded in our values and championing economic opportunity. ensuring that the rule of law is respect. i was impressed with how bipartisan i have heard about this committee's rich bipartisan history. unfortunately today is a bit of a departure of that and i hope we can work toward finding solutions on this critical issue. as a first-generation american i know the importance of legal immigration and i also know the importance of not vilifying those who seek a better life for them selves and family. we are in the context we are in today with this here the biden administration launched a series of foreign policy across the western hemisphere and requested real funding. if this

hearing was meant to be more meaningful we would discuss the funding and invest in partnering to screen migrants and we would fund operations that potential candidates for refugee resettlement or other, if fully funded we would be able to hire additional law enforcement officers at our southern border and invest with cutting-edge detection technology to enhance inspection capabilities including fentanyl detection. we should make real investment so my hope is that we can work together on a long-term strategy

for immigration reform. with that i yield back. >> chairman yields and he recognize. >> i am quite excited to get back under the deadline here. mr. secretary, i think for my lifetime we have been in this back and forth border security, immigration, border security. we don't really agree much on the solution i can't say it's been an incredibly productive dialogue. i hope we can at least stop the cartel. the cartels are bad people and are doing bad things and they are exploring our broken laws and causing disastrous situations in mexico and central and south america. last summer introduced a bill to stop the cartel subsequently renamed it to stop the cartel

named after a 21-year-old young lady in my district and daughter of a good friend who took a xanax at a party that was laced with fentanyl and like tens of thousands americans she died. the drugs she took out a good idea but they aren't supposed to kill you. poisoned with fentanyl and her life tragically ended. as i was introducing that the last summer the new york times introduced independent report of journalism and said that under trump there was a problem at the border and cartels are exploiting making around $500 million a year smuggling people across the border. that is a pretty big problem. but in a year and a half into the biden administration as of last summer, there were over $13 million, i was a businessman before i got into congress. your business in a year and a half, that is insane.

$13 billion of gross. another year on and the problem has only gotten worse. in your expert opinion as former secretary of homeland security how can we most effectively stop the cartel? >> i agree with you i think they should be public enemy number 1. there is no other driver that kills 100,000 americans every single year as it relates to fentanyl. as i said repeatedly and i have been questioned all options should be on the table, what we have done historically is treat this as a law enforcement issue and i would say we have made incremental improvements but we have not addressed the issue. you also need to provide leverage any to provide an administration willing to use the leverage against the government of mexico with this administration and this president that says i will never use military force i will never do x, y, and z. taking all the leverage that they would normally have and mexico

officials will say i don't you do anything else because there is no repercussions. there is nothing that'll severely impact me. there is a number of things you could be doing along the border and with that leverage that we have for the assistance which i know is important to this committee and other things, there are leverage points that the u.s. government can be using to get more action and activity out of the government and we are doing. thank you and i do hope we can reframe the debate so we can at least stop to agree that we can stop the cartel. i will say there are no republican-led sanctuary cities and that is kind of april cartel activity. i am concerned about that it will be highly more effective if people in mexico and central america, south america, solve their problems domestically. i would take away the whole credible fear of claims that they end up showing a better border, correct?

it seems to be a unanimous consent. it seems a pretty effect. for people that are causing harm to the neighbors. does anybody feel like what is going on in el salvador has been effect of? >> in the short term, yes. ask in five years. i do worry about a permanent state of emergency and what that does when there are no checks and balances on presidential power are >> i think what they have done el salvador is a miracle and i think in every western country across the world we should round them up and detain them and i think the, what is also very illustrative about el salvador is the gdp comes from remittances here in the united states. i certainly agree with what he

is doing regarding criminals. but we have to provide other incentives for these countries to retain the talent, to retain the -- i'm sorry my time has run out and i think that's right and i am encouraged and we have a lot of promise and is western hemisphere as we close in on the hundred anniversary of the monroe doctrine i hope they protect their own backyard. i yield. >> the chairman yields. >> thank you mr. chairman. i am actually the only person to ask a question say who represents the border community. and i think that is important because illegally acting secretary as he said some people just think about this issue i actually live it every day in my community in san diego. what is interesting is this right all of the fear mongering here today san diego is one of the safest cities in the country , as is every other border community. and we've heard my colleagues

talk a lot about cartel, let's talk a little bit about cartels. the growth of cartels has been mentioned a lot but what my colleagues don't seem to mention is that actually mpp assisted in the growth of the cartel. i think it is important for us to recognize that. mr. isaacson, isn't it true that mpp in fact did not stop people from being violent and just take some from dangerous situations and -- >> i heard numerous testimonies that cartels were waiting and as happened with title 42 waiting at the gate of port of entry to kidnap and extort the relatives in the united states. >> you would say that mpp did not in fact get rid of the cartels? >> if anything it gave them some new field.

>> okay. heard a lot about fentanyl. would you agree with what i have heard from the mpp officers that i spent a lot of time talking to in the border community that i live and represent that almost all the fentanyl that the state sees and we have a lot of folks between ports of entry in san diego as well almost all are through legal people crossing the border at ports of entry? >> every statistic i have seen in every conversation with law enforcement as that. if you're apprehending 200 million people a year and they don't have fentanyl on them that should tell you a lot. >> thank you. also talked a lot here today about following the law and what is legal and illegal. is seeking asylum illegal? >> it is legal without regard to how you arrived. >> thank you. migrant protection protocol, mpp, could you tell us is it legal in terms of the international laws and

obligations of the united states is party to. >> it is on our books as a law that no president has dared to use it before. but all international bodies did issue opinion saying it violated international standards. >> the very thing you guys are trying to propose as a way to make things more legal is in fact illegal and seeking asylum is in fact legal under both domestic and international law. i have also heard a lot about first-hand accounts from agents about the logistical nightmare that they cause could you speak to that? >> shore. it meant trying to send people back and make them wait and and having them show up at 4:00 in the morning. i think that's what you are referring to. coming to these video court and then setting them back again with another court date and going back and forth and of course that logistically got to be more of a nightmare after title 42 and the shutdown of courts to begin with. >> so did mpp actually make

our border more orderly? >> if anything there was more chaos during the second half of 2019. >> so the mpp is illegal under international law, it made our border more chaotic and increase the cartel's ability to extort people and grew their base and yet, this is what my colleagues in your other panelists are proposing is a solution to a very real situation that my constituents are dealing with living at border communities? >> yes and like every other deterrent it has a short-term effect that has already started to bottom out when the pandemic it. thank you so much. >> let me just say we have very limited time on the floor. ms. salazar you have five minutes and you can take the chair but i don't want to miss the votes. i really appreciate your generosity and willing to remain here until five. we should be returning at 5:00

p.m. again i will turn it over. salazar. >> >> thank you for your patience and thank you to the chairman for lending me his chair and feel important. i want to continue mr. wolf and mr. hamilton because your opinion is highly, highly important. and i was telling you, i am your ally, i am on your side, i want to accomplish the same goals as you. let me just give you a couple of ideas, a wolf what you think of what i'm going to tell you? >> i suppose that we have the ability to seal the border with fast technology. seal the border.

whether it is structure or whether it is high tower and infrared cameras, whatever technology is out there. we can increase the number of border patrol, the number of administrative judges, the increase in immigration judges. we stopped catch and release everyone that is claiming asylum goes into something called a humanitarian campus for 60 days. and over there we will have enough personnel to determine if they can be granted the asylum and if they are not, they will be returned home. what you think about that idea? >> sorry. a number of those are obviously hypothetical situations. i think a number of them certainly deserve merit to look at further. >> i'm saying let's suppose it's doable. you seal the border -- it sounds correct right?

>> yes. >> all right. let's suppose we can do that and then at some point we can then determine what we are going to do with the illegals. do you think that we could just do that and at the same time give some type of not citizenship, not immediate citizenship to the legal but some type of work, go home for christmas, don't get deported, don't get any federal programs, by your own health insurance. do you think that way we could work something out? your opinion is very important that's why i'm asking. >> that is an issue that congress needs to deal with and i think what you said initially as very, very important. you have to close these loopholes and there are many that continue to incentivize.

if you deal with the illegal population today but then in two years or three years from now you let another 10 or 20 billion and because the loophole continues, you have not solved anything. >> stop right there. but we will have sealed the border with the best technology there is. >> it is not just technology it is policy. >> what he meant by policy? >> we can go down the line. you have mpp, you certainly have to address the asylum system. >> i just told you the asylum system is going to be addressed by everyone who is coming in claiming asylum to go into something called a humanitarian center. is not going to get lost in miami. it has to stay there for 60 days. you like that idea? >> at the idea of addressing the asylum process very quick the asset is within 60 days i

am for addressing the asylum process quickly. >> you are in favor of keeping people for 60 days and you are in favor of sealing the border? >> i am in favor of addressing the asylum system and getting to people who need it quickly and those who don't, go home. >> increasing the judges, administration personnel? >> i think that will help. >> if that were to be in place and what are we going to do with the people who have been here for more than five years and don't have any type of criminal records. i think that is something basically that you said is challenging. what is your idea? >> that is on the question congress can answer. congress can provide them either certain protections or certain benefits if you are talking about work authorization, whatever it may be, it may be an issue -- >> i need people like you to support ideas like mine because

your opinions i am -- >> i am highly skeptical that we can get to the first tart -- part of your equation. >> and stopping catch and release. votes have been called on the floor so without objection we will stand in recess and reconvene once the votes have ended. on the floor. without objection, the committee will stand and reconvene once the votes