fortunately they never figured it out. >> thank you guys. i would like to make a couple of quick comments. i was involved in the predicate to impeachment. which is, whole another thing. >> thank you. thank you. >> high entertainment value. one thing that billy, struck me, in what you guys alluded to, how much technology has changed the

game of governing and politics. phil, you made a point that tweeting wasn't the same. some people don't know what the hell it is now but it has changed dramatically since 2008. i put it even further context in, when i was in the white house, a couple of oust would meet up with leon panetta every night and we would look at the three tvs, abc, cbs, whatever the other one was and, see whether our good stories had risen or whether the bad stories had gone down. you could see wolf kind of standing out in the yard there without even an umbrella sometimes. that was a good day if your good story was up. or down. that was all we dealt with. now the, the onslaught of information, moving information all sorts of sinister reasons has fundamentally changed governing and strategies.

just three things that kind of pop out to me. and just in phrases. it's, what i hear you guys saying is that that you're underlying fundamental belief that people are coming to washington to get something done. you have looked at the underbelly of this system, and i've been under there with you. and it is not pretty but your fundamental belief in getting something done is a really compelling objective if the space is provided to make it happen. two, substance matters. that policy trying to make good policy does matter. and three, to nick's point sometimes you have to ignore your own party, some members of your own party to make it happen. so as a framework for going forward i hope that prevails. i want to thank you guys very much for -- [applause]

>> thank you. [inaudible conversations]. >> congress is back today for a short work week. the house will be debate homeland security department spending and republican proposals to block the president's immigration plan. the senate will debate the keystone xl oil pipeline. the house and senate are out on

thursday and friday as they attend party retreats. live coverage of the house is on c-span and the senate is on c-span two. live at 5:00 p.m. eastern the house rules committee will mark up homeland security spending which challenges the president's executive order on immigration. also a bill that would delay part of the 2010 financial regulation law known as the volcker rule. that will be on c-span3 starting again at 5:00 p.m. eastern. border patrol chief michael fisher and assistant chief robert schroeder discuss the department's efforts to protect the u.s.-mexican border specifically against transnational criminal networks. the number of migration deaths and forging better relations with communities in the area. the center for strategic and international studies hosted this event.

>> good morning and welcome to all of you who have braced the hements. my name is stephanie sanok kostro. i'm a senior fellow in the international security program here at csis. until recently was thing director of the homeland security and counterterrorism program. we were joking earlier every time we have a home happen land security event we have a weather event that same day. i'm appalled and pleased to know our track record is still stellar. thank you all for braving the elements. can i ask you to make sure the electronic devices are set to silent or stun. we'll get the session started. u.s. citizens and elected representatives long emphasized the importance of border security as a national security priority. the new 114th congress promises to continue the ongoing public debate over a range of much-needed border security and immigration reforms. these reforms will take the

shape of both policy shifts and practical changes in program implementation. here at csis we've been pleased to be part of that discussion working with congress, the executive branch, industry and the entire community of stakeholders to unpack the issues surrounding border security and highlighting key focus areas for action. during our conversations i have been especially impressed with the vision and real thought leadership coming from our border patrol colleagues. these men and women experienced first-hand the ever evolving security environment that lies along our nation's borders covering almost 6,000 miles of mexican and canadian international land borders. this evolution is fast based in part on a rapidly changing and adapting set of threats and risks. of particular concern are transnational criminal networks which have grown increasingly sophisticated which have the potential to converge with terrorist organizations. the u.s. border patrol worked to ad didn't its capabilities to

meet these vulnerabilities. it has quantifiable and qualitative metrics that track progress towards desired out comes instead of tracking invests. we'll hear from two outstanding public servants on the topic of the border patrol history and risk based strategy and methodology for measuring success. first off is u.s. border patrol chief mike fisher is who responsible for planning organizing and directing enforcement efforts to secure our nation's border. chief fisher entered on duty with the u.s. border patrol in 1987 and held a number of operational and leadership posts from arizona texas and michigan and washington, d.c. he was named acting chief of the border patrol in 2010 and assumed his current position in may of that year. we at csis count him as a real friend of the homeland security and counterterrorism program and a real thought leader for our nation's security. we'll hear from assistant chief robert schroeder, author of,

holding the line in the 21st century. three articles featured invadetation for this event and hard copies on the registration table. one of the articles focus on the border patrol strategic evolution and one on risk based strategy to track illicit networks and indicators. chief schroeder is a senior fellow on capitol hill where his colleagues benefit from his years of experience. he served on the southwest border, conducting search, traffic force operation boat operations interdictions and southbound operations, counter smuggling operations as a k-9 handler team. he has also commanded two forward operating bases near the international border along the arizona-thank you mexico state line. after our two guests speak i plan to ask a few questions and then turn to the audience for questions and's. we will end promptly at at 11:00 to so you can enjoy the snowy wonderland that is d.c.

chief fisher, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today and i look forward to hearing you speak. >> thank you, stephanie and to dr. hamry and everybody at csis. this is unique opportunity for me and first and foremost to you, your dedication and mission and the fact that you are actually here given this weather does wonders for my heart so thank you very much. so i will take you back to may of 2010. so i get a call to go down to the commissioner's office. at that time that was commissioner berson. he calls me into the office. generally when you're new, i was first week as chief getting a call to go to the commissioner's office i found out probably not a good thing to do. i go into the office, he walks up to me, they made a mistake i'm not thefy right? he walks up and has in his hand this badge. and he is pinning it on me and

he whispers to me, i expect you to take the border patrol to the next level. and your expressions were about the same as mine. i didn't know what to say, other than, yes, sir. and then i was immediately dismissed. i walked out a couple of things struck me at that point. one, i had no idea what i just committed to and committed the organization to and i had a very short turn around to figure it out. i did what many of you would do, gather the smart staff and more capable and a lot more telligent and you are to try to figure this out. we had a very quick meeting. after about 30 minutes, three things were apparent to all of us. which is very rare for border patrol agents to come to consensus just about anything. heck, we can't figure out most of the time where to go to eat. takes us 15 minutes to hash that out. here is the three things. one it was clear to us that the environment which we operated had changed. number two, our capabilities as

an organization had changed as well. and three equally important was there was this convergence on transnational criminal organizations and terrorism. and we needed to figure out how we were going to prepare the organization, and prepare our defenses on the border against these emerging threats. and that's what started this strategic shift. and so as many as you probably saw we published the strategy in the spring of 2012 and moved quickly to implementation and actually i don't know if, i know rebecca may not be here. i know her from gao. one of the criticisms from gao at the time the border patrol doesn't have a timeline for implementation, it doesn't have a plan for implementation. what was happening we were changing operations as we develop the strategy. we weren't waiting for procedure and process which is somewhat antithetical in this town but we wanted to move forward very quickly. as we were learning about our strategic shift we were breaking operational adjustments on the

fly and we did that throughout. we didn't stop to have a 18 month planning session to have 18 months of implementation. we shifted over quickly to the implementation. it was that time in 2013, end of 2013 we thought the time was a good start what we thought the strategy was going to look like. we set at least in our mind the metrics that we believed made sense to us beyond traditional apprehensions how we were going to assess the extent we were successful in the endeavor. so our baselines numbers were gathering all through 2013. we were kind of taking a pause and there was one thing that occurred is the discussion during this whole process from 2010 to 1919 and as it turns out into '14 really hadn't changed. i still get the questions chief, is the border security or not? everybody looking at security if we all understand what that means. as we were trying to understand members on the hill and people at the department and what they thought the end state should

look like we couldn't wait. we quickly as we were devising strategy and implementation came up with our own. i'm not suggesting that it was the right one by the way and hopefully we could have that discussion but i suggested we had to have an end state to get things started. some of you may have her if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there. in 2013 it also occurred to me we have not done a very good job articulating the narrative about what we just did. to have those discussions. and, so at that time, i had the opportunity on staff, assistant steve robert schroeder. i read some of his work before. he happened to be assigned to headquarters and i gave him very little direction. he came into my office. robert, i read some of the stuff you had published and i have a favor to ask. this was by the way he wasn't going to be pulled from all of his other assignments this is other duties as assigned. don't let the stuff you're soesed to do is slip but what i

need you to do is tell our story. he said okay. who is the audience? i will make it easy. it is for everybody. it is for internal consumption within the first line supervisors to the border patrol agents just graduating from the academy to the chief patrol agents out there in the largest sectors we have. it is for people up on the hill. anybody interested in understanding what we're doing. and he kind of gave me a stare. that is very difficult to do. by the way, we want it short. so if you will mark twain chief, this would have made this longer but i didn't have enough time right? sew had a very, and somewhat truncated schedule, self-imposed timeline to come up as stephanie indicated to try to tell our story. it doesn't suggest in that article anywhere that the border is more secure than it has ever been right? what it is to start a discussion, perhaps a different narrative than we've had in the past what it means to secure the

border. from our perspective and as told by robert, and at that point i would like to have him explain how he went about doing this. robert. >> chief, thanks for the introduction. thank y'all for coming. i appreciate you braving the weather, especially congressional staff that made it today. this is the first day and one of the busiest days in the 114th congress. appreciate your time. as he introduced it was about telling our story. we had to tell our story. we had to get it out there. we had to tell why we changed how we changed and how we ultimately measured that over a period of time. so i have prepared brief remarks for you. holding the line in the 21st century includes a three articles written to provide a brief overview of the border patrol long journey and gradual evolution to our current risk-based strategy to illustrate why a new strategy was necessary. they were written for both internal and external audiences as chief pointed out, everyone.

these articles touch on numerous events and elements relevant to our evolution but center around one of the most significant periods of change in the border patrol's rich history which began with the release of 2012-2016 strategic border patrol plan. it began before that in the thought process and planning. coupled with every decreasing deployment of resources guided our deployment and planning activities. today, resource deployment planning activities are bided by a much more holistic view of border security and border security environment. one in which there is greater reliance on intelligence capabilities and focus targeted enforcement against individuals annette works responsible for a majority of the crime in a given area. instead of reactively plugging holes in the border, our planners started looking for best ways to work with inner agency partners to combat the greatest risk to border

security, national security and public safety. while the 2012-2016 border patrol strategic plan provided a blueprint for the border patrol to effectively transition to more comprehensive and assessment planning approach it was a statement made in 2010 during a hearing before the house subcommittee on homeland security which paved the way for creation and adaptation of the new approach. it was a tipping point of sorts and throughout our history i'm sure we'll look back at that point as a point which it started to change for us. during the hearing border patrol leaders testified that u.s. border patrol spent $3.5 billion on border security between the ports of entry alone yet controlled only 3%. now to give you a perspective of what that would have looked like under resource-based strategy, that means we would have needed 77,000 border patrol agents or a budget in excess of $100 billion. today we have a little over 21,000 border patrol agents. the statement made by border

patrol leaders at house hearing indicated either the border patrol was one severely underfunded or the border patrol need ad better way to convey what was happening along the border. i knew from personal experience working on southwest border and fellow agents that the 3% number we reported didn't relay the good work that border patrol agents were doing for the american people. the three articles we discussed here today should help convey some of what was happening along the border. each cover a different segment of the border patrol history. in writing them i want to draw on real world examples illustrated what we were doing not only made sense but worked in the past in both public and private industries. the first article in the series titled strategic evolution was designed to provide readers with information on the border patrol simple and humble beginnings and illustrate why a change in strategy was necessary and inevitable given the complexity of the modern border environment. the resource-based strategy implemented by border patrol in 1995 and later in 2004, was a

step in the right direction. but proved unsustainable over the long term. lessons learned from these strategies included realization in order to truly address the complexities of border security the border patrol had to examine all elements of current and potential threats and consider all available options to protect tiffly address them. within the first article, lessons learned from the u.s. military, during operation and enduring freedom in afghanistan an and by nasa designing and developing and deploying the international space station were examined to draw parallels between critical elements of our risk based strategy and risk management approaches taken by other government agencies. second article in the series of risk-based strategy was written to show how the u.s. border patrol made that shift. specifically how the border patrol leveraged the department of defense, intelligent community and other inneragency partners to develop and adapt planning tools to effectively implement the new strategy. the first of these tools was

threats, targets and operational assessment. this was designed to address the capability dams, to understand the capabilities of the adversary and our own capabilities. while friendly assessments help identify inneragency gaps and mitigation to the gaps, the intelligence operational of the operational environment was a second tool. those were the dod history will know that was heavily borrowed from the joint publictation two. it also addresses the courses of ad action adversaries likely to take in the future. this was heavily implemented by the department of defense and finally the border patrol planning process or bp-3 was done to define mission objectives and specific problems within their area of responsibility and develop appropriate courses of action to achieve those goals. historically border patrol operations were predominantly based on activity levels and intelligence garnered from arrest. we were plugging holes in fences

f it was busy we put agents there. the border patrol planning process helped planners conduct a more thorough mission analysis and adopt a more comprehensive and proactive approach to operations. third article in the series measuring security answers the question as to how we know we're winning, if we were indeed winning and measuring progress toward that end. in the end a secure border is one of low risk. the border control considers an area to have low risk when we have confidence in our situational awareness and understanding of imminent and emergent threats and confidence in our inneragency abilities to address those threats. while we had a way to generally define low risk we still need ad way to measure our progress toward that end. we need ad way to measure outcomes of operations and campaign plans. it went beyond the typical inventory of assets seized or subjects detained. no single metric taken individually can prove success.

we develop ad preliminary set of risk indicators to analyze elements of risk along the border and evaluate progdress related to our goals. before 2012 if you asked a border patrol agentwe were winning he would say absolutely and would point to number of arrests and seizers to she you that. regardless whether they went up or down we were winning. we had no other way to explain it. this isn't to suggest we weren't succeeding in our mission. we just didn't have the capability needed to understand and demonstrate what was actually happening along the border. as we all know metrics are only good as the data used to develop them. so the border patrol had to build a foundation of consistent and reliable data on cross-border incursions. not data on what we were catching. we also had to incorporate data what we were not catching and the unknown. today the border patrol does not describe the border as controlled or uncontrolled but instead use as variety of indicators intelligence estimates, capability

assessments, commander judgement to assign areas with risk category of high, medium or low. the border patrol continually validates and reevaluates the conditions to that postures are based on current risk. in closing i leave you with a few thoughts on border security that became very evident as we wrote these articles and i spoke with dozens of agents representing over a thousand years of border patrol experience. border security is not end state to be achieved and revisited every five or 10 years. rather a constant battle we fight every day and one which we must be vigorously engaged. there is also no panacea for border security. no silver billion let is out there. riddle in the definition of a wicked problem explains it best, there is no solution. there is only better or worse. there is only the civil and that is what border security is a continuous struggle. resourced will be needed to secure the national border however using a risk-based strategy to guide our operations

insures that border patrol maintain as realistic view of border security and work with inneragency partners to combat the greatest risks to border security national security and public safety. ultimately the articles answer the big three questions, why we changed, how we changed and how we measure we're winning making progress towards it. with that i turn time back over to stephanie. >> well, thank you both. i'm going to exercise the moderator's prerogative to ask our guests one question first before opening it up to the floor. the first question i have for chief fisher and that is regarding your hopes for this trilogy of articles. as i mentioned earlier i've been very impressed with leadership in staithing vision and having a strategy for the border patrol but the question i have is, when i can understand from a audience perspective i'm not in the border patrol. i can take these articles, using my own experience but your hope

for what folks in the field will takeaway from these articles, what, what was your intent from a border patrol specific perspective? >> thank you stephanie. well, for the border patrol agents my intent was for every border patrol agent regardless how long they have been in the organization or where they are currently stationed and regardless of what range they may or may not hold is to read it, first and foremost. which was mandatory by the way for all the chiefs. and have a better understanding of what we as an organization are asking them to do first and foremost. secondly, i would hope that they could envision that which they are doing plays a much larger role in border and national security. because many times and often times when i talk with border patrol agents in the field we talk about counter network operations and talk about the threat of terrorism but yet to a border patrol agent out on the line for instance, in calexico for five years say chief, i've

never seen a terrorist here what are you talking about? make them understand what we're asking them to do day in, day out plays into much larger very complex security system we'll not solve on our own. so for the internal audience, it was hopefully they can understand one, where we are, where we're going and their contribution to that overarching mission. >> i appreciate that. agent schroeder, i have a question regarding the risk-based strategy you outlined in the second of your three articles. you mentioned in your remarks just now that it's not a resource strategy because throwing resources at this set of challenges won't necessarily lead to the outcome we're trying to pursue. and so, can you talk a little bit about the risk-based strategy, its limitations. you mentioned there is also no panacea or silver bullet short-term fix but that this is really a long game. this is the longer term strategy. there are gaps, there will be vulnerabilities. how does one think about a

risk-based strategy? how does one wraparound the head about the idea there will be gaps and eventually we'll try to address the gaps but first things first what is the strategy? >> situational awareness, a number one. resource-based strategy we talked about threw resources at border based completely on activities. we talked about in the articles the deployment of the international space station. i wanted to draw real world parallels to what was going on and what we were doing. the space station was designed in some areas, bigger in some areas, thicker in some areas and to combat risk of impacts. same way on the border. the articles are probably the first step, reading those articles understanding those articles understanding the risk-based concept in that we address the threats. we use those three deals -- tools. we use intelligence, analytical process and planning process. it is not an end state.

it is an enduring state. it's a continual process we'll struggle and border environments change for us. as the articles talk a little bit about prohibition. talks about smuggling alcohol. we don't smuggle alcohol anymore. we don't have that. it es drugs and alcohol and other aspects on the border but things change over time and the border patrol had to do something to dictate or or articulate how it was actually changing. the articles kind of hint towards that. >> the follow-up question then would be, measuring that. as you, as you try to quantify risk and you try to quantify, you know and i know from a hill perspective the demand is always, you know, what metrics are you using so how can we figure out whether we're getting to where we need to be. so what is your reply to folks on the hill or elsewhere who say, you know, the metrics of the past, you know, were not useful because the numbers were

high you were winning if the numbers were low you were winning. it didn't really tell you anything. what is different about the system going forward that you can actually measure success? >> so measuring success for us is different. we takeathathathathatzatzatz?tñ

>> when we started seeing the trend increase in the spring and it peaked right around june of last year and really, i mean, it's happened before, we haven't seen it at least in south texas and in that greater numbers as it related to individuals from other countries in mexico, for instance. our methodology didn't change. we were still making the ap ree mentions once the detections -- the apprehensions once the detections were made. if you haven't been to brownsville texas, there's a river there, so a lot of what people think about the border is different in that area. so preventing people from ever crossing the rio grande valley at least in that area is not practical. what we want to be able to do is insure that we're able to, once we detect them, is make a apprehension and in a higher proportion than in the past. now, what the department really learned are that -- and i give, you know the secretary a lot of credit for this. when the numbers started going

down in july, we didn't just say, whoo i'm glad that's over right? let's look at this and find out what we need to do. and the secretary, you know, even in the spring was talking about the unity of effort. some of you may have heard that. and if some of you were here a couple of months ago, the secretary laid out, i thought quite clearly the campaign plan and introduced a couple of weeks ago the task forces that are going to stand up that effort. all of that was part of this learning process. and so it wasn't just, hey, the kids are coming across, what are you going to do. i think what robert talked about, that was our typical reaction. that's not a pejorative, in some organizations that's -- you know, especially in the environment in which we operate now in terms of information instantaneous. everybody understands what's happening in the field whether you're a municipality or you're at the border, and people get very reactive. that somehow feeds and is very

contagious at times. that's just my own personal experience here in washington but that's not an organizational position, that's just the reality in which we have to operate. but we have to, you know, stop going just from crisis to crisis and really think these through, and the secretary and his team have dope a good job of pre-- done a good job of prepositioning the department in the future whether the unaccompanied children come back or not, this is just another incremental, evolutionary step to do integrated counternetwork operations better than we have before. but thank you for that question. >> i can call on this gentleman up here. >> thank you very much. excuse me ted allman with the council on foreign relations. a question around met rubbings. -- metrics. you noticed there's an external and internal face to that, what you want to measure within your organization to get the results you want, and then the there's the story you want to present to

the -- then there's the story you want to present to the public. is it okay to have one sort of internal metrics that you don't share and another set of external -- i mean, putting aside things like national security, confidential information -- >> sure. >> but putting that aside, is it important to have a single set of metrics for both internal and external-facing purposes? >> that was a question i was going to ask you in about a week or to so i'd like to get your answer to this, by the way. you know we're having that discussion now right? and i've heard both sides of the argument. i'm kind of going to hold off my vote until i get better informed. i come there the school of give everybody everything right? which just freaks a lot of people out. just give it to them. if they misinterpret it or use it to bash the organization, that's certainly their prerogative. but it shouldn't limit those that are really interested right? and i think if we do more and more engagements like this or have a session where we sit around, tell me again why you think the apprehension per

recidivist which is one of the 12 indicators we've identified why is that important, first of all, explain to me why it's important, how is that different than just an apprehension, and tell me mathematically how you calculate that. i'm not a math genius by any stretch. i've got some very smart folks. we shouldn't just don't give it to people because they want to understand it. i also heard if, in fact, you give everybody everything i mean, the security notwithstanding in terms of we don't want to divulge everything, you know tactics techniques and procedures but when it comes to the actual numbers, a lot of it if it's too confusing, a lot of people don't understand. i don't care about the numbers, how you calculate the z score or why it's used and if you say standard deviation one more time chief i'm going to slap you, right? is the border secure, and how do you assess that? there's some ways you could maybe do a home page, right? and for those that are interested and want to delve

deeper into that there's certain forums for. that we have to stop doing this all or nothing. we have to look at the specific audiences and try to tailor what that message should be. but we're still having those discussions and any insight into that would help in the cause for sure. thank you. >> gentleman across the aisle from him, please. >> ben -- [inaudible] crossmatch technologies. i'm wondering, you say you don't want to pin the metrics on one particular metric, you want to spread that out. great. you're going on a risk-based strategy, but what's an acceptable level of risk? >> that's, that is an excellent question. you know, let's take a look at the different types of threats right? so if you say what is acceptable in allowing a terrorist into the united states along the southern border, that level of risk is very small in my mind right? we have to do everything and anything. and which, by the way, the

reason why when we look at how do we assess that risk right? first we take a look -- if anybody asks me, chief, is the border secure or not, we transition that to what is the state of the border? let's take a gee graphic section. if you're -- geographic section. what i'm about to explain in arizona may or may not apply in a place like south texas. so the first thing we do, and this is a continuous to process by the way, so we'll take a look at what the intelligence estimates are we'll take a look at the current intel. what is intel telling us in terms of the intent and capability of any particular add adversary regardless of who they are on that spectrum and define the threat for us. that's not -- the border patrol doesn't do we don't own that. we're the consumers of that. then we assess vulnerability and consequence on our side and we try to identify what the risk is. so that's one whole section, right? the second section is understanding those risk indicators that we were just discussing, about 12 or so of those.

what do can they mean in the geographic area in comparison to other corridors? and third was how well do we think we know what's happening in the environment? then we think we can discuss and assess that level of risk. but the level of risk for allowing a terrorist into this country is a lot different than allowing 6,000 unaccompanied children coming in through south texas. and we have to start thinking about threat differently because they're not all equal. and yet throughout history, again, it's just because as we're evolving this, we used to just look at the border because not only was it resource based we took the approach that we're going to grab and hold terrain. independent. it was just get 'em on the line, and once we've got a piece of that, we're going to hold onto it. lo and behold, there's a lot to hold on to. so what now do you do? so that was part of it. not all risk is equal. and, again, we're not espousing that we're the experts in understanding risk and mitigating risk. there's a whole host of those and perhaps some of you in the

audience that can help us in the outyears try and understand how to we actually implement and manage this. we're really at the infancy in understanding this new shift in our strategy and how, how do you assess risk. and by the way the border patrol's not going to be the only one, you know, dictating what is acceptable. there's a whole bunch of voters out there i'm sure are going to have a voice in this. >> actually, if i could follow up on that and ask robert a question regarding, you know, not all risks are created equal, and when you have a risk-based strategy, you have to take several factors into consideration. one of your articles talked about a traditional approach and traditional capabilities in technology, and so could you talk a little bit about capabilities in approaching the risks as identified in a strategy and the sort of integration of traditional and technology as methods to approach this kind of risk? >> sure. so when we talk about traditional and technological assets or capabilities,

traditional is talking about assigned cutting it's an art. it's literally the tracking of individuals that cross the border, it's the flashlights that you see on "border wars," it's the gung ho border patrol agents that are actually tracking them down and putting hands on individuals. and that's the way, typically it's been done for the majority of our history. chief talked about the border environment, and our capabilities are changing. that comes along with underground sensors, fixed towers, radar drills all types of technology. specifically, we talked a little bit aboutuas and flies over the border flies back and we compare those two. that kind of situational awareness is something we've never had, the ability to do that. so that in and of itself has given us better situational awareness which has led us to metrics we have today which allow us to understand what's happening on the border in a

more consistent manner. >> you mentioned unmanned aerial systems or uass, and i know a lot of the technology has been developed for the mail tear that's being applied now, but some things have been developed specifically for border patrol or law enforcement, so it's not always military-style technology. one thing i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about is sort of interagency partners. you mentioned the border patrol is one piece of it, and as you use technology and talk about interoperability not only a common threat picture but also being able to work with together whether it's air or marine versus other pieces of cdp national guard comes to mind in some instances in the recent past, so could you talk a little bit about you mentioned interagency partnerships but expand upon that in terms of how that impacts the articles or the thoughts behind your articles. how do you integrate interagency folks? >> so interagency folks, when we talk about integration, the

second article talks a little bit about the black swan theory. it's one of the more common questions i get about second article, what was that for us? and it was, literally, unrestrained integration. it is the ability that we have through the interagency process when we want to, when we focus on individual targets to stop crime, to stop illicit border activity that no doubt came from -- [inaudible] murder. but also the south texas campaign. when the south texas campaign was developed, it had to bring everyone in the same room, and it had to go beyond co-location or cooperation, had to be true integration. it had to have everyone in the same room, all the intelligence on table. we had to pick specific targets we had to vote on those targets, and we had to not only tell each other what we're going to do against that but we had to focus in on individual targets responsible for that. and then, of course, we've had dod on the border title 32 and title 10 working with us for

some time. so that lesson that came from robert rose's murder and how we brought those individuals to justice red that revolution on how -- led that revolution on how the interagency environment needed to work. >> thank you. is this gentleman up here please. >> bernard horowitz from -- [inaudible] first, chief just in the recent visit that you hosted us on the border, i would say that we've seen clear evidence that the thought process now of the agents is changing and everybody's talking about risk-based and developing their own metrics so i want to compliment you. >> thank you. >> i think it's definitely deployed down to the troops on the border. my question specifically is when you look more strategically at risks in the future, what do you see is the primary risks for a secure border environment? from a strategic perspective? and regarding the metrics what

kind of lead metrics are you looking at in order to help you predict, then foresee what's going to happen in the next two, three, five years ahead that you need to really get ready for? >> that's a great question, thanks. so for the first part of the question i think, you know everybody was so focused on unaccompanied children i'll kind of go back to that example. and there was a lot of discussion about what are you going to do with the kids, and you know is border patrol feeding them and there was just hordes of people i mean, thousands a day as you can imagine, right? what we were looking at was who's maybe mixed in with that group, because when you start looking at groups of 50 just coming across and, by the way a lot of them weren't running away from border patrol agents. smugglers were collecting the fees and pointing them across the border and saying when you get to the levee sit down. a border patrol agent will be there in 30 minutes. they were making a lot of money

no risk, and all these people started coming across are. again, there's no impediment there to stop people from crossing. so when you look at the strategic, you know, whether you couch it as a mass migration or not, when you have a lot of people infiltrating a specific area, you don't know who these people are, at least we don't until and unless you do the biometrics and you sit down and you talk with them. and when you have that many people coming across a specific area, now you have to be able to move some of those agents that were typically on patrol or response to the detection to make the interdiction and now you have to transfer those agents into transportation. get them away from the border. so you're starting to thin your force in terms of a potential threat that's going to exploit not because the kids are a threat necessarily when it comes to, you know, national security interests, but people exploiting the circumstances to come in either behind or with them. so that's one. leading indicators for us is what we call first-time entrance. and it is exactly what you think. it's we want to be able to track

people that are coming into the united states or in our systems biometrically for the very first time. because it's not about the individuals, right? if you look in that third article a lot or if you take a look at the 12th, it's not about people, it's not about marijuana. it's about the business model of these transnational organized criminals. it is the counter-network interdependencies. and so when you look at like, a first-time entrance, matter of fact, that was the only way we were able to point and tell the commissioner or when he asked us, hey, in 2011 we're going to invest our last dime in arizona and we're going to be successful in arizona. and, chief, i need to tell you where the next arizona's going to be, right? squeeze the balloon, everybody's heard that over the years. no one's been able to predict this before, so we had some smart folks who said how about we look at the data differently, take a look at where proportionately along the southern border people are showing up for the v. first time. it's not about the people it's about the business shift and the

smugglers who decided we're going to start moving elsewhere because it's too difficult to go in this particular area. and lo and behold, for a three-year period the vast majority of individuals crossing the southern border for the very first time were showing up in south texas. two years before south texas was a blip on anybody's radar. but that was one leading indicator. and we're looking at others to be able to make those judgments to talk about, you know, in the future what our resource requirements may be. and how about, hey, how about we start shifting border patrol agents and beefing up a particular area in advance of a potential surge instead of reacting to it. so we're starting to look at the data a lot different than we have in the past. great question, thank you. >> the lady over in the corner please. >> good morning. my name's laura -- [inaudible] i'm an arizona native. and i had a question about the relationship of border patrol to border communities. as we know, there's people who live on the border have a wide

spectrum of opinions on everything from wanting more policing wanting more patrol and then some people who have unfortunately, had a lot of grievantses against border patrol -- grievances against border patrol and the increased militarization of their communities. from your perspective how do you see the opinion and dialogue has been carried out -- i mean, the opinions of the border communities have been taken into account in strategy, and how do you plan to include them in the future? >> again, another excellent question. i think the communities in which we serve are paramount to helping us think through. i mean, it's one thing about looking at the border from a strategic context and going out to a rotary club ask say hey we're with the border patrol we're the experts, deal with it, right? we don't deal that. at least -- we don't do it like that. at least we shouldn't. as a constituency out there, they aren't inconvenienced by the checkpoint. just because the border patrol agents are tracking groups through their yard and the dogs are barking. we don't want them to be the

nuisance. we want them to add to that situational awareness. we rely on those communities, and the leadership in the field meets with them frequently because they're a really good source of information. i'm not talking about as a confidential informant about hey, i noticed, you know, the dogs started barking the last couple of weeks and that hasn't happened in the last three months. we want to be able to involve them, first and foremost, have them understand what we are doing in terms of our deployments. i'm not saying they all have to agree with the way we're doing it, but at least give them the opportunity to understand this is what we're doing and why we're doing it, and then get their reaction to it. understand what their concerns are so we can adjust as needed and recognizing that, you know we don't want to be on their profit any longer than we need to right? but it is a critical component. when robert's talking about integration, you know, looking at our federal state tribal partner, that's going to be critical. but that's not to the exclusion of the communities in which we serve. they ultimately are going to dictate the extent to which we either encroach upon their

rights, or we encroach upon their property and we really want to be good stewards in that regard as well. >> the question in the back. >> thank you. my name is eric -- [inaudible] i'm with continental consulting. i had a question regarding gao i believe, did a study a few years back on manned v. unmanned intelligence capabilities, and i was just wondering if you could describe some of the benefits, cost advantages differences between those two capabilities. i believe you used manned aerial assets more recently and maybe some, you know, how that progressed since you've started that. >> right. i'm be honest, i'm not really -- i'll be honest, i'm not really familiar with the gao study but my broad reaction would be the cbp air-marine office within u.s. customs and border protection has a variety of platforms. they do specific missions. so if you say, hey, um, is an

a-star valuable, i would say yes, if it's giving air-to-ground support, and it's forward deployed and it's only being flown once we have a tip and cue, and we have a target to go after. if you say is an a-star valuable and i say what's the mission you say we wanted to go up and down the border and detect people from coming across, my answer is that's probably not the best utilization of that asset. and the same could be true of a uh-60 plaquehawk helicopter or -- blackhawk helicopter or unmanned aerial system. it's not one size fits all. again, not familiar with the study and whether it's cost effective, we just want to make sure we're utilizing the capability in its best intended use and not just using it just because we have another platform out there, so let's just get it up in the air and start looking for people. which, by the way, ten years ago that's -- we needed them because we didn't have a lot of detection capability. and by the way, and robert can probably appreciate this also, as a border patrol agent working

by myself in the middle of nowhere and not being able to get communication out, when i started hearing helicopter blades coming from the north and all of a sudden i would hear this pilot get on and say 631, this is fox, you got any traffic? i'm here to support you i mean that person was my best friend. so yeah, so border patrol agents always want air because a lot of times that's the only either coms relay out or they know somebody, if something happens, that pilot's going to land and help them. >> i'd like to actually just ask a little bit about the changes that have happened in the border patrol in the last ten years. the growing use of unmanned systems whether they're piloted or, you know unmanned systems -- drones, per se -- or aerostat, for example mobile aerial surveillance, things that you can use to go ahead and shift spaces the fact that the border patrol has grown so much

since 2004. robert mentioned over 21,000 agents that's something of it, i think a lot of people would be surprised. you have to go back to 2004, i think that's almost double or more than double what y'all had in 2004. so could you talk a little bit about what's happened in the last ten years and where you see that trajectory going in terms of the capability of the border patrol unmanned systems? some have questioned, you know, do we need as many agents if we have this technology? how do you address those kinds of questions? >> that's a great point, and my quick answer is, you know it's an art not a science. there's not a set of instructions that comes with an aerostat when we get, you know, a handover from dod and say, hey, this is how you should deploy it, and you can reduce your level of staffing by 30% because that's what happened to us when we deployed it. and i want to thank general swan since he's here and the great work he and his team did because over the past ten years traditionally what was happening as the military was being

deployed in theater often times they would take emerging technology and come on out to the border. one because the environment in some of our border locations were very comparable to what they were going to be facing and they wanted and evaluate -- wanted to test and evaluate some of the equipment. on the other hand we had between 90-180 days at times to gain additional detection and monitoring capabilities. so it helped us out. and the military in those instances really taught us on how to absorb different technology. because if you give a border patrol agent any piece of equipment, he or she's going to use it to the equivalent of what they're used to, right? real quick example, one of the first unmanned aerial systems that we got border patrol agents were like great, this is like another helicopter. so get it up there, and when the border patrol agent calls, they're going to slew the uas and tell the agent if he's close to the group or not only because that's all we knew. so early on as we were getting more and more equipment and

learning this process, we had to teach the organization how -- and we're still learning ourselves -- what is the best fusion of all these different types of capability? you know ten years ago if i was in arizona, there was no command center. i wouldn't have the responsibility of some of those agents now trying to, you know, there's going to be a shift tonight that starts at 4:00 we're going to run that shift for ten hours. and there's one watch commander who has to determine where are the 15 mobile surveillance systems going to be located? which one of the unattended ground sensors are not working, and how are we going to cover that particular gap? i've got two fixed wing that are running eoir, two helicopters, two of which are going to be forward deployed on standby and i've got two uass. as a border patrol agent i have to figure out how i'm going to deploy that because there are 500 agents depending on me.

i would have found some other occupation, believe me. we have border patrol agents now that aren't intimidated by that, but they need to learn. and there's folks that can help us continue because ten years ago, as robert had mentioned we're learning at a very fast pace. some of it's trial and error which is okay. but a lot of it we have to be able to close those gaps, and the military's been a great partner and continues to be a great partner in helping us flatten that learning curve out. >> gentleman near you madison. >> hello. my name is dan i'm from tucson. i work with an organization called no more deaths. i hope -- i'm glad you've heard of us. we are concerned about, specifically, the migrant deaths that happened in our sector last year. last year we had 128 deaths so i'm curious on your plan, it doesn't seem to to mention anything about goals to reduce migrant deaths and also other things our organization is concerned about is abuse of migrants within custody. we have a lot of firsthand

experiences, physical mental sometimes sexual abuse of migrants while in border patrol cus custody. i'm just curious where in the plan it includes those aspects that remedy the problems that we've been bringing to your organization for the past ten years? >> thank you for that question. don't discount the fact that you don't find it in the pages that somehow we are not as concerned as you are with deaths along the border. we that's another indicator that we do track over tame. i'm happy -- over time. i'm happy to report that those are down for the second year in a row rescues are up, and i think the overarching deployment -- remember, when you're looking at something specific like border l patrol you need to reduce deaths on the border, that really comes i out when you look at the operational plans that support the strategy. so the strategic document matter of fact, the article that robert wrote really talks about what those shifts were. it doesn't talk about the tactics, techniques and procedures. it doesn't even mention, by the way, if you look through those

pages what the strategic objectives are. the intent of the article wasn't to do that. if you're interested and want to take a look at what the campaign plan for arizona is there's publications that are available that we'd be happy to walk you through. but i will tell you reducing the -- all deaths in any way whether they're drownings whether they're the exposures and the elements, that's certainly something that we want to continue to the extent that we can control that. often times we cannot, right? because these organizations often times will exploit people. they will tell them, for instance hey, we're going to cross the west desert and if you're from tucson you're probably very familiar with the reservation, right? we will be walking for an hour so don't worry about carrying water. we know that's not true. these people coming from central and south america don't know that. so help us if you could, as we continue our messaging campaign and let people know how dangerous it is. it is not worth the risk of your life or your loved one's life

and don't pay a smuggler to have them smuggle somebody into the united states. it's too dangerous. and the people that are profiting from this have no regard for that which you and i hold dear, which is the safety and security of everybody in and around the border environment. but thank you for the question. >> what about the -- [inaudible] several documented cases of that -- [inaudible] >> yeah. well, as it relates to in custody whether there are allegations of misconduct or deaths, not just the border patrol but u.s. customs and border protection and certainly the department of homeland security takes all of those very seriously. the commissioner just recently received the authorization for 1811 positions which are criminal investigators within cbp. so we will be doing those investigations as soon as we, as those allegations come forward. there's a whole host of folks that do those investigations now currently. the office of the inspector general, you have i.c.e. does some of those investigations. so any allegationings of

misconduct -- allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and we will continue to do so. >> with all due respect, with all due respect sir you've asked two questions now so if you wouldn't mind us we will turn to someone else now. >> [inaudible] >> all due respect sorry, thank you very much. get a microphone up to him please. thanks tom. >> oh. first of all thanks for a very informative discussion. i'm andre, and i'm the director for vietnam/southeast asia and washington d.c. for the interstate traveler company in detroit, so we're just business people, not really concerned rollsally with border security. but my question is this. the allegation has been made by at least one congressional representative and maybe more but one i read about in "the washington post" today, that

islamic extremists are training some of their people to, quote imitate hispanics unquote, to cross the southern border. my question is is there any credible intelligence that that's happening to your knowledge? >> no. [laughter] >> next question. [laughter] if we can turn to this gentleman over here. thanks. >> hey don -- [inaudible] ubm. thanks again for putting -- ibm. thanks again for putting together the paper i think it's tremendous, i'm glad you guys are doing it. i was wondering whether other components within dhs have come to you to talk about putting together a collaborative paper on how you guys all work together at the borders something to that extent. >> yes and no. [laughter] >> this could be a very short

q&a session. robert please elaborate. >> yes, they have. i believe the importance is with the articles, like a first step just speaking of the border patrol in general or dhs employees in general, we are very, very good at telling stories. you could sit with a border patrol agent who's been in 20 years and hear some of the best law enforcement stories in the world. we haven't been so well at writing these things down, so i will carry the suggestion back, and i encourage them with all due haste to do that. thank you. >> if we can come up to one of our csi senior affiliates here josh. >> good morning chiefs and thanks for being here. quick question. i think a lot of folks myself included, have been sort of disappointed about the level and quality of the public and political dialogue in the last decade or so around border security. i think there's some notable exceptions csis and council on foreign relations, for example, have done some very thoughtful

work. but generally, the level of dialogue has been less than i think, the seriousness of the issue would warrant. and so, first of all, just as a remark i just want to congratulate you guys because i think the work, chief schroeder you've done has the potential to really elevate the dialogue going forward. and so my question is, as you said, you see this as opening the door to further conversation. how do you envision that dialogue moving forward? and if someone is on the outside, either a think tank or in the public or in the private sector, wherever, and wants to contribute, how would you recommend that they contribute to discussion, the dialogue moving forward? >> yeah. thanks josh, and i'll let robert, you know, talk a little bit about it. i'm as disappointed as you are let it be clear. we're going to continue whether it's forums like this. i think getting the publication out, getting it on the web site should at least generate at least more interest about, hey,

i don't understand what you're talking about on page 18, could you talk about it. it always seems when we want to be able to do this and there's some momentum building within the organization, that the timing just isn't -- i mean, i was really surprised. due shea to stephanie, i said so you scheduled this for the 6th of january the first day congress is back and everyone's talking about a potential border security bill right? so all of a sudden, you know, the antennas are up again about you know, what's going to happen. that's just the nature of it. it has been other the years and you know that. we can take two positionings, right? and this is just my personal opinion. one we can say, you know what? we've asked a how times -- a i thousand times, i'm tired of asking, and let's just go back and do our job and forget about it. i think that's the easy way out, one the organization internally. we owe it to them to talk about i how proud we are of the work that they're doing and we owe it to the citizens who are just

trying to figure this out because we're all touched about it. i am not dissuaded, i am not chagrined, and i'm going to continue to try whether it's venues like this whether it's opportunities in the media. i say yes to every opportunity -- although rare and infrequent as they are. i want to talk about the mission and the men and women of the organization. and we'll continue to do so. and anything that you think that we should be doing that we're not, let us know, right? a lot of times people just say well when are you going to come out here and talk and do this? give us the opportunities. because everyone that comes in with a request i advocate, you know, within the department. this is a really good opportunity, here's an opportunity the talk about the campaign at the secretary's level, how that meshes with what we're doing in between the ports of entry. want to be able to make those discussions and dialogue a lot more robust in the future and we're going to continue to do that, so help us out. >> actually, if i could turn to robert just to follow up on that

question which is, robert you're in a unique position having been on the hill for a little while now -- and i'm not going to put you in an awkward position of trying to intuit what politicians are going to do in the upcoming congress, but in terms of what you would like congress to focus on from a border security issue, from a risk-based strategy issue, what would you like to see happen? what kind of key topics would you like to see addressed early on in this congress? >> this question kind of ties in with what the gentleman asked and also the individual from arizona here, the young lady. when they ask me hey, what should you focus on, i wassed at a dinner recently by an ap reporter, what do we get wrong about the border all the time? there's only go states on the border controlled or uncontrolled, that has been the dialogue completely. it's one of many many articles that border patrol agents will talk an issue and put out as well as dhs. one of the most important things in the article is it all comes

out of what we need to focus on. border security isn't going to be completed by resources alone. it takes an interagency operation and intelligence investigative efforts, and it takes a focused effort on those individuals responsible for the majority of the crime. so resources alone won't solve the problem. and you continually hear that debate. every day, all hours of the day it's resources resources resources. and it's extremely important. been -- but that, if it's not coupled with the abilities we have in the intelligence community, the investigative community and they're not focusing on single individuals then we're going to continue to struggle. so i would say that's most important. >> general? >> yeah. guy swan from the association of the u.s. army. i've worked a lot with you guys over the years, and i have to say that under chief fisher's leadership, this agency has really really blossomed and started to look at the right things, and robert's product is

a perfect example of the kind of thinking that's going on inside this organization. both of you know that borders have two sides to them. could you talk about your international engagement? you talked about interagency extensively, but what about the international component to border security and how does that factor into what you've written? >> thank you general, for the question and for your kind remarks. very critical. as a matter of fact, when you look at -- i'll go back to the southern border in approaches, it's the approaches right? we're not just talking about the lines, so to speak and, you know things only start when they come into the united states. matter of fact beyond just intelligence and working with our partners is to identify the threat well in advance so we kind of take, as cbp has done in the air passenger environment, how do you minimize risk in the air passenger environment? you identify the threats and don't let them get on the plane

so we don't have to do turn arounds like we used to do in 2003 in bangor maine. we take that same approach. we look at how do we first identify those threats early second, within the approach, within those what's -- a lot of times and you know this general, you've been down there -- a lot of that we have even within the corridors to our south within the hemisphere, you know terrain's going to dictate routes of travel in most cases, right? so how do we leverage that with the government of mexico, for instance, and the work you have done with your team in helping us bridge the mil to mil that you have established and then taking that a step further and doing that work with the federal police is continuing to do joint threat assessment, for instance, so that we have at least the same situational awareness. it doesn't mean we're asking for beyond what they're doing now in terms of commitments. we start with the easy stuff. and if we can agree to either understand what that threat environment looks like or even if we disagree at the end on what we should do about it, that's okay too. but i think over time our

ability and working with mexico and they do recognize that, you know, symptom may look at it -- some may look at it as, well this is just migration through the country, and nobody should do anything. but those leadership positions from the military and security side of it recognize that the threat -- even though it may be heading to the u.s -- is going to come lu their area. and we're making incremental steps in trying to, one, do the joint patrols as we continue to do. we're looking for continued support in that regard both in terms of frequency of deployments and number of deployments, and we're really looking for a sustainment of that commitment over time which i think is really the critical piece, as you would, as you saw when we were down will. >> if i could follow up on that just briefly in terms of you've talked about the southern border and the southern approaches could you talk about the northern border? obviously, not as many one

would argue, scenarios which are of concern along the northern border, but i have to confess i was the candidate for a while in the pentagon so i'm curious as to what the border patrol might be doing along our northern border. >> right now they're trying to identify what the risk indicators are going to be on the north. if you look at any of the the indicators, the metrics -- 12 indicators, i would generally characterize as flow. people and things coming across the southern border or. so, obviously, if we're trying to measure the extent to which we're reducing that flow, those metrics make sense. it does not make sense to adopt those metrics in a place like montana and hold the chief in montana accountable to reduce the average apprehension per recidivist when they're catching maybe one person in the spring. right? it's a different environment. i'm not suggesting there's no threat there. i don't know what the threat is right now.

i know what the intelligence is. so what the border patrol leadership is doing is understanding this framework and managing risk. they're still held to account to manage risk. what they have to do is identify what the intent and capability that defines the threat is in their area of operation understand their vulnerabilities and what the consequence is to identify what that risk is. and when the process in this iteration along the northern border to really carve that out. >> my name is paula. i have a -- i'm glad to hear about the increase in dialogue with communities and the public around border patrol's mission and strategies and i think this honedout will actually be -- handout will actually be very useful in helping with that die roll. and i hope along with that my question goes to sharing the information as you gather these measurements and impacts, and i

specifically would ask about giving numbers about checkpoints. what happens at checkpoints apprehensions and seizures? a lot of communities that i'm familiar with in arizona have asked for this information about their local checkpoints so they know what is happening at those checkpoints and have not been able, given that information. as well as the transparency around when it does happen such as jose antonio rodriguez's death, the transparency around the facts and the information relating to that when a border patrol agent is involved so that public does know, and the border patrol can be held either accountable or that the facts are out there so they are judged by everyone equally. >> yeah. i would agree. so i'm going to point in that far corner. you'll see assistant chief ryan landrieu. if you're so inclined at the end of this, walk over introduce yourself, and he will give you a

business card and a point of contact if there's a specific inquiry whether it's tell me about i-19 checkpoint over the past year, i want to know how many apprehensions were made at that checkpoint and to the extent that we can do that without -- whatever the question is if we're able to release that data, we'll get it to you. fair enough? thank you. >> do we have anyone else? ooh, i'm sorry. ma'am? >> my name's jeanette -- [inaudible] and i'm from the australian embassy here in washington d.c. i just had a question, more technical question about your risk-based metrics and how you use them in calculating the sort of border flows. marley, how do you -- particularly, how do you measure what you don't know? so for those where you haven't apprehended someone, how do you factor those into your risk

metrics? >> that's a great point. that's the question even when i first came up in 2010. i've heard it throughout my career, and i just kept getting it repeatedly. so it's, if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around, does it make a sound, right? so how do you know what you don't know? and i still remember one of the first hearings i did with gao. oh, that's great, chief, border patrol -- this was back in 2010 one of my first hearings. and border patrol, that's great, you're giving us all your apprehensions, you're just giving us, you you know, your numerator. i just sat there on the panel math was horrible for me. i was, like -- then he said, well it's just like, you know, chief, you just giving me your batting average, but it's not your batting average, you're just telling me how many hits you got. you're not telling me how many at bats. that i understood. i said okay, maybe you can do something with that, thanks for the tip. and that's what started some of

the dialogue and the discussion. again, this is not an exact science, right? there is one of those 12 indicators which is called the interdiction effectiveness rate. my staff by the way gets paid more each syllable that they come up with risk names so this one, obviously, someone got a big payoff. the interdiction effectiveness rate. just think of it, it really goes to the heart of a question i got. it was probably, i don't know, six years ago or so, and this was a community that really wasn't on or near the border. and we're talking about what we do and our deployments. finally, this gracious woman raises her hand and says, chief i don't understand anything that you're saying. could you just tell me last night how many people came across the border and how many people did you apprehend? she said is that too difficult? and there's two sides of me, and my left side was saying, oh, my gosh, that is really difficult. i have no idea. but it is so simplistic, why can't we at least do this?

that's what set us off to be able to identify to the extent we're able to thisserinterdirection effectiveness ratio so that we do have, in fact a denominator. and i tell people -- and i'm very open about this -- this is not science. what you're trying to do is you're trying to organize train, equip an organization along 2,000 miles of border with mexico to be able to count how many people are coming across that border. now, just think about that. 2,000 miles. with some very rough and disparate terrain that you will find in most places. how do you do that? so for a number of years, i still remember it, nobody wanted to even try. because as a proud organization, right, if you couldn't do it with perfection you just don't do it. which is the reason why we held up apprehension numbers, you know, and we would defend it to the death, because we could go into an e3 system and be able to tell you exactly what the

fingerprint identification number was, who the person's name biographic. we had that. we didn't have the ability to be able to count how many people came across the border. and so what we decided to do was take a risk and say okay, let's not make perfect the ebb bmy of good -- the enemy of good here. let's add to this as a situational awareness piece and see if we can't get better. and lo and behold, the organization is getting better. and we're utilizing different technology to be able to do that. we're using existing technology for this purpose that we weren't using before, and border patrol agents, you know, god bless 'em. i'm very proud of the work that they do. they, unlike the leadership, are not risk averse. you tell them, hey i'd like for you to be able to count on your shift this afternoon how many people came across. they're like okay. without a thought right? is they want to be able to do this. and they're going to come back to me and say i could have done a lot better, chief, if you gave me a, b and c. throughout each successive year as we talk about that and look

at the manner in which we're collecting the data how we're standardizing the methodology across how we're capturing it and how we're assessing what that means, each year it gets more and more exciting for me to do that. but i will always stop short of saying this is the number, and it's right. it is a number, and we believe we have some processes in place that inform us better than last year. but if somebody says i need you to guarantee that denominator, i can't do that. unless there's some piece of technology some dust that's out there that's going to be able to tag and track people and be able to, you know, geospatially plot them somewhere that, you know, the d. can then make -- the department then make an accounting of that. short of that, we're going to continue to do our best to be able to identify that. not as the metric right? we're not trying to hijack, do away with apprehension rates. this is one of 12 that helps inform us about how we're doing and what we're doing along that border. it's a great point though.

>> we have time for one final question, and then this is the gentleman who's going to ask it. >> it's just a follow-up on the last one. what is the range in a percentage of those 12 metrics, the specific numbers that you think you apprehend? what percent of the people that come across the border do you think you apprehend? >> on average it's about 78, 79% at this point. and that's 95% confidence with a margin of error of about 2%. i'm guessing. >> use all of those math terms. [laughter] well, i want to thank everyone for coming out today. it has stopped snowing, it looks like, so that doesn't mean the danger is gone, but it does mean it's going to be a little bit less flurry-like. i do want to thank our guests here on the dais with me, both chief fisher and assistant chief schroeder. thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your insights, and you're welcome back anytime.

please everyone, join me in thanking our guests. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> lauren gardner covers energy issues for cq roll call and joins us on capitol hill. you tweeted about the nebraska decisioning. landowner plaintiff in keystone xl case, it's time for the president to put an end to this damn thing. what will -- how does that change the dynamic of the president's decision? nebraska supreme court says they can move forward assuming the senate passes it, what's next with the white house? >> guest: well, with the nebraska decision coming out today, that just means it takes away one of the reasons why the white house has said it's not making a decision yet on the pipeline because there was no legal route through nebraska. so now that that state law has been upheld, the state department can now ask federal

agencies across government to submit their comments on the national interest determination to them. so it'll still be at least a couple weeks yet for agencies to do so, but we're expecting that process to get back underway now. >> host: with lauren gardner staying with us at least for a little bit to hear from you. wendell, north carolina, james, go ahead. >> caller: yes. i was watching the proceedings on your show and i find it hilarious that the republicans are talking about how they are so much in agreement with certain unions. and everyone know that they are not for unions. so i wonder after all of this is over are they going to still be in support of the unions? >> guest: well, the -- i'm sorry, the labor argument has been one of the, that's been a big argument by business groups for why this shouldn't go forward and that, you know labor unions tend to have a lot of support for democrats, and that's a reason -- that's

something that democrats should take into account when considering where their position should be on this, this issue. >> host: here's rick in rogue river, oregon, independents' line. what do you think can, rick? how do you feel about the keystone bill? >> caller: well, i support the pipeline, and i do think that they ought to be able to put an amendment in to contribute to the disaster fund, such as it is, with the eight cents a gallon or eight cents a barrel. i've made my living for the last 14 years off of working in the service industry for the alaska pipeline. and it absolutely amazes me how these people can spout out that there's only 35 possible jobs that are long term. there are thousands of people working from the '70s up on the alaska pipeline. there's people who have retired just on that one project. and it seems that there, they don't, they don't have any actual idea how many people it would take to run a pipeline that long. it's not like you just put oil in one end and it comes out the

other. there's pump stations along the way, there's, you know as i said, i work in the service industry, i'm a food service provider. and there's there's good long-term jobs there. and it's much safer to put oil in a pipeline than ship it across the sea from saudi arabia or opec nations who really don't care for the way our western lifestyle. >> guest: and that, your comments get to another major argument that's come up here especially by supporters of the pipeline, that they say the oil is going to get to market anyway, it's just going to find other pipelines or it's going to move on train, or it's going to move on barge down a river so that that's an issue that supporters have definitely seized upon in this debate. >> host: in west virginia it is richard on the independent line. go ahead, richard. >> guest: just want to just want to add my consent to what

your formal independent caller stated because he has the experience on the alaskan pipeline. i have talked to my own senators manchin capito and mckinley and, basically, i am in favor with the pipeline with the proviso that they do pay into the disaster fund. and i suggest the idea of what i refer to as a transport tax which is a small tax based on the number of units you move through the pipeline. and put that to what the deficit, and that ought to soften the idea of the objectors, and that's all in thinkbig didn't u.s./18936. >> host: on that disaster fund, there was a little talk about that at the end of the debate. what's the talk on that? >> guest: well, the oil spill liability trust fund is a fund

that helps play for spill clean-ups. the way the bill's written right now, oil sands doesn't fall under the definition of crude oil, so that's been an issue that democrats have definitely seized upon in this debate for a very long time, that think think that oil sands producers should have to pay into it. or now if this were to come up in the senate debate, you also run into an issue of tax legislation not originating in the house as it's required to do. so it, we'll see how that plays out next week as debate kicks off there. >> host: let's go to new york, to brooklyn, and john on our democrats' line. >> caller: yes, good morning and thank you for taking my call c-span and good morning, ms. gardner. my question was there was earlier a senator or representative to that put a map of the entire oil distribution of the united states, and now we're going to be adding this xl pipeline to the oil distribution. and i'm sure all the oil distribution that goes down to the refineries down south

actually refine different types of crude oil. the xl pipeline seems to be the only pipeline i'm hearing that's going to be refining tar sand type oil which is, i guess 20 times more emissions in terms of carbon emissions. if we do not do this pipeline when canada transports it to other countries that can refine this oil is it that other countries do not have the same refining capabilities that the united states has? and i know transportation is a very important issue in terms of tankers and things like that. but, ultimately who's refining it other than the united states for the refineries that we have that's capable of refining car sands versus other countries refining tar sand oil, and then the whole picture of globally adding carbon emissions to the world, the amount that we have right now? so that's where the complexity

is to me compared to the distribution of our oil systems in the united states. >> host: okay, john, thank you. we'll get a response. >> guest: well, the refining capacity in the united states it depends on the region. in terms of what type of oil they're most equipped to refine. and in the southern united states many refiners down there are best equipped to handle very heavy, viscous crude. so that include oil sands up in canada, but also heavy crude that are typically found in countries like venezuela. and that's where a lot of the oil has come from to those refineries in the past. but refining from those countries has gone down in the past years and that's one of the arguments why keystone's so important, because it brings a supply, a great arer supply down to the southern, the gulf coast refiners that have built out the capacity to deal with that heavy crude. >> host: a tweet here from maria cantwell opposed to the keystone pipeline, she says unusual the

u.s. senate has been asked to vote on a bill sending a pipeline through the u.s. simply because a canadian company wants us to do so. when the senate takes up their measure, how much different will it be, could it be from what the house debated? >> guest: well, the senate debate will be different in that they'll be considering amendments, and senator mcconnell has promised an open amendment process. so we can expect to see bill supporters trying to garner >> the house, by the way, passed the keystone bill last week and

president obama has said that he will veto that legislation. the house and senate are out on thursday and friday for party retreats, house and senate republicans will be holding a joint retreat for the first time in the ten years. senate democrats are meeting in baltimore. now live to the senate floor. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. our father in heaven, you know our thoughts from afar. teach us how to live to honor your name. rule in our lives, injecting our intentions with such purity that even our motives can withstand