tiator. doesn't mean they will pay anything. it means they are going to talk to see if there is some way to resolve this. we have never seen if there is some way to resolve the problem with the islamic state. we don't know if there is any room on their part because we haven't tried. i think that is a serious mistake and a moral failure on the part of the government. >> just one point here which i think highlights the problem. our people, "the new york times" people in turkey and recovery in syria were getting information about the kidnapping, just in the normal course of reporting. we as a policy were collecting that. reporters are giving it to me and i was passing it on to the

families. whichever family it was relevant to. it is a really strange thing because i didn't feel i have to go to the fbi didn't want to go to the fbi because i didn't think we'd get to the families. when i went directly to the families, they many times -- all the time or happy to have the spirit of what are they going to do with the information once you get it. now how do you operate on it whether someone is saying i know how to make contact with the kidnappers or whether it is information about where people are being held or anything like that. we passed it onto the families but there was always this empty feeling they would not be effectively worked on because of the failure of the government to assist. >> i think that is a success of the british philosophy in terms of having two diplomats totally

delegated to helping hostage families understand what is going on. they don't pay ransom either. their results are similar to ours up to this point. but at least families such as ours would have confidence in their effort, but have confidence in the fact we are working to get information and there was a plan. so i agree with david. >> thanks a lot. now i get to do by matthew mcconaghy. here is a question on the top. what happens when you guys talk to congressional representatives? >> do you want the honest answer? >> yes honest answer. ..

again, i think senator shaheen was wonderful but i think they're impotent. they really can't drive the state department and/or the executive office to do what needs to be done. >> at one point we actually to talk to senator mccain for families, we all went together to talk to him and he was good to give us an audience and such but, you know, nothing.

>> there are two questions that are similar here. i will combined them. one, what with jim's biggest goal as a cellist? how do you want to keep his legacy alive? -- journalist. and what you want to say to parents who still want to go into this? how would you like him to be remembered? >> well, jim was very interested, as you said, in human rights site. jim was very concerned about the people who have no voice as are most journalists to be honest the ones who really are passionate about giving a voice to the people they talk to. so one of our biggest deals is to continue that. so part of it is you know american hostages don't have a force. a lot of freelancers don't, and a lot of poor kids in inner

cities. so the three areas that image -- chin cared a lot about that we're trying, you know god willing, to give more of a voice to. >> here's a question that i would resist and drink myself and having a stroke. it's for terry and david. what is it worth the risk and cost for journalists to go into a nearly dangerous places? is the news and information so obtained honorably that much better than that which may be obtained by other means? and if so, why? >> all yours terry. [laughter] >> let me step back one thing and the question about what you say to your children who want to do this what did i say to my daughter when she called me up and said i don't want to be an actress in a more. i want to be a journalist? i worried about her. she does things that are risky. she doesn't cover active or but

she does going to places that are dangerous. what do i tell the? i tell her pretty much the same thing i tell my students. if this is really what you want to do, if you really and this is important enough, then make sure that you're ready for it. make sure you're prepared for it. make sure you know how to deal how to assess and how to deal with the danger. it's really hard to play the professor with your daughter, by the way. it's very hard. but she does listen and we talk a lot about the things that she's doing. she recognizes that i've got a lot of experience in this, i've been there, jake accept somethings and of things she doesn't. >> terry, could you have covered

a route from capital from new york state? absolutely not. look, the question really should be do want this information? you guys. do you think you need this, to know about what's happening in the world. okay. i think that it's important. i think you need to know it. everything that's important enough that i have, in fact, rest my life to covert stores -- risked my life to cover stories that were importing the. they're always as i said before, there are always considered risks. i'm not a fool. i know that if i die i'm not going to be able to file the story anyway. and the process is every step of the wake of not just listed my office and say i'm going to do this but when they get into car, when i get there and get out of the car every step of the way i am waning is this worth it?

i'm going to go from here to there, there's a chance someone is going to shoot at me on the way, i damn well better believe there's something important enough for me over there that i need to do it. and that's the way journalists operate. they are not stupid. it is a risky profession, so is being a policeman so is being a fireman. the are risky professions in the world and there are people who do them because they think it's important enough to take the risks. i am passionate about the importance of journalism and journalists at the principals and the role that we play in any democratic system or free society. we are central. you can't have a free society without a free press. they go together. >> thanks, jerry. here's one that falls right into this edit think i'm going to answer a bit of it myself. the question is why is there

such resistance to the commonsense practice of getting training and going armed, you know where you are here. to me, this came up during the iraq. with dexter, some of "the new york times" people and some of the others who were saying, you know, that was a different situation. i didn't do much of iraq so i can't really answer but i can tell you i've been a correspondent for 131 years, and i have never, you know, i did grow up into some select and sort of handle a gun, not very well, and i don't really own one but i can do it. but i have never ever come across a situation that i could shoot my way out of as a correspondent. and i will tell you another thing. i've come across a lot of situations that had i been packing i wouldn't be here tonight. >> absolutely. look, i spend secured in the marine corps to i'm a vietnam combat veteran. i know something about small arms. i have never, never believed

that i ever could've used a gun to get me out of any trouble at all. and i know perfectly well if i get a gun and drug use of one is kidnapped, i would be dead. and i will tell you what even seven years in prison is little better than that. the only real protection we have in the field is the belief of the people we are talking to that we are not part of the conflict. >> exactly. >> and when you pack again on your part of the conflict. and it will teach you kill the dead. >> this is a problem by the way federal important press we should talk about this is that a lot of people think that reporters, hell, they're out there for the fun of it. ain't fun. but there are thrill seekers out there. we've had come across some real interesting crazy that make it real dangers for people, kind of

makes the idea of soldier of fortune, journalism, adventure and things like that. the problem now is people going out there our young people with a lot of courage and little bit of backing or a lot of drive and training. some. but they need more. we really need journalists -- journalism is an education. this is not a pitch. it's a reality. kids need to be prepared when they go out for so many reasons. because we don't it used to be the wait was work, you would find some all already been out for a long time and then you would be acting fresh energy and the new tools and the tools always change and you would be having -- but the old guy or woman i say that the actual the are as many women out there as there are men now learn things the

hard way. there's a lot of things in this profession that you can learn by making mistakes. you don't want people to be paying. does anybody want to comment on that or should i shut up and ask the next question? >> whenever by the way, not many people out there have any experience in these situations. how many combat vets do you have, do you know who are journalists who have served in iraq or afghanistan but there are a couple but not many. >> terry here's an interesting question. if you're a person of color from the usd think the survival of captivity is greater? >> i don't think that has any relevance at all. particularly when you're talking about the islamic world, which has a much more, a much better approach to people of color than

we often do. i don't think it makes any difference whether you're a christian or a muslim. it's not a religious question. these people don't think in those terms. >> john, anything? >> i want to go back to the previous question, and certainly, terry, i would welcome your comments, but i think if there was not so much a competitive nature to some of these, you know to get the right, to get the story, to get it first, et cetera i think young freelance journalists would be more willing to spend some time figuring out how safe is this, should we be doing this? should we be in groups? and can read some of the older jupiter, old people as mentors to extend the mentoring -- >> we like to say older crocodiles. >> i think mentoring can be very effective. >> i have to say though, as a

once very aggressive and competitive young journalist for the ap there is a surprising amount of cooperation among foreign correspondents. the competition is generally restricted to certain situations when you have a story to something you don't want anybody else to get it or you're first on the scene. most of the time international journalists know that they are better off helping each other, and they do that quite frequently. and i advise my young students when they go to a country the first thing you need to do is to check in with press corps, go to the ap office talked to people who've been there. they will cooperate. they will help you. of course if you're directly competing on a story they may split your car tags but it's surprising that foreign

journalists in dicey areas are pretty cooperative. >> all the time to the risk of boring my students afford this obvious my analogy is being tucson. a press corps the user after the award, -- award term works like a pack of guys. everybody in this room knows how coyotes works. one of them gets out ahead in kind of spots the prey and figures it out, takes the first bite, and then all the rest kind of swung around and everybody by the time it's done everything is picked clean. today, a cousin of the way the system works and has to work we are out there working like hyenas. i mean, that's those aren't metaphors to the people involved, it's just the way things work. one kind of grabs what one can because one has to make a living by selling stuff and interest different direction pulls off in the corner in oz on the bones and leaves the rest, so the

rest all of us, all of you we don't really get you know, the effect of reported being out there. this is something, and managed to the one question about why can we do it long distance for why can't we just at the news or why can't we let bill o'reilly tells what happened. you know this is something about foreign correspondents that we just all have to understand. we have to understand it down to our toenails. if they are not there, we are not there. and how in the hell are you going to run a world? pictures of the top of the mountain trying decide to come to a snowstorm with your eyes closed. you are going to fall off the road before wendy pointed at some point you just don't know what's going to happen when you go into you going to take with you. we need foreign correspondents out there, and the ones we have are some brave young people like jim foley. we have some people working for news organizations, "the new

york times," for all we criticize it sometime, god bless, still has some people out there. some of the newspaper still do ap, i criticize often but it can get people out there. there are ways to find it. we really have two we can expect people -- i'm giving a speech. okay. terry, it says there was a report, i haven't seen the report, you read 300 to 400 books a year speed is all my life. i learned to read one of three and a never stopped. >> i didn't know that. >> pretty much. i read very quickly. i read very quickly. >> could you read all the books books you read 90s and i? >> aye caramba a lot of them. they used to bring us books, believe it or not, in boxes, used paperbacks. i have no idea where they got them. and they would bring a box of books and am addicted to be

anything. >> good lord anderson. mistress and such? >> mistress, crime novels. french crime novels. one of the few i didn't read was how to breast-feed your baby. [laughter] well i thought that would be a little cooperation on that. >> moving along. >> the only books will be conducted them were barbara cartland novels. [laughter] spent okay, the austin music is going up now. >> diane john, could you tell us more about the foundation in which the? >> the reason we started it is because we just don't want jim to have died in vain. jim was a very optimistic person. he really he would've wanted something good to come out of

this horrific experience. he just would. i just feel that so strongly, and we do as parents. so we're just trying to look at some of the areas where there are gaps. one of them seems to be certainly, there is no one advocating for american hostages in our country that we encountered, put it that way. i'm sure come and we did me some good people, but no organizations, if you will. so that is one of our priorities particularly now with the hostage review. we are trying to, you know partner with hostage uk, see if we can't learn from them and adapt it so much our country which isn't easy. our country is a lot bigger different come and we know that. and that's why we need support for that, because it is a johnson experience. the ford foundation has pledged its support. we need other powerful entities

within our own country to think this is an important issue. so certainly that is one of the areas we feel there's a huge gap. the other one is we are really hoping american media can find ways to collaborate are certainly in the field, that so important. jim seem to feel that freelancers dead as a whole though they had was one another. so they tended to be to work together in the field. but we really would love to see if we couldn't do more as the american media for colleagues in captivity, if you'll. i realize it's complex, very competitive here in our country. it's not a simple thing, but that's something i think jim would've liked to have seen. some of the hostages mentioned to us once, this really was a big hostage issue. i mean crisis if you will.

there were 18 western hostages all held together and nobody knew about it. a lot of the journalists knew about it. a lot of people knew, but the public didn't know. and in their hopeful moments some of the european free the hostages would say, said to us they would, wouldn't this be cool if all of our countries were really working together to get us out? you know this would be just awesome, you know a chance for all of us to come together with our allies. and it couldn't have been further from the truth. every country was doing it their own way. anyway, but i'm sorry, i'm getting off track, so we're hoping we can do some the things jim would've wanted to do had he had the opportunity to come home. >> there's a question here along that lines but it seems like the kidnappers, there is a someone will do the same as another.

seems like the u.s. government needs to get on the same page as the europeans. you cover this it but let's take a straw vote from the panel. what does everyone think? >> i think that u.s. government really seriously needs to revise its policies, or lack of policies, on how they handle hostage incidents. i hope that in this review they're doing that they are talking to hostage families and former hostages, and getting some real input from them. i fear there's a bunch of people sitting around the table at the nsc or the state department feed each other their opinions. i don't know. i hope you guys with your movement, managed to persuade

them to listen to people like uk hostage and other people. i'm not very confident in my government. >> we need immediate help and we need the american public to want that, if you will. we get nasty letters saying, you know what was your fullest son of doing out there? you know, he knew it was dangerous spoke or you're a traitor state you get all kinds because a lot of americans don't agree. and that's okay. i think the american public needs to weigh in if you will, become aware how do you feel about it, you know? >> and all these cases remain difficult for the reasons that john and i have talked about in terms of the media blackout. i think that's a topic worth spending a minute on. when david wrote was kidnapped at the new york times decided to ask of the news for physicians not to cover it from the time

that david was taken until the time he escaped, seven f. eight months, that was not covered. and it was a very hard decision for us. we are in the business of munich dating come in the business of disclosing things, and here we were on al-jazeera and the "washington post" and the else saying, please look over this even though you know about it. it's a very, very tough calculation, and that, as i sang to students this afternoon, in the first couple of days going public is probably always a bad idea because you don't know what you person has told the captors but you don't know if you're% said i'm a canadian aid worker. last thing you want is "the new york times" is our person was taken and undercut that. and the second thing that you hear from professionals in this

area is that you lose control of it. if you go public you can't stop, special in today's world with twitter and facebook. you can't stop what gets said. and you may get things that actually make it worse for your son or your colleague. but all of that said it does really concern me that the silence takes the government off the hook, that there is no political push there. the other thing about the silence, and i saw this firsthand, because when people were taken in libya we were public, very public about it and with david we were not come is that when you go public also people pop up that can help you things you haven't thought about. even people who have connections. people started calling me and saying, you know what i don't of to a lot of people but my wife is a lobbyist for the government of libya.

seriously? i would like to talk to her. >> i would like to add one thing just to that something that hasn't been mentioned and that is the point of view of the guy who was sitting in the basement chained to the wall. you fear being forgotten. over the seven years we were at the beginning we didn't get much news, a little bit here and there, and later they would allow us access to radio for a while, opening a newspaper or something like that to hear that this organization was having a prayer vigil or that this person was coming to beirut to talk, that your families were sending a message to you was

important. to not hear for months on end was devastating. so there is a purpose to publicly talking about your hostage. it does have positive effects. believe me, i know. >> terry come on that would you finish this up tonight and take that little bit further. you spent seven years, you know, all of us, we were all aware aluminum braces with terry anderson on it. we didn't know. you are chained to a wall for seven years the you don't know what's coming next. you get out. you have the strength to go through it and get out. today looking back you are a hell of a good reporter in your time and you're a hell of a good teacher now. but your life has been a foreign correspondent. would you do it again and?

>> all, mort. i can tell you how many times people ask me that. spent thanks a lot. i love being a cliché reporter. [laughter] spit wasn't worth it? would you do it again? i certainly would not go out on saturday morning to be kidnapped. that wasn't very good. but, you know, when you're in a situation you have a lot of time to do nothing but poke around in your head and figure out some things, and think about your life. and what you did with it. you think about all the bad things come by the way first. but, of course, i thought about having spent, i did know if it's going to be a live if i was going to survive. and if i didn't, was it worth it? and i spent my life in a productive and worthwhile way as a journalist. that's a hard thing for journalists away. in all those years i can't point

to anybody or any problem and say, i helped solve the. it doesn't work that way most of the time. >> terry take it from the approach, you talk to my students today. if someone is asking you, is a with a still for me to go out and be a foreign correspondent is it a life? >> i am just as passionate about journalism today as i ever was. i believe it's important. i believe that those years that i spent covering most of violence by the way because i was the kind of journalist that was, was it a worthwhile a way to spend my life? it was important to tell both peoples stories. to tell you what was happening in those places. despite the fact that you can't see any results out of it most of the time, you still have to believe that just telling the truth is a good in itself. and i believe that.

i not only think it was a worthwhile career, and was also extremely exciting, very demanding and i can't think of a better job i could have had then been chief middle east correspondent for the ap. ..

[inaudible conversations]. >> c-span it live this morning at the bipartisan policy center for remarks by former homeland security secretary michael chertoff on immigration and border security. he will also be taking questions from the audience during this event. panel discussion with the chief of the u.s. border patrol how the federal government can better measure the success of immigration enforcement. expected to start any moment. the moderator will be teresa brown, director of the bipartisan policy at the bipartisan policy center.

[inaudible conversations]. >> this morning here at the bipartisan policy center remarks by former homeland security secretary michael chertoff. he is a member of the bipartisan policy center's immigration task force. he will be taking audience questions, followed by a panel discussion on how the federal government can better measure success of immigration enforcement as the u.s. continues to debate immigration

reform and whether or not enforcement effort have been successful and to what extent. we'll get introductions by theresa brown from the center. both chambers of congress are back in. we'll take you there live at 2:00 p.m. eastern. >> good morning everyone. thank you very much for coming out to the bipartisan policy center and thank you for joining us today for this discussion of border security metrics and immigration enforcement. we have a very great lineup of speakers. and i will introduce you to them in a minute. but first let me say i'm theresa cardinal brown and i am the director of the immigration project here at bipartisan policy center. a little bit of background that those that don't know about bpc, it was founded in 2007 by four

former senate majority leaders howard baker, tom daschle bob dole and george mitchell. this is the only think tank that is bipartisan, we pull together knowledgeable leaders of both parties to drive solutions to some of the country's most challenging problems. we do analysis. you have probably a copy of one of our recent reports that we'll be discussing today. negotiation among task forces and commissions that we put together and dialogue to develop bipartisan solutions that we think are the way forward on these issues. bpc has projects in multiple issue areas includes the immigration project. the immigration task force was formed in 2013 to work on bipartisan reforms and engage both parties to develop bipartisan legislation. the task force is co-chaired by former governors haley barbour ed rendell, and former secretaries condoleeza rice and henry cisneros and includes business leaders farmers

members of cabinet and cabinet members and like former secretary michael chertoff a couple words about the project today. immigration reef form legislation has been debated in congress over past few years particularly last summer which saw arrival of thousands unbe a companied children and families from central america. that caused challenges for the border agencies. one key area keeps coming back and that is the issue of securing our border. this is continuous mantra for many leaders and put forward by some as precondition to immigration reform it is very ill-defined concept and it is rather not well-understood. in fact when it comes to border security the lack of understanding and solid data tends to make a secure border something in the eye of the beholder. yet this isn't a really good way to make policy so we at bpc engaged in a project to determine the best ways to measure the security of the border and effectiveness of

immigration enforcement and results are in the report you have today. what we found briefly is that the history of developing measures is a long and varied. it has been inconsistent over time and has led to a lot of confusion and yet all of this study and work has produced both inside government and by outside researchers some widely accepted measures and estimates that we believe if taken together could provide a comprehensive, common understanding of the state of border security and we will be talking about that with our panelist as little bit later. so we've invited our guests today to talk about issue in greater detail starting with secretary chertoff, and a brief bio of the secretary. as the second secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009 secretary chertoff oversaw foundational period for the department which was still coming together after being formed in 2003. during his tenure he undertook a major review of the department, second stage review and made significant changes including approach to border security, making several changes to the

way the department dealt with third country nationals apprehended, reforming detention. he undertook a soup-to-nuts approach to the issue and engaged all components while at the same time working with congress on one of the earlier attempts at immigration reform. secretary chertoff is founder and head of the chertoff group where he advises corporate and government leaders on a broad range of security issues including border security and key member of our immigration task force. so please welcome secretary chertoff. [applause] >> well, thank you for you all coming. it is a great turnout and i'm delighted to be part of this effort and i thinks as theresa explained, to talk a little bit about the issue of securing the border. as theresa was talking i was reflecting on the fact that i've been involved with this issue for about 10 years. i started out shortly after i got sworn in 2005 as the secretary. wound up not only working

operationally with folks from border patrol and customs and bored protection and i.c.e. but also with congress on an effort to get comprehensive immigration reform. i'm reminded of the fact that probably about a year after i was in office, i testified before the senate judiciary committee. maybe senator domenici was on the committee at that point and we talked a little bit about comprehensive immigration reform in terms of operational and security benefits because one of the things you learn when you look at the issue of the border is the flow in and out of the border is very much driven by forces that are demographic and economic. it is not simply a question of infrastructure and people although those are important. it is about the incentives and disincentives. and, as i used to tell people in some ways the border flow reflects the purest example of a market-based system that you can imagine. it is very sensitive to even

very small changes in operational activity and in the law. to give you an example i remember, that when i came in, there was real particular challenge relating to individuals crossing between the ports of entry illegally who were bringing children with them. and sometimes they weren't even their own children. that was because at the time we didn't really have a detention facility for families. so therefore people who were apprehended, who were with kids, wound up getting by and large released, and of course those never showed up for their hearings. as soon as we built a facility that allowed you to maintain families in a discuss towed y'all setting before they were deport, all of sudden that started to dry up. another example was there was a period of time where there was a court case that required that for people from el salavador who were caught crossing the border, there had to be a special process in place a more

elaborate process to deport them. and what we discovered was if you, again talked about apprehensions, most of the people being apprehended, a very significant proportion came without papers and claimed to be from el salavador. they knew they could take advantage of this process. and that is one of the things that again, overwell emed amount of detention beds we had and resulted people being released many who never showed up for hearings. as soon as we went to court and reversed that decision, and got it lifted, all of sudden number of people claiming to be from el salavador dropped precipitously. the word got around so quickly literally in stays you could -- days you could see change in behavior. the important lesson, when you talk about the securing the border it is not a question of lining people up to apprehend folks but a much more complicated dynamic situation. the real solution to the issue

of border security is a solution that create as legal pathway for people that want to come in and work, deals with interior enforcement and's well as deployment at the border itself, deals with issue of people who have come illegally would be perfectly happy to go, come back and forth to work, but right now feel they don't have that opportunity. so they will stay in place. all of these pieces tend to fit together. now i remember in particular the issue of securing the border was, you know, a mantra that i heard almost anytime i talked about this issue and i think what's useful by what the bipartisan policy center has done with this study is to unpack what we mean by securing the border. to recognize that there are different challenges and therefore different measures that one of the critical issues if we are going to ultimately tackle the issue of immigration reform is to get agreement upon a disciplined, reasonable, and internally consistent set of measures that we can use to

determine whether in fact we're succeeding or not. so let me stand back by saying there are three different ways in which people enter the united states illegally. one is coming between the ports of entry. and that's what usually, when you watch television shows about this, that is what they focus on. people crossing whether it is the mountains or the desert or perhaps coming by boat trying to land on the beach, this is what most people conceptualize or think about as the source of illegal mig graduation into the united states. but in fact there are two other significant pathways as well. one is sneaking through the ports of entry. this is coming through an airport or more off the onen a land port of entry either with false documentation, or more likely way it is accomplished by hiding in, for example a truck or train. i remember going down to some of the border ports ever entry and

amazingly seeing in the dashboard of an suv was a like a hole where someone basically hid themselves in the dashboard to try to sneak into the country. so this isn't what people think about as coming over land or by sea between ports of entry. it is literally going through a port of entry trying to get into the country without being detected. then the third very significant source of people who are lear here without permission are overtastes. enter lawfully and overstay and don't leave. often will wind up working illegally and things of that sort. statistics that i recall were roughly 40% of the people in the united states without authority came as overstays. and one of the reason that is important, that is not a pathway into the country that is going to be dealt with by lining up

people between the ports of entry. in fact that is one of the most challenging issues when you deal with issue of illegal migration because whether or not people overstay depends a lot upon interior enforcement and rules with respect to employment and similar types of activities. so, one has to look at issue of flow into the country using all three of these pathways as part of what you are considering. couple of other points i think are important. one is, there has been a tendency to look at the issue as one of brute force. what do, what are our inputs? how many border patrol agents do we have? how many miles of fence do we have? how many different types of infrastructure do we have? but inputs are really an imprecise at best and probably misguided at worse measure whether we're succeeding or not. what measures is outputs. the key are we being effective.

ideally you want to be effective with fewer inputs. if you can come up with a strategy that allows you to take your resources to make them effective as policy that is not only good pro a budge standpoint but in the end, success is measuring results. one of the lessons i learned early about again was the issue of fencing. shortly after i came into office there was a bill passed required miles of fencing at various places in the border. congress basically designated the places and logic of it was, to be charitable, less than 100% clear. so we looked at the question of fencing. we said, what is the value of a fence? because a fence doesn't after all keep people out forever. all it does is slow them up. and what we recognized, and i was, benefit greatly from the experience of the border patrol in tutoring me in this the key

issue is the time of interception. if you are at a place in the border where crossing the border illegally puts you within 100 yards or a quarter of a mile of either a town or city, or a major transportation hub there is very little time to intercept someone before they essentially enter into the flow of commerce and would be very difficult to find them again. what some people call the melting point or the vanishing point. i remember when i went to yuma early on in my tenure, the town was quite close to the border. there were literally, hundreds if not thousands of people would run into the border to swarm into the town. once they were in the town it was much more difficult to find them that was an area where we concluded that fencing would make a difference. that it would allow a sufficient delay to permit the border patrol to make interceptions. in fact once that fence was built, it was tremendously significant in reducing the flow of people that came across on a daily basis.

but other parts of the border where you may be miles an miles from a town or a city, or a transportation hub, don't require fencing. and fencing may be, if not counterproductive, at least wasteful. there what you want is visibility and ability to surveil and make an interception or an apprehension. at some point that is convenient for you. it is a little bit like playing football. you don't put everybody up on the line. you want some people playing back. sometimes the way you will wind up intercepting something is playing back of the line. but again, for people who have very simplistic view, whose idea is we ought to literally line folks up on the border and like a human chain, they find that unsatisfactory. from efficiency and outcome standpoint though, having the ability to deploy in depth, can be very very important. one of the concepts that we also dealt with when i was in office was the question of operational control of the border. and i'm not quite sure how the

phrase got generated but i think it is sufficiently ambiguous it means different things to different people. as i understood it, it was reflection of two things first the ability to have a significant or a high percentage of people or visibility into who was crossing the border illegally. so that with a combination of surveillance tools and radar you could be, let's a80 to 90% certain you were seeing people coming across the border illegally. the second element you wanted high percentage of people that could cross you could intercept before they vanished. that is where the significance of employing infrastructure as enabler to slow up transit became very important. but, one of the challenges with operational control is some people regarded it as zero tolerance. nobody across the border ever, even one foot across the border.

and that is, to my mind an unrealistic expectation. it is unrealistic first of all if you look at the border, again, as a matter of defense and depth, you are not intending to or even advise, to try to stop people literally when they put their first step across the border because there aren't enough people realistically that you could deploy to actually make that happen. and if you can pick somebody up further down the line in more efficient way that achieves the result that you want to achieve. i also used to tell people, look 100% is never expected of any law enforcement agency. if you look at the best police departments in the united states like say the new york police department, best police chiefs, nobody says, we expect zero crime. if you can reduce crime if you can get it to manageable level that is considered a rousing success. so again it is about being realistic how we define our objectives realistic in the

measures we use to achieve them. then having a way of measuring outcomes that allows us to be in agreement what will constitute success. so, let me suggest briefly some of the techniques that i think bpc has come up with. it will be laid out in fuller detail in the report. first as i mentioned, there are three pathways to getting in and there is also the overall population. i think you want to measure all four to get an effectiveness rate. first you do want to use surveys and other kinds of data to tell whether overall population of people within the country without authorization is increasing or decreasing and there are some non-governmental agencies that do a pretty good job of surveying. and again it will not be precise down to the 10th of a 10th, but it gives you a pretty good view what is going up or down. second, how do you deal with overstays? that is pretty easy to measure. we know who comes in with a

visa. we have exit system is buy graphic, not biometric that allows you to tell which people left. that difference, that delta is the number of overstays. it is not perfect. the one loop hole measuring overstays our land borders do not have a way of measuring exit. we don't watch people leaving. and, unless we're prepared to build a lot of infrastructure, probably solution there is work with the mexicans and canadians have them exchange information with us. that would close that loophole. second area is port of entry. again that is challenging to measure how many people are getting in through ports of entry. but i think based on what we do, we can do some random sampling. the third, and hardest is between the ports of entry. there are a combination of known flows, which will be described later. surveys, seeing what goes on the other side of the border. all of those give us a metric as

to what percentage of people were apprehending and what percentage are getting away. we need to come to resolution of this. we need to have understanding not only with people in the community but with congress, about, what constitutes a real measure of effectiveness. if we do that, then i think we're on a road to success not only to securing the border, but to dealing more generally with our immigration system. i'm happy to take some questions. [inaudible conversations]. >> robert schroeder with international investor. the student populations here, from our understanding are not being very well-tracked in terms of overstays. i wonder if you would comment on that? >> that has been a problem problem goes back to my time. to be honest, a lot has to do

with the schools. a lot of the schools are reluctant to inform the authorities when someone is no longer enrolled in class or they have otherwise failed to comply with the requirements of their student visa. some of that is because for some schools the ability to track foreign students is financially important. they don't want to do anything that create as negative reputation. and then i think frankly i think some schools from a maybe a political or standpoint, don't necessarily agree with the immigration policy therefore they really don't want to be part of what they view as enforcement. i think both from inflow standpoint frankly from a security standpoint we need to do a better job of tracking overstays among students. yes? >> my name is michelle with america's voice. we heard that people talk about

securing the border. we also hear we need to secure the border first before taking other steps. i wonder if you could comment first of all if you think that is more of a political question, where we ever get to the point that people will be satisfied we secured the border first? and can we really secure the border without taking other steps anyway? does that make sense in terms of securing the border first? >> i said, i used to testify, i still believe that to really secure the border you need to do the other pieces as well. that is because, as i said earlier the driver for most people who are crossing illegally to work, i'm talking about the minority coming across for criminal activity, is the economic incentive system and demographics and social systems. and if you don't tackle those you're really swimming against the tide. it could be done but be enormously expensive and would require brute force. what would make more sense to have a staged process where you have in place the tools

necessary to secure the border, including the accurate metrics but you're also creating a legal pathway for people to come. most of the people who come illegally would be much happier to come legally. you create a way to track them when they come. you have employer verification system that makes it, practical for employers to vet their workers, and creates an incentive for them to use legally authorized workers rather than illegal workers. even with respect to people who are here illegally, if you give them some visa or some basis to stay assuming they have not otherwise violated the law you're removing one of the things that tends to keep people here and creates infrastructure that invites more illegal traffic. they have the freedom to go back and forth. experience shows actually many people who come into work be perfectly happy to go back home. they're cyclical. so in the end to me, in a world of budget constraint, all of

these pieces have got to be part of the solution. i will say though that i do understand that there are people who are concerned looking back historically in 1986, that if you do comprehensive reform, the politics will ultimately result in dropping the enforcement piece. so you need to find a way to reassure skeptics that if you're going to do everything, you will lock in the enforcement piece you will not simply abandon it. that is were the metrics and published metrics i think are very important to establish credibility. i think credibility is now the biggest obstacle to getting this done. other questions. >> michael this is pete domenici. i remember you when you had much more hair and i still had just about what i have. i don't know why.

>> -- senator. >> i understand. i would like to suggest to you that in the little town of artesia in new mexico, sits a center, i think the chief is here today the center has my name on it because, for about six years of my, life in the senate, i was the sponsor of that facility and i, could i say that it is a pretty adequate facility for the training of border agents, male and female and other law enforcement people? does it still remain an active player in the training of officers and is there sufficient facilities for training, or are we in need of more? >> first of all, i'm a little out of date because i've been out for a while but the chief can probably answer that i remember going and attending the graduation and it was a terrific facility and there is no doubt

that the training remains a very important part of this. we expanded the border patrol. i think when i came into office there was less than 10,000. when i left there were 20,000. but the key to being effective is training. that involves both understanding some of the real challenges in working in that very difficult environment of the particularly the desert, also understanding rules of engagement and what policies and laws are. i guess i will let chief cover that when he does the panel. but i think it was a great a great facility. other questions? yes, back. >> from wbb consulting. i'm president of the military operations research society. you mentioned 100% apprehend suns for, in general for law enforcement is unattainable and

kind of hard to do. >> right. >> however having some benchmarks that look at targets of where to shoot at and measure ourselves and how well we're doing in those different areas, is what really can help getting to those effectiveness analyses and other areas we can explore. do you know if there are any specific benchmarks in some of these different areas in the apprehensions, the overstays or others that can be very beneficial to get into those measurements? >> yeah. well i think you're right. one example in the law enforcement area is pioneered first in new york and then in l.a. and other parts was come stat. the --com stat. use of statistical reporting to determine high crime areas in the city and deploy officers and hope district and pre-sent commanders accountable based on driving those statistics down.

if you look at the two components what i understand operational control to be. one is ability to detect and the other is ability to apprehend look, you would aspire to be at 100%. i don't know that i would make that a precondition of particularly doing other things which actually help you. and enable you. i think if you get to 80% on both of those metrics that is a pretty good accomplishment. again, partly an issue of relativity. one thing you do learn is, as you get successful in one sector, tend to be challenges in other sectors. so, what you want to do is make sure that you're being more or less stable across the entire border. that includes, by the way the sea as well as the land. i would also say, to round out the picture we do have to work with our partners in other countries because part of what

drives the inflow is, things that push people out. and if it is economic issues or demographic issues or crime issues, as we have seen in some parts of central america to the extent we can help our partners alleviate, some of those pressures, we're making it easier on ourselves. it is little bit like, if you look at migration as a flood, if you can do things upstream, to reduce the flow, because you're making conditions better that makes it easier when people finally are crossing the border. so i agree we should measure it. we should agree what the measurement is. we should not only look at between ports of entry but considering overstays and at ports of entry. to the point made earlier creating a legal way to come and work, would be a huge benefit to allowing folks who are on the line to focus their attention on people you're really worried about, which are criminals and

bad actors. yes, one over there. >> thank you aclu. i wonder if you say about doubling the border patrol that you mentioned. in retrospect, at time were you concerned that was going too fast. that oversight and accountability measures were not keeping up with the expansion? >> concern was to increase the population of border pa toll to -- patrol to allow people to be trained and mentored. you need people out in the field with experienced partners for them to really learn how to do the job properly and i certainly during the time we doubled the border patrol we hit, what i think we were comfortable with was a reasonable pace but probably the upper limit of the pace. people who said let's go to 50,000 and 100,000 in a short period of time i think were

unrealistic about you know the ability to a simulate train and get field experience for these agents. it is a tough environment. you're on your own a lot. it is challenging terrain. and, you know, you're dealing, by and large most of the people you apprehend are not violent but you have some really bad actors there. there are groups that have a business model that is threatened by enforcement and they will, act violently against the border patrol. you have to make sure people are adequately prepared to deal with that set of issues. the i have time for one more question. great. listen, this is, you know, this is an area we could have a lot of debate about what the precise, best metrics are but i, we do have a lot of experience. the border patrol spent a lot of

time coming up with different ways to measure including counting footprints if i'm not mistaken in certain sectors. the key is to get two things. an agreement about what will be metrics that are trustworthy. second the agreement what will be the definition of success. and if we can agree with those not change it all the time, then i think you give the border patrol and enforcement folks something they can really target. that is a measure of success. so that to me i think is the value of this report and this debate. i look forward to continuing to participate in and assist. thanks very much. [applause] >> so i'm going to invite our panelists to come up. and while they're doing that will provide you a brief introduction. down there for a second. starting to my immediate left

the man in green, as you probably know is chief mike fisher of the border patrol. mike fisher, mike fisher is the senior executive in charge of all of the border patrol. he is responsible for planning, organizing coordinating, directing all epforcements efforts at nation's borders. he entered the u.s. border patrol in 1987, member of class 208 from artesia. glenco. okay. his first duty assignment was douglas station in tucson sector. worked in the detroit sector and period of time in san diego and at headquarters where he also served for a stint as director, deputy director of the officer of anti-terrorism at cbc headquarters. next to him is paul an-atein director of the border maritime security in the house of representatives. he advises chairman mccaul and

candace miller. prior to this assignment he was congresswoman candace miller's legislative director. began in the united states marine corps where he had two tours in iraq with the first marine division. next to paul is christian ramirez. he was born in tijuana mexico, active in immigration policy and impact on southern communities. he is director of human rights programs and staffed the san diego immigrant rights consortium and director of the southern border communities coalition. and last but not least brian roberts who is the author principal author of the report we're discussing today. brian is the senior economist at econ metric ink. border of immigration policies and department of border analysis at department of homeland security where he worked to try to develop some of these measures we're talking about today. he worked at the office of

policy and science and technology division. before his work at dhs he was economic advisor in several countries of the former soviet union and the balkans. the way we're going to do this, i will ask each of our panelists a introductory question and we'll have a conversation. i will sit down for a part of this. chief fisher, let me begin by asking you you heard secretary chertoff's assessment what is needed for a secure border strategy. he talked about the fence in depth. tell me from your experience from the time you joined the border patrol, how has the border patrol strategy for security changed and evolved? >> that is a great question and i think the secretary hit on a couple of key points. when i first came to the border patrol there were only few thousand of us spread out primarily on the southern border and very little infrastructure to speak of. then as secretary mentioned we doubled the size of the organization, and almost overnight we had increased

capability to include detection capability and more fence and access to the border which in many cases for first time in many of our careers. so you looked at what was it we were trying to accomplish that has changed over the last few decades in terms of the way we approached border security. first and foremost i can tell you as a young agent even still agents today they approach this job by wanting to apprehend everybody that comes across that border and certainly any cop will tell you if there is crime they want to go ahead and make the arrest and go towards final disposition. we also recognize just building a fence and just adding more border patrol agents in of itself was not security. we started shifting the way we were thinking and tracking a secure border, as the secretary mentioned we were focused on inputs. how many miles of border and how many border patrol agents equaled more operational control? in those areas we didn't have buildups, we didn't have as much

operational control. really just measuring fence in linear fashion or numbers of border patrol agents was i think doing disservice capturing what was actually happening. shortly after 2010 we started looking at the threat environment. how we were going to be able to identify extent which we previous we were making this country more secure. we switched really from resource-based strategic philosophy into risk-based approach. primarily when we look at the state of the border we take three things into consideration. first and foremost, advanced information. more information about people seeking entry into this country in advance, the better prepared we are to stop that. second, which is topic of today's excuse our risk indicators and metrics. not just looking whether apprehensions increase over period of time and decreasing trying to have narrative. broadening out data we didn't capture in the past or looking at data differently than we did

in the past. third and critical component to the secure border is increased situational awareness. in one case back in 2013 we started initiative called sky fall where today we're capturing and collecting information on entries, utilizing coherent change detection over nine hundred miles of the border. without border patrol agents. without technology or camera systems or radar systems we're using technology to better understand the environment we're operating and identify how many people coming through nine hundred miles of the border without border patrol agents or cameras into place. >> paul, after hearing the chief talk about his strategy, let me ask you chairman mccaul introduced legislation each of the last two congresses on border security. talk about how congress sees importance of this issue. how do you look at what the administration and the government is doing, trying to secure the boredder? what are the most important factors from your perspective?

>> this is my third iteration of a border security bill. either i'm really bad at legislative drafting or this is very tough nut to crack. secretary alluded to that a little bit. each time we've decided to craft legislation when it comes to border security, we have animated three questions. what does a secure border look like, how do we get there and how do we measure success. let me unpack those a little bit from the hill standpoint. what does a secure border look like? you have to have end state. this is what i'm shooting for. this is my goal at end of the day. you can work backwards from the goal but he need a goal first. last congress, 90% of the operational control. as chief knows well, he testified before the subcommittee, he could achieve 90% operational control in high traffic areas. we took what he said and that was standard and we ran with it. that is the standard we chose last congress. this congress, 100% is consistent with current law. as chief mentioned, 100%

operational control is not achievable. members on the hill were uncomfortable with the fact that 90% is as good as it gets. we went back to the previous standard understanding it is not achievable. many members say the goal has always have to be 100% and what you achieve on the back end is something we can debate and argue about where the right line is. is always, something that you can figure out later. and then once you have that end goal in mind, how do you get there? how do you operationallize that? what tools in the tool can i h kit do you use? we can talk about technology, personal, and infrastructure. this won guess we said look each area of the border is different. sections along the border are vastly different in terrain and vastly different in threat. tough meet the threat and terrain with the appropriate tool set. we went sector by sector. in san diego you need tunnel

detection. in rio grande valley, arrow stats or technology, surveillance packages of. what we did in the bills, we said look, congress can craft the right mix at a moment in time. but that is a snapshot in time. that can change. we gave the chief the ability to change the gear mix if you will, technology mix he uses to get operational control if the threat changes because it will. secretary chertoff mentioned. you squeeze one area. you will have challenges elsewhere. we wanted to account for that in the bill. once you figured out where you're going this is the most important part in terms of the hill which is how do you measure success or failure? for many years we had apprehension or operational control. chief will tell you much better than i can operational control was never designed to be all encompassing border security measure it turned out to be but when secretary napolitano, then secretary napolitano jettisoned that, nothing replaced it other than apprehensions.

she said many times and testified, you can't have measure good when it goes up and good when it goes down. meaningless at that point. you have to have something more robust. something easily understandable. something that is concrete. american people have to understand it, congress has to understand it, this is the right measure. this measures boarder security. what we've done we said domains of border are different. let's have a set of metrics before the port of entry. set of metrics at port of entry. of the set of metrics in maritime domain. something we added this year a set of metrics that measure how effective we are using aviation assets. that is how we do it. we have 28 different metrics hopefully across the 28 different metrics we get better sense where we are and if we're going in the right direction or not. from the hill standpoint when secretary chertoff talked about credibility i think that is really the key issue when it comes to metrics. many members have a deep reservoir of distrust when it

comes to the administration. worried about manipulating the numbers. you know, statistics can be manipulated plus or minus. what we built into the legislation this time, look we have to have third party verifiers take a look at numbers. make sure they're accurate. make sure they're statistically valley and make sure they're actually measuring what we want them to measure and not subject to manipulation for better or for worse. that is how we approached border security in the aggregate. continues to be a challenge. we'll see what happens for the remainder of the congress. >> christopher, as you listened to the discussion so far about securing the border and what happens at the border, from your perspective as someone living on border what do you think is missing from the discussion? >> great question, theresa. one of the important missing pieces in this important conversation in the last 20 years of enforcement-only approach to border from both

democratic and republican administrations, the missing piece of that conversation has been how do border residents feel about border security and how has this increase in enforcement, doubling of border patrol agents in this last 10 years, you know, suggestion from the senate, last congress to increase that even further, really has left border communities wondering are we ever going to be consulted in this conversation? there has been a huge gap between the largest law enforcement agency in the united states and civil border. when you grow in agency and don't instill in that conversation appropriate mechanisms for oversight, accountability, when issues remain unresolved in terms of use of force that begins to create a gap between civil society and border residents.

there are millions of us that live along the u.s.-mexico border and i am thankful and we are thankful for leadership of chairman mccaul in the last congress, when he started looking at the impact on civil rights. we need to look at measuring how does enforcement i am backboarder -- impact border communities. that is important step. under leadership of chief fisher and the commissioner we have a conversation about the need to have dialogue on issues related to use of force. those are the important steps. unfortunately we're going back and forth. the last congress, the house under leadership of chairman mccaul, we said let's measure, let's have metrics. let's look at the accountability and look at impact on civil rights and senate sort of threw that out the door, out the window under the guise of well, you have to enforce the border first, with pathway to citizenship. reality we don't have a pathaway

to citizenship now but have one of the largest law enforcement organizations in the united states with little accountability and oversight. i am very optimistic this piece of the conversation will begin to be folded need for having a secure border. another piece i will touch quickly on this the moral question of also of the impact of border security in the last 20 years. when operation gatekeeper began in san diego thousand us of people lost their lives crossing through the mountains and desert. no matter where we stand on this issue. no matter whether you believe we should have 890% or 100% control of border we have moral obligation in democratic society to do everything in our power to prevent the loss of life in our deserts and our mountains. that is also a conversation that i'm glad we're gypping to have.

because it is urgently needed. it is more than a political conversation. that we insure we do everything to protect the loss of innocent men and women and children doing nothing to come to this country to better their lives. as we move forward, i am encouraged by the sincere dialogue we've had with the administration and with members of congress. i'm thankful to the partisan policy center for really approaching this issue not just from a from a perspective of security but also from perspective of the importance that civil society has along the border being part of that conversation. >> thank you. brian, everyone has talked about metrics and everyone talks about measures. why is this so important? if you comment a little bit secretary chertoff said we're counting inputs for a long time. we're trying to get to counting outputs and outcomes. how do we get from here to there? >> it is important because as

the secretary mentioned we had a comprehensive immigration reform carried out in 1986. the immigration reform and control act and it took us a long time to get to irca. the carter administration tried to get immigration reform and couldn't get into congress. took 10 years before mass immigration in the u.s. became political controversial to achieve reform in 1986. it barely passed in the congress actually. it delivered on legalization program i think 1.9 million people were legalized. but, it did not unfortunately succeed in stemming the future illegal inflow, which grew dramatically in the 1990s. so, in part of the as a result of that failure of the irca there is perception that u.s. borders are not quote unquote

secure. over the last 15 years polls have consistently shown that a significant majority of americans believe that u.s. borders are not very secure. and that much more needs to be done to make them more secure. i think for me as an analyst the most dramatic poll results came out in 2013 in which 80% of those polled believed that inflow of illegal or unauthorized immigrants in 2013 was the same or significantly higher than in 2008 or 2003. now, all of the evidence that we have at our disposal, suggests that inflow has fallen substantially over the past decade. but that evidence hasn't influenced public perceptions. and as a consequence, we saw

difficulty of creating perceptions that were needed, to help immigration reform pass in 2013, i think that, this failure is due at least in part to the fact that the u.s. government really did not try to measure objectively what was happening in terms of illegal inflow into the u.s., and that if we could establish measures that enjoyed acceptance and credibility, this would enhance the ability to, to, have a better public debate about these issues. let me look at my notes. yes, i think also a need, to move away from a dialogue, in which the border is described as either being quote secure, or quote not secure. it is presented as a binary outcome, one or zero. we have a secure border or we don't. i think we would be better served if the dialogue moved

towards, what is the actual outcome at the boredder? what are the outcomes? what is the number of people who are successfully, illegally entering the u.s. in the three domains that were mentioned earlier today? what is the probability that somebody is caught when attempting illegal entry? that will help us understand if we want to significantly lower whatever is happening today whatever outcome is being obtained today, what are the resources, policies, necessary to achieve that? and, finally i would mention that we also need good outcome measurement so that decisionmakers, both in the government and in congress, can better understand what policies and resources are needed in order to change outcomes. without that, we're we're basically carrying out

activities, we're spending money, that is a bit of a shot in the dark. and, the example of fencing was mentioninged earlier. the government has been, been required to spend, i think several billion dollars on building fencing. we have no idea what its real impact is. i think if you talk to many border patrol agents, they would tell you fencing is useful in some areas and very much not useful in others. that we could better spend that money on alternative resources that would help achieve the goals of border enforcement. now, understanding the impact of resources and policies designed to achieve law enforcement missions on outcomes, is only part of the analysis that needs to be done. that is embedded in a broader cost benefit analysis of our policies. i think the points that christian were making, those also need to be taken into account in that broader cost benefit analysis. but unless we understand the

impact of law enforcement resources and policies are having on outcomes we really can't begin the cost benefit analysis. >> chief fisher, let me ask you. so the importance of measures, everyone has said it, what measures of the border patrol currently using? what are these measures, are you making public? are you reporting to congress at a public? if the idea is we really need to create a common understanding to address misperceptions, from your point of view, what more can the dhs the government do, to help dispel and provide that information out there? >> sure. so, we have currently 12 list of risk indicators and metrics we're using and i won't bore everybody with all 12 of them. i will give you examples. we think there is value looking at recidivism. how many times is the same person caught? it is important for us in variety of ways to differentiate individuals apprehended only two times versus those individuals

who were apprehended eight times. the other thing we're looking at, you may have heard the phrase, when i talk about effectiveness, how many people came across the border last night, and of that number how many people did we apprehend and how many people got away? for that date, have for few years, more informed, security and border security framework than just apprehensions in and of themselves. the other thing we're looking at is average wait procedure for marijuana. what about cocaine, heroin and methaphetamine. it is not understanding about the marijuana but understanding illicit networks and transnational organized crime that occurs around the border areas. the more we know about the individual networks and how they exploiting vulnerabilities on the border the better we believe we're prepared to move our resources in those areas of higher risk. average weight per seizure tells us organizations extent which

they're exploiting vulnerabilities. what is different this go round with each of these 12 metrics and perhaps apprehensions paul mentioned, that each one of these has definitive trend line. it will either go up or it will go down. if we look at those 12, we mathematically this is something i don't do by the way. we look across those within the corridors and across each of the four corridors along the southern borders to be able to wait and ultimately to decide areas of high-risk, versus low risk. >> i will ask the question one more time. those are the things that you're using internally. but if we want the public to understand those trendlines, as you said, are we getting closer or farther away from a more secure border, how much of that, are you publishing? are you putting out? are you making public? is there an annual report you put the measurements and where we are, so the public sees trend line and have better understanding? >> the vast majority have been

published. as a matter of fact, the 2012 strategy was published. we went out did a trilogy last year of the if you haven't seen it, it is on our website. this is on the dot-governor. -- dot-gov. they are better explained and go into more detail. each year i'm continuing. the staff is continuing, not just with members of the committees but different public engagements like this to explain what it is. it is not just for us to say, here is our measures, you need to agree with them. the intent all along is show everything we're collecting and have a broad discussion about what is valuable and what is less valuable and we're learning as we go throughout this process and undersecretary johnson's leadership the department took a broad look at metrics as it relates to the southern border and approach his campaign plan. >> paul, from your perspective what do you think it would mean to convince your colleagues on the hill?

what is, i mean they share some of these perception gaps as well but what do you think is the most important in trying to get them have more realistic understanding of all of this? >> i think there are two things. first, anytime that a member gives option to go to the border and come away with a more profound understanding of complexity of the situation on the border, the terrain i think that is certainly helpful. i think in terms of metrics and measurement piece we go back to the old adage trust by verify, right? i think many members want to trust the metrics that the department will put out and say these are accurate valid measures what is going on the border. the problem is is that, we can't have dhs grading their own papers. we have to have an independent third party verifier to take a look at measures to say, a, we're collecting the right amount of information to the chief's point. b, statistically valid and again, c it actually tells us something about the border in a way that we can take that

information and make solid decisions from that and say, okay, the border is not secure in el paso. we need to do x. the border is secure in san diego. we need to take these actions. until you're faced with them, enough information to make those kind of decisions you know we're going to continue to have people feel, to brian's point either the border is more secure than ever, or, the border is porous and out of control. the truth is of course somewhere in the middle but we have no way of knowing where on that spectrum we are, because we don't have these measures i think everyone is craving for. >> brian, let me ask you a question talk about measurements the government has. there is a lot of research from the government looking at these issues. what from your perspective in the right mix?. .

they came up with a clever way of estimating successful evil is the illegal involved between the ports. imagine they're one of the people who come to the border and they tried to sneak across and border patrol catches for 60 of them and they take those 60 people and they put them on the bus and they're driven right crossed back across the border. all 60 try again this time 30

of them are caught. you can estimate just from those apprehensions 60 the first time, the 30 the second of what the probability of apprehensions which would be 50%. then you can go back and calculate how many people successfully enter. now, that was done for many years by academics using either apprehension records or using data from what are called migrant surveys. a big assumption that's required is that everybody who is caught and sent back across the border tries again. now, what's been happening in recent years is that border patrol has institute of what are called consequence programs where you are not simply sent back across the border with no legal consequence. in various ways, people are sanctioned for attempting and

being caught. though sanctions are producing what's called at the border deterrence. people give up, they go home. they don't continue to try. so we did methodologies that permit us to take that deterrence into account and those methodologies are available. i'm very very confident that if the department of homeland security made data available to the research community who has been working on this for a long time and the sick couple of the members of that comedic writer in this audience, i'm very confident that we can produce good reasonable estimates with reasonable uncertainty around them. they will be estimates. we are trying to estimate the population that is being very active in not being observed, trying very hard not to be observed. so that requires some creative approaches but those creative approaches have been, produced many, many decades ago 1990, we go that far back. that leads to the second point.

how can that data be made available? there's a reluctance i think and what law enforcement community and dhs to share the data at the level of detail that's necessary to do this kind of analysis. basically up to share records on individual people. i think that there are ways in which the data can be shared also respects the sensitivities of the law enforcement agencies that are involved. to give one example of how it could be done, there are many government agencies that have sensitive data that collect sensitive data, and to find ways to share with researchers without compromising the candidates those agencies have made under which the data was collected. one example, he was census collects data on individuals and on businesses that is very, very sensitive. that data cannot be released to the public because it would

affect her to station in the census program. the senses has come up with a way to share that data with researchers at specific sites were it is tightly controlled. the researchers can do the research, they can publish their papers but the data is not released for public dissemination i think dhs can do something very very similar if there was a will. >> let me ask you, so a lot of this conversation tends to focus at the interest between ports of entry. secretary chertoff talked about the ports of entry and that's another way, but the ports of entry not just where people can come in unlawfully. it's where a lot of commerce and trade happens. from the perspective of border communities how detail about why the conversation doesn't look at those issues? >> partly because the majority of the band ports of entry are antiquated. they are, you know congress has taken a very long time to fund the extension for the ports of

entry where thankful now money has come in. that ports of entry, largest in the world we have reduced significantly. that's let's remember one out of every 20 jobs in this country depends exclusively on the trade between mexico and the united states. so when there are delays at our ports can we don't invest in making sure that ports of entry our, you know, up to date with making sure folks with abilities are able to access ports that's an important piece. and one of the challenges that we face is that, giunta, along the border, this lack of paying attention to the needs of civil society, of commerce, of environmentalist groups, of first nations has created a consensus that the business

community, ranchers environmental is groups, human rights organizations all agree, we all agree that let's invest on our ports of entry. let's make sure that we have modern ports of entry so that folks who come and go every day and sometimes two, three times a day are able to do so in a safe and orderly fashion. there's no excuse. you have folks are going to come to shop in douglas or in san diego to go to a baseball game to wait for two hours under the sun or in the rain. folks want to come to our country to shop to use their dollars. and i think that that is the erroneous vision that folks up on the hill have on the border. the imagine the border as being this desolate land where nobody lives, where there's no trade where there's no family connections, cultural connections. in those days are over, folks. we have to really get that image

out of our minds. the fact is that we have the largest urban centers in this hemisphere your san diego is a huge urban center, by national center. whereas -- juárez. these committees depend on each other, and we in turn depend on the. so long as we continue the conversation about the border as being sort of lying on the sand -- line on the same, then we will not pay attention to imports make sure of modern ports of entry where folks will come and shop and visit family and to baseball games can do so safely, orderly and quickly pick because that is the guarantee that we have to have as a democratic society to folks who want to come and visit our country. there's absolutely no excuse to have folks waiting hours and hours and hours two three hours sometimes to come through our ports of entry. >> i know chief fisher this is in your area but maybe your colleagues have told you about the importance of security at

the ports of entry. win christian talks about long lines, my recollection from some of your colleagues is that long delays are actually not helpful for security when efficient processes many people as you know are not going to be a problem quickly through the ports and you have time to deal with those that you don't know or maybe trying to come in unlawfully. do you have any comment speak with sure. and i think, you know, if john wachter or todd were here today they would tell you that's where advanced information is critical to not so much perhaps practically speaking at the land bordered right now but in the air in front. deal -- the more information we can have before someone approaches to come into this country, but i can we would be able to do that crosscheck those individuals so that the flow process is a lot more fluid to go through the ports. >> so we have some time for questions. so we will let questions in august to the rmi connects if

you could let us know your name and where you're from before the question, that would be great. >> and let us know sorry if it is directed to the whole panel or one panelist. >> anyone can answer this. robert, international investor. i think a critical issue i have not heard discussed in the metrics is separating out the ordinary tourist farm worker, et cetera, from the very dangerous element. collaborative we're moving to a risk management approach and just a comment. i think one of the reasons the american perception may not be catching up with what's happening is because when we go to rural, remote parts of the united states we are finding there's a drug problem growing. and when we talk to law enforcement there, they say very, very often that their arrest, -- they trace back their arrest back to the southern border. it goes through a lot of small

rural communities in the united states now. so my question is what's really being done, what can the metrics due to try to really measure that dangerous element of organized crime and others that are penetrating the u.s.? and a follow-up to that. because they have such resources, financial and technology, does that enable them to penetrate more successfully than a more innocent who was trying to cross the border? >> so i'm going to ask bryan to talk to one of those issues. the report that we did we discussed immigration metrics specifically, and that was on purpose. certainly as chief talked about the mission of the border patrol covers a lot of things, not just unlawful immigration and a lot of other things happen at the border but there's a reason focuses on immigration metrics and we suggested very strongly similar budget for other nations be created. can you speak a little bit as to why we think they need to be

separate measures of some of that? >> well, if you look at the dhs quadrennial homeland security review with the department defines its missions the key mission that the department defines ports of entry been the envy illegal entry of people and goods. and so goods encompasses both illegal drugs and also violation of other trade laws, but illegal drugs is probably the most important, the illegal good that enters the country and gets the most attention. and it really needs to be measured separately because it requires a different methodology methodology. all of these major threats need to be measured and ultimately the important measure is how much success -- successfully gets them.

i will take that when i was in dhs, my colleagues and i took a hard look at what it been measured with respect to illegal drugs. what we found was that there was one time when the u.s. government made a serious effort to measure successful illegal entry, and that was in the early 2000 2001-2002. they look afford drugs, cocaine methamphetamine, marijuana to get became clear that the most was cocaine. for several reasons it's easier to measure the angle of cocaine and there's been more effort put by the government in measuring that since the early 1990s. that said the poll that i reference from 2013, that actually specifically focused on the illegal entry of people, and so i do think that the response of the poll was reflecting the perception about illegal entry of people as opposed to cooking.

i would be very interested to see a polling results related to the illegal entry of drugs but haven't actually seen that. >> chief, do you want to comment all of it about how you're dealing with unlawful immigrant community with drug smugglers, even with people smugglers and traffickers, multiple threats of the border. how from the border patrol perspective how do you determine what you got and how to measure those different kind of the? >> sugar into your first point everybody has happened by border people aged between ports of entry is process. part of the processing is it in print biometric where we do federated queries across multiple databases. we will know in short order individuals that have been apprehended by the department of homeland security before. another database will tell us whether they've had a criminal conviction in the united states before. others will check and see if they've been entered into the department of defense database. so there's a lot of information when a subsequent to the rest

that we do take into consideration, for instance, on identifying levels of risk because you can imagine an area where only say 15% of apprehensions any given period of time are individuals with prior arrests versus another area along the border where that number may be%. it tells us about was operating in and around that particular area in which was areas will be treated different in terms of deployment process. [inaudible] >> were as innocents don't have that luxury? >> certainly. we've seen of the group over the years just since i've been in uniform. they have a lot of resources to include a lot of money. they employed very specific aided techniques against our agents and authors. we have to be aware about that when we go through our deployment. >> a follow-up to the question. there's been some indications that those trying to cross unlawfully for work or economic reasons are using more of a

criminal networks to do so than they made in the past. has that been your understanding as well i will say that anything but the criminal networks are taking advantage of their desire to calm and the same traffic flows can bring drugs are also bringing people. >> as a matter of fact, it is true that individuals will wake up sometime today and decide to come into the united states between the ports of entry. what has changed throughout my career is they no longer make the choice on where and when they will cross. all that has been done by the organizations who own and operate will recall the plazas in the area. if your intent to coming into the united states between ports ports of entry you we smuggled into this country one way or another. >> thanks for an excellent discussion. a question for the chief as well. you mentioned advanced information on individuals coming. we normally think of that as a legal ports of entry concept documents and, therefore, we have information on them.

they may be coming by airplane with information on the. what does that mean between ports of entry, how do you get advance information on people who may be thinking about coming in between? >> one is we change some of our collection requirements each year. over the last couple of years we've tried to identify so we can get from the intelligence community some estimate that flows from other countries. the other way we've reached out to the government of mexico, last summer when we start seeing the influx from central americans, helping us understand what that flew was for this year, for instance. and so the government of mexico increased the capacity a long their southern border. in doing so we have some border patrol agents working in central america with their law-enforcement training them and helping them understand, and identify in advance some of those flows. and with the government of mexico telling us when they're setting up checkpoints what the flows are on some of those routes of travel what does a

train look like him across southern mexico. is the time for empty? those are things that we try to get a little smarter about the it's not perfect yet but we try to reach out as best we can to identify what those flows will be. and then also identifying some indicators of advancements the people coming into this country. what we found out some of our preliminary information and being able to track some of the illicit money flows and understanding that generally people are going to travel once the payment has been made. we're doing some initiatives now with a broader u.s. government approach in identifying some precursors of flows of people based on money transfers and flows on specific areas. >> more questions? >> secretary chertoff talked about we can't secure the port that canthat in with some of the other immigration components, and terry enforcement and what to do

with 11 when people hear elderly. i question is to you in terms of -- the secretary mentioned 100% operational control is not achievable. you seem to have acknowledged that. if that's the criteria for secure the border first, how do you ever get to the other pieces? >> i think this is a two-part question. the first part, the sector is right, you can't just look at the line on the border be done. you've got to couple that with interior enforcement with the verified with other interior enforcement mechanism. i think in terms of the bill and how it would be package eventually i think you'll see that you have border security will be boxcar one on the train and i think boxcar to in between will be interior enforcement in a couple of different bills. so border security will be first, that's what a buddy calls for. i think injury enforcement will be coupled together with the. in terms of the 100% operational controls question you had, look, it's clear a think anyone will

tell you another% operational control is not achievable. it's a problem of politics more than anything else. as i mentioned during my opening comments many members were concerned that 90% were not good enough. so because many were concerned that 90% was not good enough that led us back to what current law already says which is basically 100% that was enacted in 2006. it's a matter of how do you reconcile those two things. i do know they will be reconciled on the house side as we move to the process that's how you reconcile is to reconcile the 100% standard with what comes out of the other end. [inaudible] >> thankfully that's beyond the scope of my -- >> the cars in the treatment may be the next cars would be illegal immigration reform and dealing with the undocumented but we haven't seen those products yet. >> and those cars, thankfully i don't have my hands on in any

way. >> okay. of the questions from the floor? >> center for cyber homeland security, george washington university. a question for mr. roberts but others can jump in as well if you like. with respect to your paper as you improve methods for immigration enforcement, how do sort of insurance within that du jour dressing the portion of the immigration flow where there's national security related concerns, whether special alien countries are my people coming from their or other sort of human smuggling counter-narcotics related concerns within the immigration enforcement flow? thanks. >> so i think that goes back to the discussion earlier that there are different threat vectors, and broadly, they would include those coming illegally to the u.s. for economic reasons.

the entry illegal drugs and then the entry of potential terrorists the national security component. and i think that different measures are needed for each of these three factors. at a very broad sense probability of apprehending somebody coming into the u.s. does relate to stopping all three of those threat vectors, but you know, the number of people entering the u.s. for national security adverse national steady purpose by counterterrorism is so small that really we need another set of measures that relates specifically to the. and i would welcome others. >> chief, do you want to speak to that a little bit, national security threats? >> certainly. just from the border patrol's perspective you to remember, last night was probably 1000

people who came in between the ports of entry. all of them were a threat. they were a threat primarily because they would come into the country illegally. they had already broken a federal law and the border a dismayed at a respite it's not until after we sit down and we start talking with these individuals and running the biometrics and try to figure out that level of threat, and everybody is different in that so many border patrol agents are being assigned today there's not some border patrol agents to go out into immigration enforcement. does not border patrol agents who go out and look for terrorists and others will look for drug smuggling. the mere fact that anybody or anything is coming in between the ports of entry in and of itself is a defined threat. the extent to which can only be done post the rest which is reason why we look at this and we try really to be responsive once they get a tip into in there has been an encouragement that could be an unattended grandson to come could be greater, could be eyes on either from the sky or border agent working camera.

we have to be able to do it first and foremost to the extent that we can increase the probability of apprehension to increase the effectiveness, increase those numbers so that when someone does come across this country, that'll be a part of the agent there and we can start digging out if in fact, they are from what of the 144 countries that they were last year with over 425 apprehensions. because you are right, that everybody is equal when it comes to threats. but the mere fact there's vulnerability in our party mission is to protect america and that's from any that after a bad thing subcontinent between the ports of entry. that's how we train, deploy and that's how we operate. >> what i hear you sing is from the perspective of the portable agent at the border you can't do any risk segmentation of what's coming across because you're just their apprehending. any sort of analysis of the threat has to start before they get here. so if you're talking a national security threats, you are looking to find out what other people are looking to do us

harm are they trying to come between the ports of entry or other factors were who's helping them and other things like that so you can with a law enforcement partners tried to do with them before you encounter them at the ports of entry for unlawful immigration as you mentioned, trying to find out more about what's coming your way, where the flows were generating. and i soon on the drug flows as well. it's more about what such a coming president you can't triage what's coming across the border when you're there correct? >> absolutely. >> the gentleman back there and then we would get to you. >> chief fisher of what he could speak a bit about the report references to them by but this and christian mentioned in the how is the border patrol of adapting to the more difficult steps at me be taken and if you have enough resource on the search and rescue side? i guess this is good the deaths

are up and it's an ongoing and tragic situation spent right. we continue to add capacity and capability for teams such as the border, search and rescue team. we continue to put classes three. i can say this issue compared to last year, our deaths in the desert are along the southern border, in particular are down about 20% and the rescues are up over 50%. we are seeing more and more. our agents getting out into those areas and try to identify the individuals when they become either incapacitated or the smuggling organizations just leave them out there and cover and go back to mexico. so we try to understand those types of groups. we work with the local district attorneys and the u.s. attorney's office for enhanced sentencing. and those investigations continue with hsi. >> i think the chief just laid out the real commitment from

border patrol to address this issue. i think if are going to have consensus, i would want to hope that the consensus is that when 0% death rate in our deserts and mountains. you know, and i think this particular issue how to address the horrific consequence of our enforcement policies have to be addressed for multiple sectors. and we have enjoyed a great working relationship with the tucson border patrol chief and civil society groups there to look at the patterns to do the mapping of deaths and to make sure that resources are deployed by not only law enforcement but also by civil society groups to prevent deaths. and i think that this is one important piece that we need to have a conversation on in congress. folks and civil society groups

and faith-based groups border patrol a great this is something we can work together to address and get to that goal of making sure not a single person dies because there was no resource available to them to rescue them from the desert or the mountains. and if we have that conversation in congress and if we begin to look at the impact that our policies have in terms of death in the border, i think we will have a much different inherited about what the border is about that it's not just about enforcement but it's also about making sure that that we really have response to the moral obligation of the country to address this very horrific issue. the other point i want to quickly touch on is that border communities enjoy a very low crime rate. san diego is one of the safest cities in the country. arguably san diego where i'm from and el paso where your

friends might live we neighbor next a very dangerous cities, juárez and the one of the it is dedicated were between local law enforcement in those cities the leadership of the chief then tucson and share of wales in el paso and in san diego. the way ticket to the low crime rate is to make sure we work together and civil society groups and local enforcement. we are a bit beyond working with federal agencies in that sense. i think we are moving at the direction but again, there's another metric, of how do we get to a place of which we measure the relationship between civil society and law enforcement so that we don't have such a gap between law enforcement and civil society is no trust, no communication and we are dangerously getting to the point if congress continues to make this mandate that you need a

doubling of agents didn't have one of% control of the border. when you have these political conversations without taking into account the importance between significant dialogue between civil society and law enforcement, you would run the risk of undermining the very nature of the nation of homeland security. >> i think we have time for one more question. ..