united states district judge for the western district of washington. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered -- apologize. i stand corrected. under the previous order, the when lawmakers return we'll bring you live coverage here on c-span is your unfiltered view of government we are funded by these television companies and more including media,. >> at media, we believe you live here or right here, or where in the middle of anywhere you should have access to fast reliable internet. that's why we're leading the way to taking you to 10g.

>> medcom supports c-span is a publicervice along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next house homeland security committee hearing on the biden administration's border and immigration policies. and it's its impact on coms around the country. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the committee will come to order. the purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from an array of witnesses impacted in different ways by the crisis at our southern border. i now recognize myself front opening statement.

good morning, and welcome to the committee on homeland securities first official hearing of the 118th congress. i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today for this important hearing titled every state is a border state, examining secretary mayorkas border crisis. the homeland, our homeland faces an unprecedented crisis along our southwest border. this crisis threatens the safety of all american families the matter where they live in the united states. criminals, weapons, trafficked persons and illicit narcotics are pouring across our borders in record numbers. make no mistake, this crisis is a direct result of secretary mayorkas open borders policies. policies he began in lamenting on day one.

in 2021 alone the administration eliminated or began to shut down 89 successful border security policies leading to the current chaos. they america's border crisiss enriching cartels and human traffickers. violent cartel and gang activity is significantly increasing throughout the united states and illegal drugs continue to pour over the border in massive quantities. the picture you see behind me is of a woman who was raped and scalped by the drug cartels. her body was dropped at an elementary school in texas. today you are going to hear how the cartels move people into our country for a price. and in many cases that price is paid with force a criminal activity operating from stash houses inside the united states.

when the illegal alien traffic by the cartels refuses to comply, this happens to them. the leading cause of death americans is now fentanyl. our country faces record fatalities on drug overdoses, eclipsing 100,000 deaths, 71,000 from synthetic opioids alone. as a result families in communities have been utterly devastated. our first witness today, rebecca kissling, lost two sons, caleb, 20, and tyler, 18, the fentanyl poisoning in 2020. sadly, there are thousands of parents just like rebecca who are grieving the loss of their children to this deadly drug. in my hands are letters written to this committee from grieving parents across our nation who

have lost a child to fentanyl poisoning. some of these mom's are here today. no parent should have to go through what her back and these other parents went through. i ask unanimous consent to enter these letters into the record. so ordered. >> last week along with vice chairman and subcabinet cash except cheer committee member i let a member to the borders when we saw this crisis firsthand. while touring the el paso port of entry we witnessed a car attempting to smuggle illicit narcotics into the homeland. if not for our brave cbp officers, , these drugs would've headed straight to american homes. however, secretary mayorkas asserts he is maintained operational control of the border. he has said as much in this committee under oath. he and the administration come at you have this disinformation some some of our colleagues across the aisle today, that

fentanyl seizures are up, which they are, and that fentanyl is thus not getting into the country. the implication is about that all the fentanyl comes through ports of entry. however, i have here a photo of 232 pounds of fentanyl seized in land, missing the point of the port of entry, bypassing the ports of entry. that's enough to kill 50 americans. i would like to also introduced into the record, unanimous consent. so ordered. well, here's just one video from a rancher on the border. let's play the video please. >> what you see here, camera footage of ways of drug cartel runners wearing camouflage,

carpet shoes, carrying backpacks of fentanyl and other drugs. they walk into the country, go to drop sites, load it into vehicles and the drugs are shipped all over the united states. the cartels are very strategic. they neutralize cbp by having less waits of coyote paid people overwhelm the crossing sites, causing cbp to thin the rural areas so they can process the mass ways of people at the crossing sites. then the cartels pour across the border. if it does being stopped at the crossing sites, why has the street price of a hit of fentanyl gone from $95 $95 n january of 2021 to $28 just last month? its supply and demand, simple supply and demand. and this data comes from sheriffs in my home state of tennessee hundreds of miles from the border. mayo aukus was lying when he said he had operational control

of the border and the fentanyl is killing americans. let me be clear, mayorkas light and americans are dying picture of the images just a few images, and i say just if you because there are hundreds just like this. fentanyl seizures in my home state of tennessee, weapons, cash, drugs. i would like to take a moment and recognize the sacrifices of our hard work and courageous overworked and understaffed, frontline agents and officers who stand guard at our nation's border every day. often endangers and unforgiving environments while being constantly villainized by this administration and the hard left. left. i want to thank the democrats who at least in the private halls of this building will admit this is a crisis. i want to let the american people know there are some on the other side of the aisle in

quiet whispers and say it's a tragedy. i just wish they would say out loud because this is killing americans. we must reestablish control of our southern border and take it back from the murderous drug cartels. i would also like to thank our state and local leaders who have an essential role in defending our nation's homeland such as our second witness, share of mark lamb, of pinal county arizona. pinal county is not considered a border county. the county or city five miles on the u.s.-mexico border, yet the sheriff has had to devote most of his resources not to protecting his community that to recovering and apprehending illegal border crossings who are being trafficked. this is a direct result of secretary mayorkas who since day one is open the border a bad actors including transnational criminal organizations. finally, i would like to welcome the third witness i invited, doctor robert trenschel,

presidency over yuma regional medical center he manages the only acute-care hospital in the area as a form healthcare ceo i know how tough that is in normal times but in a 12 month period from december 2021 through november 2022 he estimates his team has delivered over 26 million and on -- $26 million in uncompensated care to migrants. that's an astronomical figure. it's happening all across the country here clearly it is worse in his border town. but with 4.7 million migrants who need health care, everyone pays higher insurance premiums as of this care has ultimately got to be paid for. under president biden and secretary mayorkas every state is a border state. in my home state of tennessee there were 2734 fentanyl deaths in 2021 here in north carolina, 4041. 77% of which were fentanyl.

and the new york state there were 4946 opioid deaths, again, much of which is attributed to fentanyl. all the states are not on the southwest border but there severely impacted by the mayorkas border crisis of the states has at least one representative who sits on this committee. this hearing should be a wake-up call for committee members to in the madness and work together to secure our southern border. our colleagues across the aisle must acknowledge the humanitarian tragedy at our borders, and the increasing threat that the mayorkas border crisis places on every congressional district in this nation. we are the committee on homeland security. we must secure our homeland now. with that i yield back and recognize the ranking member for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you i'm pleased the committee is holding its first hearing of the 118th congress.

however, i would note that while republicans are using this hearing to criticize secretary mayorkas for the challenges at our border, challenges i might add that go back decades and will never be addressed without fixing our broken border system. the majority has offered no solutions. republican leadership say they would bring a border deal to the house floor during the first days of the new congress. but that you would would have effectively ended asylum in this country was so extreme it didn't have the votes to pass and was pulled from the schedule here the gentleman from texas mr. gonzalez a republican member of this panel who represents a border district called the bill anti-american and not christian. and i agree. america has long welcomed those coming to our shores seeking protection from persecution, and

we are a better nation for it. turning our backs on our site lease be turning our backs on who we are as a country. it would also be bad for border security since having a system for people to apply for asylum helps border management and allows law enforcement to focus on real border security threats. after failing to deliver a meaningful and ready to go border deal, republican leadership promised and still have no plan to address the situation at the border. several communities call hearings like this one committees, call hearings like this one today. unfortunately, i'm concerned that this hearing won't help us move toward a solution for better border management, but rather may be used by some as a platform for divisive rhetoric and anti-immigrant fear

mongering. i hope that's not the case. we are better than that, and at least we should be. instead, we need to look at the facts and work together towards solutions. the fact is democrats are focused on investing and border staffing, infrastructure and technology, especially at ports of entry with the vast majority of fentanyl is trafficked. over 90% of fentanyl seizures occur at our ports of entry or border checkpoints. and those responsible are overwhelmingly american citizens, not immigrants. the fact is despite tough talk on border security, republicans voted against necessary funding opposing $7.2 billion in border patrol operations including for hiring 65 million for 300 more border patrol agents, and

60 million for additional personnel at ports of entry. if you really want to help with border security, help us increase the number of people working at the border as part of the ultimate solution. certain members on the other side of the aisle have even suggested defunding the department of homeland security. the very department that is working to secure our borders. that kind of talk may score political points in certain circles but it flies in the face of good, old-fashioned common sense. the fact is the biden administration is working to deal with the fallout of the prior administrations failed border policies while treating people humanely and with dignity. the administration isn't permitting a six color plan for immigration and border security which includes searching resources, increasing additions,

imposing consequences for violators, bolstering the capacity to ngos and state and local partners while going after cartels and smugglers, and working with countries in the region. the administration has also created a new legal pathway for cubans, venezuelans, haitians, and nicaraguans who make up almost a third of those currently being encountered at the border. to encounter the u.s. on a two-year parole after an application is made and approved. providing this openly pathway has already showing results at the border. border patrol encounters of nationals of those four countries declined by 95% in january. the fact is the biden administration is working to reunite hundreds of families who remain separated years after the trump administration took children from their parents at

the border, a policy that will be a permanent stain on our countries conscience. certainly, more remains to be done. i believe the solution to our long-standing border challenges is for congress to finally fix our broken immigration system, and explain legal pathway, expand legal pathways of migration for vedic individuals who want to contribute to our society. doing so will allow border personnel to focus on real threats to the homeland security. but human smugglers, put human smugglers out of business and help ensure migrants are treated with dignity goes, everyone should agree on. but the question remains, do we want to finally overcome our border challenges, or do we want to use this issue for partisan attacks? i guess we will see in today's hearing. i think the chairman and look forward to our discussion today, and i yield back.

>> thank you, ranking member. other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. i am pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today on this very important topic. ask that our witnesses please rise and raise the right hand. [witnesses were sworn in] >> thank you. you may be seated. let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. thank you. i would now like to formally introduce our witnesses to everyone today. ms. kiessling is a family law attorney from michigan who tragically lost her two sons, tyler tired and can't defend the boys think if we extend our

condolences and thank her for being here. the honorable mark lamb the sheriff of pinal county arizona. sheriff lynn oversees accounting the size of connecticut and has worked diligently to keep its population safe from the many effects of the crisis. mr. robert trenschel is the present seal of the yuma, arizona, medical research. he brings health-care expense and medical management experience and currently overseas the hospitals, the hospital overflow created by the flow of illegal migration. doctor david bier, mi pronouncing it incorrectly? like the beverage. cool. he is the associate director of immigration studies at the cato institute focusing on border security and immigration. i think all the the witnessr being here today and i now recognize ms. kiessling for five minutes to summarize her opening statement. >> chairman green, ranking

member thompson -- pardon me? chairman green, ranking member thompson and distinguished members of the committee, i rebecca kiessling. i'm a mother. i a mother to caleb and tyler as well as three teenage daughters. our family has been through a lot. i lost my two sons. caleb was age 20 and tyler was 18 on july 20 that the 2020. it was absolutely perfect storm. there were, , there was also a 17-year-old girl, sophia harris, who died along with them. the drug dealer, lorenzo, was spared by narcan, and he ended up giving eight to 15 years for killing three people.

because the law enforcement, this was a breakthrough case. my former law partner, her husband is a sheriffs deputy. he's a detective and the next town over. he tells me he's got a stack, every day there's a stack of dead people, and there is no leads. but in our case there was a lead so the drug dealer was there and he was another addict, and so because he survived, they had leads to who he got it from and actually could try to start tracing it back. the law enforcement made it clear to me that this fentanyl came from mexico. they came from our southern border. i didn't know what fentanyl was. i didn't know what narcan was. i had heard of the opioid epidemic. i thought people are getting prescription drugs and getting addicted and then didn't get on the streets, and that affects

their ability to work. i didn't know that people were dying. i did know that my boys were taking anything that could kill them. they didn't think that they were either. that that that they were safe with bills and are going to read some statements from my sons that they wrote shortly before their deaths, josie that's exactly the case but the government knew. the government has known for years and years. they give my son caleb was born, 2020, there were roughly 20,000 drug related deaths in the united states. the year they died, i'm sorry, 2000 was a year he was born. and the year that they died, 2020, there were over 100,000. for 2020 would would come almost 110,000. the cdc i saw yesterday says that fentanyl deaths rose 22%

from 2020-2021. it's unbelievable you would think that one death from fentanyl come across our southern border would be enough to sound the alarm. and my kids story was high profile because three young people died. there was another child from our hometown who died the same day. wasn't in the news. you don't hear about it because it was just one death. so it wasn't like extraordinary. i found out from the funeral home that they have tons of these cases regularly. i from rochester hills michigan. we were in money magazine ranked in the top ten places to live in america a few years ago. our school is top five in michigan. but this all started at the schools, and law enforcement are doing all the get but usually don't have a lead. you have to stop it from its source.

now, if we had chinese troops lined up along our southern border with weapons aimed at our people, with weapons of mass destruction aimed at our cities, you damn well know if you would do something about it. we had a weather balloon from china going across the country. nobody died and everybody is freaking out about it. but 100,000 die every year and nothing is being done. not enough is being done. the numbers are going up, not down. and you talk about children being taken away from their parents. my children were taken away from me. ..

i'm in support groups on facebook but there's thousands of parents who have lost their children. it'sdehumanizing, it's demoralizing . they make shrines for their children and purple is the color for drug death and i don't use the term drug overdose because it's murder.

fentanyl, there was no percocet in it and it's a homicide. not an overdose but they have these purple chairs and i saw that and i thought i don't want to ever have vertical chairs. i don't want to remember my son and how he died i want to remember him for how he lived but i'm here today because the other people need to remember, i don't need a purple chair in my house. the white house needs a purple chair to never forget about all those who are being slaughtered. this is a war. act like it. do something. my son tyler shortly before he died this is what i wrote. i want to share his writing so they canunderstand . he wrote thispoem , drug and

alcohol it's not worth it, surround myself with good influenced people, get rid of nicotine, treat people with respect, five find another method to copethat works for me . seven start doing something difficult to get in shape. stay focused, nine, finish school and he did. the day before he died he graduated. 10, have a better relationship with my parents, 11, do everything to better myself . 13 don't f up with another felony onmy record . 16, the there for my brother. 17, i can do anything when i put my mind to it. i'd like to have the photos of my son.

put a face to this issue, this is not just a concept. we also found cadence testimony weeks earlier when he wanted to start speaking in school and to tell other kids why not to do drugs and why not to ever try it and he said my name is caleb, i am 20 years old. i've dabbled in drugs. i've grown up watching my birthmother pass away from heroin overdoses and i've grown up hearing how destructive those substances are so i just stayed away from them and do not see myself trying them . hedidn't want to die . he says i was an athlete, i played soccer from a young age all the way up to my junior year. i got a's in school and was council president and ended up graduating early.

i'm extremely intelligent, i have my parents to thank for that. it is the only thing nobody can ever take from me . when i got caught i already realized my life needed to change. i scored in the 90th percentile. i have too many routes available to me not to succeed so even if the military isn't my path i can be a teacher. i can feel that in my bones. i am built to succeed and my issues have only made me stronger. my shortcomings do not begin to define what i am until you can speak through what i overcame i can only claim a little credit because it's by the lord's grace i amhere to tell my story . he has watched over my whole life even when i refused to

accept his presence and existence >> rebecca were going to need to move to our nextwitness . i can't imagine, none of us here can imagine, i'm so sorry but there will be questions and we will share more. >> thank you. >> sure lamb i now recognize you for yourtestimony . you have fiveminutes . >> i hope i don't sound like a livestock auctioneer. my heart goes out to rebecca and so many families. my county is located between phoenix and tucson, it is approximately the size of the state of connecticut. we are not a border county but we are 52 miles from the border and the closest point to the desert. an indian reservation runs into mexico and the cartel for decades has pushed people through. it hasn't changed recently.

we're 71 miles off the border of the icann interstate. this is important because the interstate is one of the main arteries for human anddrug trafficking into america . the drugs that make it to your state come through my county at one point. let me give you statistics to show you how much this affects us. we've had a 377 percent increase the last two years for traffic stops involving human smuggling. , involving human smuggling putting my citizens at risk. the drivers are predominantly american but often times they are juvenile recruited by the cartels from social media paying them thousands of dollars per person they transport into my community. a lot of what we see are not layouts you hear the term layouts. layouts are people who turn

themselves in for asylum. what i deal with at the tucson center is we deal with the god of ways, those people you hear about. that's in our county. these are people dressed in camouflage close, shoes and backpacks like this. their litter and i just picked these up sunday and this is what i see every day. this is the sign of somebody trying to come in undetected and illegally into this country. the problem is that we are allowing the weak policies we have in place on the national level and the lack of fortitude to secure our border has created an opportunity for the cartels. not only do we deal with the criminal element but that humanitarian element. every summer we spend our resources, it's a drain on my resources. my canines are dedicated solely introduction. we had 10 infants yesterday

alone one of them on 911 call . we had a gentleman we had to go find the cartel left for dead by you or so ago and when we found him he was laying under a tree, we had to get him three bags to bring him back and when we were doing that there were seven more 911 calls from left behind smugglers. the people are being tricked and trapped into coming here by these cartels because of our policies or lack of. when they come here the women are being raped. we have a woman we caught and had a bag full of pills and said what are the skills and she says when i came across the border i knew i would be raped multiple times. these are morning-after pills . we lost our moral compass so badly. raping the women, ripping the children and using them as clients, putting them in the sex trade in america. slavery is prolific nowadays. they are distorting the man,

thecartel knows this how many times can they sell you up till ? one. how many times can they sell you a woman aston martin hundreds. how many times can they sell you a child, hundreds. i don't want to dwell on that but i want to get on to the drugs. we've seen a 600 percent increase in fentanyl. we had 30 fentanyl seizures and in 2019 we had 700 pills. in 2020 we had 200,000 hills. 2021 1.2 million pills and this last year we had 1.4 millionpills come into my committee . i hope some of you will ask about xylodene which is somethingwe're finding in our community . in the state of arizona in 2021 we lost 44 children to poisoning. under the age of 17.

seven were under the age of one-year-old. if that doesn't mobilize the force of this country to stop this problem i don't know what will . this is what we deal with on a daily basis and i hear 90 percent come through the ports, it's 50-50. 52 to 48 and the fact that they think they can bring it to our border is not something to brag about because what that tells me is the cartel's so confident they're going to get those drugs to your border theycome right through our front door . with the amount of seizures we've had probably they can fill this entire country. i just want to say thank you to the partners we have, i thank you for the stone garden fund. we've got a tremendousamount of work to do. the lines of key medication

have been severed when this administration took over . it's disappointing, something we lost in this administration came in and i would like to say we've got to do better on the messaging. the media and politicians, the statistics say otherwise and you have to stop them at the border . this border is not secure and with that i will turn it over to the chairman and i appreciate the opportunity to be here. >> i recognized mister trench all to summarize his opening statements. >> thank you for inviting me here to give you a first and account of the effect open borders have had on our community. the regional medical center is a hospital with a full range of acute care services. the hospitals are located 180 miles away. given our geographic location

our health system holds a deep responsibility of keeping local families close to home for care. the many who live here care is an unbearable challenge. our mission to meet the needs of our community is at the forefront and i want to acknowledge the work of our staff at inter-regional medical center care for patients every day and provide the same high level of care. we do not treat anyone differently and take pride in . if your mother or grandmother walked through hard work they would receive the same level of care. over the last year and a half we've had a number of migrants cross the border. we've seen this in the late fall or early winter, they arrived in a multitude of ways. some patients come to us by border patrol released on arrival and others take taxis, some even come by

uber. where the only acute care facility in the county. some migrants come with minor ailments but many come with significantdisease . many are very sick. they have long-term complications of chronic disease. some and up in the icu for 60 days or more. one of the largest cohorts are patients with no little or no prenatal care. these result in higher complication rates. due to a lack of prenatal care many of these babies require a stay in our neonatal intensive care unit . there are language and cultural concerns with migrant patients and we work through those but when you consider the case management that comes with it resources have their departments as well. migrants require three times the amount of resources for safe discharge as defined by cms. that includes assistance with

locating families, making sure they have a safeplace to go , and we have paid for emergency air transport when they need a higher level of care, motel rooms and taxis and we do these things because it's theright thing to do from ahumanitarian perspective but allows us to open a hospital bed sooner for another patient in our community . none of these expenditures are included in the $20 million figure . we deliver care to these individuals over a 12 month period of time from december 21 to december 2022. let me assure you it is not an approximation. that number comes from a review treated to my patients. 26 million in uncompensated care is an unsustainable business model. while this is a huge number we validated the point is any number is notacceptable . it is an unsustainable model that house like ours as the of paying for migrants care

because of this surge of my care we had to hire additional staff and finally labor is higher than ever. every dollar has a direct impact. migrants patients are receiving free care. they have no ability to pay. we don't know the final destination or anything about them let me put this into perspective, $26 million is equal to the benefit to support 212 bedside nurses the city of yuma has 100,000. we've had 300,000 people across our border in yuma in one year, three times the populationcoming across the border. where the only hospital in a three-mile radius . no onehas a solution . you're going to listen and are empathetic but so far we have no solutions. we'vebeen at this for well over a year now . on behalf of our care team on your eating your leadership and support for the care we

have already provided and will continue to provide in the future for long-term solutions that will support our commitment to be here for years to come. one hospital cannot and should not bear the cost of a problem that's deeply impacting arizona and our community. we need a revenue sourceso we can provide high quality care to all comers and remain viable for the future . >> i now recognize mister fear question chairman green, distinguished members of community you for the opportunity to testify. for four decades the cato institute has produced a rate original research on immigration and for orderly immigration system creates a wealthier safe country. we see people as the ultimate resource.

given the freedom to drive people regardless of birthplace are a benefit to our society. unfortunately the us immigration system is so narrow and so backlogged that most people who wish to come to this country have no legal way to do so. as a result the us ranks in the bottom third of countries for immigrant share of the population. this restrictive system is harming our communities. the largest city to the smallest town. the worker shortage averaging nearly 10 million open jobs per month has cost the us nearly $1 trillion in lost productivityand last year alone . population declined due to eroding taxpayers in cities large and small. nearly 3/4 of americans counties had more deaths than births in the last year and patient growth is the lowest it has ever been in our

entire history. this restrictive system causes illegal immigration which can tear apart community and employees, employers and spouses, us citizens are deported. immigrants are not undermining the safety of us communities just the opposite . bureau data showed legal immigrants are half as likely to end up behind bars us born residents. during the 1990s when the immigrant population grew faster than it had any point in over a century, crime fell rapidly. it fell faster and further in immigrant dense communities. 350,000 immigrants serve in protective occupations as detectives, private security. immigrants work with police to solve crimes. 350,000 immigrants right now are awaiting status based on

their cooperation on investigations and there are countless examples of us communities turned around by the economic revitalization brought by immigrants. immigrants increase state and local tax revenues by over 200 and 50 dollars per year, more resources to keep kennedy's sake. the committee is right to investigate the scourge. but immigrants are not the cause. fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled through ports of entry largely by us citizens. us citizens accounted for 86 percent of convicted fentanyl traffickers in 2022.despite arresting 700,000 illegal immigrants so far this year less than one percent of gdp sent fentanyl seizures have come from people carrying it across the border. restrictions on trade and travel started in the 2020s

and have only exacerbated the problem. because fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, it can supply the same market with far fewer trips. with fewer trips and more scrutiny in 2020 2021 traffickers switched from heroin to fentanyl and fentanyl deaths double. border policies have failed victims by making drugs more potent and deadly. congress should focus on helping drug users. the crackdown on asylum has also failed to secure the border. now that filing is no longer an option even asian of border patrol asking priest fivefold from 2019 to 2021. immigrants are more remote, more rural areas of the border and there have led to more suffering and death which isstraining hospitals . we've seen repeatedly that

wasn't off legal options to integrate creates illegal immigration. while opening them up for do citizenship. the administration's new sponsorship programs for human and nicaraguans are already working to reduce illegal migration by those populations by over 90 percent. these programs empower ordinary americans in every community to help the border. congress should work with them. >> members will be recognized by order of seniority for their five minutes of questioning. an additional round may be called for after all members have been recognized . i recognize myself for five minutes of questions. before i start i want to share a few things because talked about this being a decades long problemand it

has been . there's no doubt there's been a problem in the entire previous ministrations for years, 2.4 million in just two years we've had 12.7 million encounters, 1.2 million.a ways, i can do that math. 5.9 million people, 25 states in the united states have populations less than 4.68, let that numbersink in . the removal of the policies on day one, the executive orders written in reversing odysseys implemented to solve many of this really began to solve this problem were done away with and a surge of people came to our border. the drug cartels have taken advantage of the situation by either neutralizing effects i've talked about. it was also mentioned earlier about the humanitarian problems from previous

administrations. i remember sitting in this committee right over there when i was a freshman and there was this big to do about two migrant deaths. we weren't in charge at that time. but it was a big hullabaloo because there were two migrant deaths. any death we should make a big deal out of the past two years under this admits's policies, under his reckless behavior, border policies, 1400 migrants have died. here's one just floating in the river. 1400. we talk about it as a humanitarian crisis in the previous administration. nothing now?1400. over 1400. yes. this is mayorkas's failure.

i'd like to start with you. mister p was mentioning statistics about who's carrying drugs into the country. those carpet shoes you showed earlier, you think those are counted in his statistics? the video i showed earlier, all this parade of people carrying drugs, are they counted in his statistics? >> no sir and i find it comical a lot of researchers want to tell us what's going on but they don't ever come down to the border . we're telling you this to six wesee every day , this tells you what you need to know and i've got thousands of these in hundreds of spotsthrough my county . >> thosearen't in the statistics and they're not coming through the points of entry . >> enough coming through the ports. >> rebecca i appreciate what

you do and i know it's difficult you being here. one of our fellow witnesses today chair lamb mentioned and talk about the flow of fentanyl. he's 55 miles from theborder, you're in michigan . quite a ways from the border. the mind elaborating on how it's impacted your community and you shared your story but you are with other parents, can you share the story of how it's impacting your community ? >> out to you in the support groups, there have been some parents who committed suicide. it's devastating families. it's been difficult for my daughter. one daughter went off to michigan and came home after a semester.

it was just too painful. and now she's attending in our hometown at holcomb university . one of my sons friends has been waiting tables at the same restaurant where my daughter was and he came up to me and he said he had been friends with both my son and good friends with tyler, they were working together and he told me that he got clean from drugs after my sons death and he completely stopped doing marijuana in fact. stopped doing any kind of drug. he said i want you to know that you are your sons death started a movement in our hometown and he said people show up with pills they are ostracized and they are

condemned. but he said i think for how long? how many kids in the high school now know about myson's death ? >> thank you mister chairman. i expressed this sentiment of every member on this committee. on your tragic loss. i a grandfather and it would be difficult for any loss, for a child so mister b or, there is a comment that our immigration system has been broken for many years. if what we are seeing the border now is a consequence of that broken system and if it is can you share your

thoughts on it? >> absolutely it's a consequence of our broken legal immigration system. if people have a legal opportunity to come to this country they do not choose the illegal option so what we're seeing at the border is a consequence of the decades long fiction on illegal immigration and legal pathways to come to this country . we have no year-round temporary work visa to do work in lower skilled industries and that is what is driving all of this. ultimately what brings people to the border whether there seeking asylum or not ultimately the financing comes from jobs in the united states for people and if we had a legal way to fill those jobs we would not see the crisis we are seeing at our

southern border so we have countless examples of instances in which we have stopped illegal immigration by opening up legal channels. with the worker program which despite its flaws reduced the amount of legal immigration by nine percent and kept it low. the replacement was decades of illegal immigration to us farms . >> thank you. as i said in my opening statement fixing our broken immigration system will not only help the migrants fleeing prosecution, it will help us man our borders and put them out of business to focus on drug smugglers. >> ..

whether it is jan and cotton, was picking, harvesting sweet potatoes or whatever. it's a challenge for our farmers so somewhere we need to put a system in place to make that happen. i look forward to working with this committee on trying to get that comprehensive immigration reform system put together. can you explain how more legal pathways of this country would be helpful, not just to migrants that to americans? >> absolutely. first of all, we are dealing with a significant inflation crisis in this country, and the lost productivity that i talked about, the $1 trillion in lost productivity from unfilled open jobs in this country over the last year would go a long way to reduced prices of goods and services across the economy. when employers can't fill

positions, that is lost productivity that comes right out of consumers pockets. and so the most important economic phenomenon is the fact that we are turning away economic growth by turning away immigrants. and if we want to fill these positions, if we want to expand growth, if we want to bring down inflation one of the best ways to do so would be to have illegal immigration process for people to enter the country lawfully. and, of course, at our borders we are seeing serious problems. there's no question there are issues at the border as a result of illegal immigration. but with legal immigration platform people to apply and cross legally, those problems will be greatly dissipated. we talked about car chases that her injury americans. we are talking recruitment of teenagers to take part in smuggling activities, of persons. those problems would also dissipate under a legal immigration system that actually

work to serve the needs of american communities. >> okay. well, if we go another round i might have another question. i yield back. >> gentleman yield back. i now recognize chairman higgins from louisiana for five minutes questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, it's nauseating to listen to some of this. it's really stunning. i don't know where to find these people that don't get it. it's like bradys people in laboratory experiments or something. disconnected from reality. it was just a couple of years ago we had the border under control. why on about broken immigration system. what western nation, who? canada? france, germany, great britain, mexico? all of them have much more restrictive immigration programs

and laws than the united states of america. whether most generous, compassionate, wealthy western nation in the world for immigration. you want citizens of every land to come to this country legally. our border is wide open and out of control, and americans are dying because of it. add a note secretary mayorkas is watching this and having his team of attorneys watch this, good. because over the course of the next year, this committee is going to lay out the case against you, sir. if i could arrest you for violations of louisiana revised statutes i would. louisiana revised statute 1432, negligent homicide. statute 1424, principled and criminal action. i charge you with thousands of

murders. 18 u.s. code 1001 user may knowingly and willfully lied to this body, again and again and again about our border. section 242 title 18 under color of law you have deprived americans of their very light, including this young lady. the picture behind me, that's sami. she's just a little girl dead from fentanyl. came under your watch, secretary mayorkas. remember her name. i'm going to see to it that you have plenty of time in the course of your remaining life to remember the names of the

200,000 americans who are dead because of fentanyl, it across our border that you have blown wide open. sheriff lamb, thank you for being here, sir. i'm sure you understand my passion, having to listen to this nonsense. we could fix our border in one week, am i right, sheriff, if we had come if we have policy coming out of the white house that allow you to enforce the law and empower the federal agents on our border that are tasked with securing the sovereignty of our nation against the criminal cartels that control 100% of the mexican side of our southern border? could we do it, sheriff lamb? had we done it recently as forest we had to? >> yes, we could do that. maybe a week might be tight but 30-60 days we could definitely fix this. we are americans. we can stop this when we decide we want to stop it. >> when we make a decision to enforce existing law, we can

flip the single bed. sheriff lamb, and my remaining minute, it's very disturbing development that we have been watching over the course of the last year or so. these guys crossing the border are increasingly violent, and your man, your deputies are encountering that. will you characterize the demeanor and purpose of the typical got away that you encounter in your town and expound upon increased violence that you're witnessing from these men? >> thank you. absolutely. we are seeing increased violence more and more of the ranchers along the border very fear for the lives every day. these are military age men that are avoiding detection at all cost. many had made between 6000-$12,000 to come here and they don't, that's a lot of money to them and do not going back and they're not going to go down without a fight. we've had traffic stops with you tried to run my deputies off the road while we're trying to stop

the vehicle. secondary vehicle will try to run them off the road. we had one such vehicle which is all the way back to phoenix to find it was a female with a one and half year old child and a five month old child in her car with her. violence is not, is absolutely an option for these people. they have zero regard for human life. >> thank you sheriff. mr. chairman, i yield. >> gentleman yields. i now recognize mr. payne from new jersey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and ranking member. we are in the most compassionate generous country in the west. tell that to the young people that are still looking for their parents that were separated under the previous administration. mr. bier, and i know my friends

on the other side don't like to hear it, but fentanyl and other hard drugs are smuggled through ports of entry into the u.s. by, unfortunately, u.s. citizens. these drugs are usually hidden in vehicles, cargo or on a person in the hopes that it won't be detected by cbp. as the process people and goods into the country. what policy changes can we make to allow personnel at ports of entry to focus on interdiction of drugs? >> the most important policy change that can be made in this area addresses the demand for

drugs. ultimately, if u.s. consumers are willing to pay for illicit narcotics to come into the country, the black market will supply it. and we have seen that for the last century of prohibition, whether it's alcohol prohibition, whether it is drug prohibition. we've seen this phenomenon, and, unfortunately, during the pandemic when we greatly restricted trade and travel, it forced the shift from heroin to fentanyl, which is a far more potent and more deadly substance. and so i do not believe that there is a solution to fentanyl smuggling in ports of entry here at the end of the day, the black market is applying drugs to u.s. consumers who are paying for it. and as long as we focus on supply and ignore the drug war victims and not address their needs, not provide them with options to protect themselves against fentanyl, wouldn't it be great if fentanyl test strips

were legalized nationwide so that people can know what they are ingesting so they're not ending up like victims that we've heard about today? we need options we need physicians to be able to actually treat addiction in this country and not be prohibited from, for example, prescribing methadone to their patients. so there are options out there. i do not believe that restricting trade and travel and trying to crack down on immigration, or even on your citizens travel abroad, is a solution to the pandemic of fentanyl poisonings. >> and so you are saying that the demand is so great that there's always going to be opportunities for people to try to benefit on that, is that correct?

>> absolutely. for example, marijuana is trafficked between ports of entry. we know this. it's been the case for decades. we ended up during the early 2000s increasing the border patrol, doubling the size of the border patrol. we doubled the amount of marijuana seizures, but did not a one and the united states did not go down because the difference of cost in production in mexico and elsewhere is so low it's easy to just smuggle some more. and so it didn't work. in fact, it backfired in that case as well because marijuana potency according to the dea increased by more than 30% as a result of that crack down. so we see it again and again and again, crackdowns produced higher potency drugs which are more dangerous to drug users. we need to focus on protecting drug users, not more crackdowns, not more border crackdowns, not more banning of asylum. that's not the answer to this problem. >> thank you, and with that, mr. chairman, i will yield back.

>> gentleman yields back. i now recognize mr. guest from mississippi. >> thank you, mr. chairman. sheriff, thank you for being with us today. i see in your testimony you talk specifically about fentanyl pills. seizures were up 610% since 2020. you heard mr. bier just testified a few moments ago that the solution to the drug problem is we must protect drug users, that the solution is we need to legalize fentanyl strips. what is your opinion is a solution to the drug problem? is a solution not to close the border to stop the drug from ever entering the country and not to try to make it easier for people to use and consume illegal drugs? >> yes, mr. guest. well, i agree with you got to curb demand. this is like mopping the bathroom floor without turning out the tub water. you've got to turn off the tub water if you ever going to curb demand. right now that note is in

arizona is 16% 16% higher tt was all of last year. so think about what that is going to be by the end of this year. >> and let me ask you, we just returned from the border. the was a group of 11 members of this committee went to the border. that is my fourth border visit in approximately 18 months, and every time i've been to the border, sheriff, lyford deese to statements. one is that it is the worst that the board has ever been, the conditions of the border both for immigrants coming across the border, human traffic smuggling, drug smuggling. also we hear that those front-line individuals, yourself, how to law enforcement state and local officials, feel as though the federal government has abandoned it. that this is no longer a federal problem, and now has dumped this problem in the laps of you and other local officials. let me ask you, do you share that same opinion that, one, the board is worse than it's ever

been? in your history of law enforcement, and then two, the feeling that the federal government has abandoned you and the men and women who serve under your command? >> absolutely it is far, far worse than it's ever been for us at edition of the opinion that the federal government has abandoned us. we have no light of communication outside of arizona, and we feel they have turned their back and that only the border patrol agents but if sent a clear message to us in law enforcement they are not interested in solving this. every effort that states like arizona and texas make to try to fix this problem on their in because the federal government is failing, they tried -- >> we are going to leave this hearing on immigration and border security for our 40+ year commitment to covering congress. you can watch the rest on c-span.org. senate lawmakers are working on judicial nominations today. votes are expected throughout the day. we take it now to the senate floor. live coverage here on c-span2.