over the past several years we also have deployed unprecedented levels of personnel, technology and resources to protect our nation's borders. these efforts, too, have achieved significant results including historic decreases in illegal immigration as measured by total apprehensions and increases in seizures of illegal drugs, weapons, cash and other contraband. in fact, illegal immigration attempts are at their lowest levels since 1971. while violent crime in u.s. border communities has remained flat or fallen over the past decade. we also have focused on smart and effective enforcement of immigration laws while streamlining and facilitating the legal immigration process. last year ice removed record numbers of illegal aliens from the country, 90% of whom fell within our priority categories of criminal aliens and repeat

immigration law violators, recent border entranlts and immigration fugitives. we focused on identifying and sanctioning employers who knowingly hire workers not authorized to work in the united states. we've made important reforms in our immigration detention system, so that every individual in custody is treated in a fair, safe and humane manner consistent with ice detention standards and we have worked to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies in visa program, streamlined the path for entrepreneurs who wish to bring business to the united states and improved systems for immigration benefits and services. in the critical area of cyber security we also continue to lead the federal government's efforts to secure civilian government networks while working with industry, state and local governments to secure critical infrastructure and information systems. we are deploying the latest tools across the federal government to protect critical civilian systems, while sharing

timely and actionable security information with public and private sector partners to help them protect their own operations. with these partners we are also protecting the systems and networks that support the financial services industry, the electric power industry, and the telecommunications industry to name just a few. we stand ready to work with the congress to pass legislation that will further enhance our ability to combat threats in the cyber domain. we support legislation that would support base line performance standards for the core infrastructure, remove barriers to information sharing between government and industry so that we can more quickly respond to and mitigate cyber threats or intrusions, ensure robust privacy oversight to ensure that voluntarily shared information does not impinge on

individual privacy and civil liberties including criminal penalties for misuse. and provide dhs with the hiring flexibility to attract and retain the cyber security professionals we need to execute our complex and challenging mission. mr. chairman, threats against our nation, whether from terrorists, criminals or cyber adversaries continue to evolve and dhs must continue to evolve as well. i look forward to working with you and members of the committee to build on the progress we have achieved across these and many other mission areas. we remain ever vigilant to threats as we continue to pronote free movement of goods and peoples essential to our economy and protect our essential rights and liberties. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. of course we'll put your full statement in the record. as i told you, our jurisdiction over the u.s. secret service we

did want to ask you questions there. i am of course all americans concerned about the safety of our president, whether it could have been jeopardized with this kind of behavior. just as i'm concerned about the safety of any of the protectees, i mentioned governor romney but there are several others. the misconduct we heard about, did that pose any risk to the president's security when in colombia or to national security? >> mr. chairman, that was my first question to director sullivan when he called me and the answer is no. there was no risk to the president. >> and you made that assessment? >> yes, based on the information supplied to me by the director. >> and is the secret service coordinating its internal investigation with the department of defense or any other u.s. agency that might have been involved in preparing

for the president's arrival? >> mr. chairman, we are coordinating the investigation with the inspector general, we have an existing m.o.a. with the i.g. between the secret service and the i.g., so they are in effect supervising the investigation even though it's being done by secret service agents. >> was there any evidence that the president's advance team was involved in this misconduct? >> i've not been informed of any such evidence. >> as we continue to look at this, we know the agents are trained as to what is acceptable and what's unacceptable. are there standards in place governing appropriate conduct for agents on foreign trips and how they may interact with locals when on foreign assignments? if there are such standards how are they conveyed to the agents? >> there are standards. they are conveyed through training and through

supervision. one of the things we are doing, mr. chairman, is looking at the standards, the training, the supervision, to see what if anything needs to be tightened up because, again, we don't want this to be repeated. >> well, is there training given to agents relating to private or intimate contact with foreign nationals when traveling for security work? >> the training is focused on professionalism, on conduct consistent with the highest moral values and standards and i think that would include your question. >> well, madame secretary, i know that when we travel, members of congress travel different countries, we go to, we're given security and foreign intelligence threat advisories. i've been in some countries where, for example, we'll leave all of our communication gear dismantled. with u.s. security officers.

and so forth. are agents given training in security and foreign intelligence, particular country they might go into? >> i think that's part of the advanced process, mr. chairman. >> so if they thought there was an intelligence threat in a particular country, they'd be advised of that? >> yes. >> i began my career here during the cold war period, we had some of the assessments we were given are somewhat different than they are today. but then some of the assessments today because of our increased types of communication here and electronic gear are different, i assume that is geared based on today's real threats? >> yes. how to -- you mean how to secure our communications equipment and -- >> what things that the individual must look for.

is this a country, are they going to be a threat from agents of another country? >> the agents are informed as to what the intel is, what specific or country specific measures need to be taken and again, in this instance, mr. chairman, there was no impinging on the security of the president and no access to any secure information by the people involved. >> like you, i've been on many occasions with the secret service around. very professional men and women, i traveled with several different presidents over the course of my career, watched the secret service, again very professional men and women there. so that when i heard the number

of the agents involved in this, i felt it particularly alarming when i got my first call at home from the director and as my staff looked into it and the bipartisan staff of the committee looked into it, the numbers i found shocking. to your knowledge, is this the first time something like this has happened or have you had reports of similar incidents in the past? >> mr. chairman, i asked the same question, and over the past 2 1/2 years the secret service office of professional responsibility has not received any such complaint. over that same period t secret service has provided protection to over 900 foreign trips and over 13,000 domestic trips. so from that standpoint, there was nothing in the record to suggest that this behavior would

happen and it really was, i think, a huge disappointment to the men and women of the secret service to begin with who uphold very high standards and feel their own reputations are now besmerched by the actions of a few. >> to the extent that any of them are listening to this hearing i would hope they will not be distracted from their jobs, those who are protecting governor romney, those protecting president obama, and all of the other protectees. that has to be job first. but then you and the director have the job of seeing where we go from here. can you assure us that there will not be -- can you assure us that it will be made very clear to secret service agents in their training that this kind of

conduct will not be condoned? >> that is our goal, mr. chairman. really three things that i immediately discussed with the director. one was to make sure the president's security was never at risk. two, was to make sure that we instituted a prompt and thorough investigation into the allegations in colombia, and three, what other steps we need to take for the future to make sure this is not repeated. >> a different matter, we'll turn to the reauthorization of the violence against women act, a provision would modestly increase the number of temporary visas available to immigrant victims who cooperated with law enforcement officers and prosecution of criminal offenses. sometimes they are our best sources of information including due mess tuck violence, sexual assault. i heard from officers all over

the country say they support this. does the department of homeland security support this provision of this increase of visas for the purpose of cooperating in criminal cases. >> absolutely. >> and i told you, i realize my time, but we had the question raised with you before about the technology used at screening. i was very concerned about the earlier ones that the x-ray-type machines that they affect my words not yours, did a virtual strip search of people, very graphic images of the people going through. those machines, how much did dhs spend on acquiring them? >> mr. chairman, the machines themselves are at a unit cost of

approximately $130,000. and i think we can get you the exact number but i think the expenditure is probably total with some installation and other things, about $130 million. >> and then the changes i'm told the changes, when they -- after the reaction on the original ones, the retrofits and upgrades cost about 12 million? >> i'm not sure because part of the contract with the vendor is as the software changed, that the hardware would be able to accept the software. i'll verify if it was 12 million or not. >> what companies were awarded contracts? >> rapaskan and l-3. >> senator graham, i apologize. go ahead, sir. >> welcome, madame secretary. i enjoy working with your

office, security issues as a whole. my experience with the secret service is similar to what senator leahy said. basically the time i traveled with senator mccain in the last presidential election, and i was very impressed by the people, very hard working, a lot of time away from families and long hours. so just as any time you have military discipline problems you don't want to paint with a broad brush the 99%. let us start with the baseline. like in the military, abu ghraib and others, systems failed then and obviously there is a system failure here. the likelihood that this was the first and only time that such behavior occurred, do you think that's great or not so great? >> well, i think part of our investigation is confirming that this was an aberration, or not.

but i agree with you, senator, the secret service does a marvelous job and i worked closely with them. >> the only reason i suggest that we need to maybe look harder is because we're lucky to have found out about this, that had been an argument between one of the agents and i guess about money, we'd probably never known about this. so the point is that i think you've got a good order in discipline problem. do you believe the agents were confused that their conduct was wrong? >> they should not have been. >> i don't think it's a lack of training. i don't think anybody -- >> you know, i think the conduct was unacceptable, it was unprofessional, and as i said in my statement, i think that the people who are most disappointed are the other men and women of the secret service. >> i couldn't agree more. human beinging human beings we make mistakes and sometimes

organizations can get loose. being a military lawyer for 30 years one of the first thing we would advise new commanders, a new commander, you've got a bunch of young people in the military for the first time away from home. go to the barracks when they least expect you to go. show up at 3:00 in the morning and word will get out pretty quick you got to watch what you do in the barracks because you never know when the commander is going to show up s. there any similar program where supervisors from the home duty station would go out and visit people on a random base snis >> i'm not aware of it which is not to say there isn't one. that's one of the reasons that we're continuing our work, want to continue to brief the committee. >> can i suggest that you may look at a program similar to what the military does, people from the command, the central body would show up on an unannounced basis throughout the world. and just let them know that

somebody back home is watching. might do some good in the future. is there any exit interviews for people leaving the organization when you ask them, does anything bother you, have you seen anything during your time that bothers you? we do that in the military trying to find out how the unit works when people are leaving. >> senator, i know there are exit interviews done. whether that specific question is asked or something like it, again, i'm not -- i don't know the answer but i can find the answer out for you. >> i would suggest that maybe we look at changing the system so people who are away from home never believe they are away from home that somebody's always watching. >> senator, we are looking at this from the aspect as i said earlier, one was the president's security impinged, discipline for the agents and three, what do we need to do to tighten any standards that need to be tightened. so i'll take your suggestions

seriously. >> i think this is a bipartisan -- mr. sullivan, i never met the man but everybody who knows him seems to have nothing but good things to say about him. and we want to get this behind us and not have the problem emerge again. homegrown terrorism you mentioned in your opening statement. would you agree that probably the idea of home gron terrorism, attack from within, is greater today than it was say maybe five years ago? that raddicalization. >> i think that's right. we have seen -- it's one of when i say terrorism continues to evolve that's one of the evolutions we're seeing, radicalization of the point of terrorist violence and we've seen several episodes across the united states. >> let's go to the recent tragedy in france where you had a young french citizen, muslim, who went to i think pakistan to study there, came back to

france, and engaged in horrific acts of terrorism. do you worry about that happening here in the united states? >> one of the things we did in the wake of the marah was to analyze what happened in that case and were there any early signs, indicators, anything that would give us an early trip wire that somebody in the united states was getting read the do the same thing. >> i think some of these terrorist organizations are trying to come to our country and recruit within our own. is that a fair statement? >> i think there is recruitments, it doesn't really require a visit. you can do it on line. >> that's exactly right. you can talk to our people through the internet and the cyber world to try to recruit them to their cause. there are some takers and we need to beville i gent about that. there is a case before the supreme court today, each person can make their own mind up about

south carolina, arizona and the laws and what we need to be doing. but president obama in his campaign in 2008 promised comprehensive immigration reform in his first year. do you believe there was a real genuine effort to make that happen? >> as someone who spent a lot of hours visiting members of congress on the hill to see if there was any room for negotiation of a comprehensive bill i would say yeah, there was a serious effort. >> so it's congress's fault? >> senator, i think all of us have a responsibility to deal in a bipartisan way with a national problem. >> well, we didn't deal in a bipartisan way with health care. not one republican voted for the bill. you had 60 u.s. senators on the democratic side, you had a huge majority in the house. so i guess my point is, that i don't believe there was much of an effort to deliver comprehensive immigration reform in the first year and i don't think this it's congress's fault. i think the president famed the

country by not making this a priority. he had a large majority he could have worked with and chose health care over immigration and here we are. not to say that my party's blameless, we're not. but i want to understand that when people talk about this issue that we remember exactly what happened. 60 democratic senators large majority in the house, do you remember any bills coming out of the house of representative dealing with immigration reform? >> you know, senator, i'm not familiar with any. and i obviously disagree with kind of how you are putting the issue but i think we can both agree that at some point we are going to have to deal with comprehensive immigration reform. >> thank you very much for your service. >> thank you. i would just note parn athletically i sat in on the meetings with former president bush on immigration reform, i strongly supported his efforts. i sat in the bipartisan meetings that president obama had with some of the same people who were

at the president bush ones and the follow-up and i recall him being told don't bring it up because it's not going to go anywhere. i hope, and i still hope, in the senate that we will have comprehensive immigration policy, we need it. senator feinstein. then -- senator feinstein. >> thank you very much. madame secretary, i'm one that thinks you're doing a very good job. >> thank you. >> in an agency that is perhaps too large. i think it's 22 departments and over a couple hundred thousand people. it's a very big job. i wanted to concentrate my questioning on three areas. the first is student visa and fraud, and earlier last year i joined in a letter with senator schumer on this program, and i

am concerned that i.c.e. is not adequately certifying each educational institution. in may of '11 we have a case of trivalley university in police santon, a sham school, bringing 555 students in making 4 million, the head is being prosecuted. to make a long story short, the united states immigration and customs enforcement known around here as i.c.e., wrote an interesting letter on may 3, 2011 saying this. the student sevp does not have the statutory authority to close non-compliant schools immediately. nor does have the the authority to restrict dso access and it

goes on, to say they have done a risk analysis of the 6,487 sevp certified schools with active records and they have schools fitting in the low, medium or high risk categories. here's the breakdown. low risk, 4,794. 74%. medium risk, 1276 schools, 20%. and then there's high risk, 417 schools or 6% of all of the schools examined. now, here is what they say. many of the non-compliant schools are already the subject of criminal investigations, forestalling any administrative action to limit access to sevs

to issue the form i-20. sevp can begin immediately such assessments and site reviews once cleared to do so. can't they be cleared to do this early on? >> i think -- >> let me say, i think we have to remember 9/11 hijackers came in on student visas, went to schools that taught them how to fly but not to land, and nobody thought it was unusual. so i'm really concerned about sham schools and that we have a good sense of who is coming in under a foreign student visa, whether they are attending the school at all. i've been at this, madame secretary, for about 12 years, and you know, initially everybody objected to it. then they began to do it. now i see it easing up. so i wanted to bring it to your attention. >> i share that concern. these sham schools shouldn't be

allowed to operate, we have increased our efforts against them. i haven't -- that particular letter i suspect is that we are coordinating with u.s. attorney offices in the relevant districts and they asked us to postpone administrative action until their criminal case was ready to go. i'll follow up. >> take a look at it. let me know. >> absolutely. >> the second thing is agriculture enforcement audits. obviously i have a bias. we have 81,000 farms in california. virtually all of the labor is undocumented. what happens is in harvest season, canning season, i.c.e. swoops in. you've got a problem. i tried for ten years to get an ag jobs bill through and i can't get it through. the fact of the matter is that if we want american produce, the labor is generally undocumented. and we have to find a solution

to this. so, i am hopeful and i know that you're doing aggressive i-9 audits of ag employers, i'm very concerned that these are going to decimate on farm and farm dependent jobs. >> i think -- i think the base of the problem is that there is no provision under the current immigration law that enables more agricultural workers to be documented. so we have some employers and we try to pick those who are really knowingly and intentionally violating the law when they have other options. trying to focus on them through the audit process. but the underlying issue goes back to the immigration law itself. >> senator schumer just murmured to me most don't have any other options. california is a state that can't

use the visitor program. so it depends on a large skilled rotating generally undocumented coderry of about 600,000 workers. for 81,000 farms. if i swoops in farmers can't plant, can't harvest, can't can, and this has been happening. i want to bring to the your attention and -- you know, it's a hard problem. but if this body won't take action, you're going to put ag, we're going to put ag out of business. and i'm really concerned about it. so if there is any thought you might have, i would very much appreciate them. and the last point i wanted to raise with you, is another long standing issue of mine, the visa

waiver program and biometric exit. for many years i've been trying to get data on visa overstays for each country. to no avail thus far. last month dhs assistant secretary david hammond informed me by june of this year dhs will have a fully operational biographic exit system in place. it's going to provide real time information on those who exit united states airports. this new exit system is expected to allow you to calculate over stays per country by may of this year. here's the question. i think this is very important. we've got 15 million people that come in every year. we don't know whether they leave or not on a visa waiver. is dhs on track to have a fully operational