by and large in most instances, that is accomplished through detaining them. we have a limited number of detention beds. so the question is, do we focus our resources on somebody who just came across the border two years ago as opposed to somebody who came across ten years, now has, you know, two united states citizen children and three cars in the driveway. in those circumstances, we say we're going to focus on the person who violated the law most recently. we're going to focus our resources on those people who have committed a crime. if i have to pick between putting a criminal in detention space or somebody who's been here a very long time, i'm going to pick the criminal every time because i think there's a much greater effect on public safety and immigration enforcement when i do that. >> where does -- in the prioritization, where does that overstays come in this hierarchy?

>> these overstays, as the chairman noted, they're a very difficult situation. they would come in recent border entrants if they were here recently. it's a real challenge for us. i don't want to minimize it. roughly 40% of the people who are in the country unlawfully originally came on a visa. but the short answer to your question is they fall on the second prioritization. the question would be have they been here a relatively recent period of time or a long period of time? do they have other equities that mean they should be a lower priority for removal? for example, do they have united states citizen children? are they married to a united states citizen? those are the very real world decisions that we have to make when using the resources that congress gives us. we have about 34,000 detention beds on any given day by statute. there are more people than we can put in those. >> real quickly, do you have access to the entry level data if someone came in on a visa?

i was reading some of the sharing of information of fingerprint data and you all have access to the illegal entry data? >> we do. as the chairman noted, right after 9/11, congressman dated information sharing and that's not only do we use it for purposes of these overstays, it's the basis for secure communities. a little bit challenging with visa overstays in that typically the address that we will have on the i-94 -- let's say somebody's going to disneyland for a vacation. they put that down. they list their hotel as the address, which was their address for that. that's the last record that we have to go from. then we have to do database searches and try to determine where that person lives. it's a challenging enforcement regime. again, the short answer to your question is we do have access to the databases. >> thank you. my time is up. i yield back. >> chair now recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. quayle. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you, director morton. good to see you again.

in jewel 10th, 2009, you stated that 287-g program is an essential component of dhs' comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy. do you still agree with that assessment? >> i do, particularly for the jail model where it has proven to be a good use of our resource, a good use of our resources and a good use of the taxpayer dollars. i don't feel that way with regard to many of the task force agreements that have largely for economic reasons in the jurisdictions where they are found have become unproductive and have resulted in no removals. >> okay. so, i mean, on the i.c.e. website and in your statement there's a lot of very positive statements regarding the 287-g agreements and how it's great that we can have federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies working together.

you were saying that right now in the present systems. i find it a little concerning that you have recently gotten rid of the 287-g agreement with arizona state and local law enforcement agencies. what is the reasoning behind it? why pick arizona as the -- i mean, sole one right now to actually remove a program that you said was an essential component of dhs' comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy? >> a couple of things. first, the agreements that we terminated in arizona were task force agreements. we did not terminate the jail model agreements. they continue in place. so -- and why did we terminate those models? because they were leading to no removals. we viewed them as unproductive.

and not a good use of taxpayer resources. >> okay. now let's get to the timing of this. it was within a couple hours after the supreme court ruled the main portion of arizona's state law sb-1070 constitutional when secretary napolitano made the statement. did they contact you and talk to you about why they would do it in such close proximity to the supreme court ruling, and if they would remove the 287-g task force agreement if the supreme court ruled differently? what was the conversation there? i'm just trying to -- because the timing is extraordinarily curious. if it the task force were not actually operating in the manner that you would have liked or the dhs would have liked, wouldn't it have been a little bit sooner or maybe even a little bit later, but within hours after the supreme court ruling, that's a very interesting timeline that i would love to hear what they

spoke to you about and what's going to be going forward. >> well, we have had discussions under way with the department for quite some time on the unproductive task forces and in the president's budget request for this year, the department and omb are seeking fewer dollars for the 287-g program precisely because the task force model has proved to be unproductive. we were not going to renew the 287-g agreements that were rescinded in arizona for the next fiscal year. we were going to terminate them anyway in a few months. in discussions with the department, we ultimately decided it made sense upon the supreme court's ruling to lay the future of clearly to bear not to have a series of truncated efforts. they were producing, as i said,

zero removals for two years running in six of the seven cases. we decided to do it all at once. >> so there was a concerted effort and a conscious decision that because of the decision by the supreme court, we wanted to do it quickly after that. i don't understand why it was necessary to do it at that point unless it was for various political reasons from the administration. >> i think we did it because we just thought it made the most sense to do it at the same time. we knew we were going to terminate those agreements. they were producing no removals. we knew that there would be questions about how things would operate, and we wanted to set the record very clear how we were going forward. that is you can call the law enforcement support center 24 hours a day for our assistance. we will respond to law enforcement queries in arizona pursuant to our priorities, but we're not going to continue or

suggest that we were going to continue with task forces that, again, from our perspective were not a good use of taxpayer resources. i think the record is very clear on that. anything that we're spending money on that leads to zero removals for two years in a row doesn't make sense. >> okay. now, another thing i want to talk about is that if you look at the, you know, the crux of that law in trying to cooperate and work with their law enforcement officials to actually adhere to federal law and then you have -- and the chairwoman was mentioning it earlier. cook county not being cooperative with the secure communities. have you heard of anything that the administration is going to take against cook county? are they going to sue cook county? are they going to have the doj get involved in taking them to court because they're not actually -- they're actually

contradictory and contrary to what federal law rather than being -- trying to aid federal law enforcement officials. i know that's doj, but i just want to know if you've heard anything about that. >> the short answer to your question is i have personally met with the department of justice to raise my concerns, and those concerns are shared by the secretary and she has testified to that herself. so we are in discussions with the department of justice to see what we can do on many fronts to come to a better resolution in secure communities in cook county because i think we all agree that the present approach is not a good one. i don't know if you heard my answer before, but it's both a question of can we work with the department of justice to look at any legal options we may have to get to a better place with the county, but also to look at the county's annual request for

reimbursement under the federal scap program for the individuals that they detain that are there unlawfully. cook county in past years has received several million dollars each year from the federal government to reimburse it for the cost of detaining people who are here unlawfully. and we just find that position to be wholly inconsistent with not allowing us to -- >> so you haven't heard anything about a federal lawsuit? it was pretty swift when arizona passed their own law and the doj came in pretty quickly and operated in that fashion. now with cook county, since you've had some serious issues with them and you have had discussions with doj, there's been no talk about a lawsuit. or is there a lawsuit pending? >> i have not yet heard back from the department of justice. in fairness to them, we have only been meeting for the last couple of months. they wanted to see how certain pieces of court decisions came out. i expect to hear from them shortly.

i can tell you that resolving the issue in cook county is very important for me. it is one of the single largest attention systems in the country. right now it's not a question of cook county releasing some individuals to us. they are releasing no individuals to us, including very violent offenders. i just don't think that's good policy. >> thank you, director. my time has expired. thank you, madam chair. >> chair now recognizes the gentle lady from texas. ms. sheila jackson lee. >> thank you. i thank you to the chair and the ranking member. welcome, director morton. thank you for your service and as well let me offer my concern for the officers who were involved in an incident of violence, to their families, and those who were impacted and to their families and your organization.

we must always look to thanking those who are on the front lines for us, and i want to make sure i do so. i believe the work you've been doing is very important, but i never come to an immigration hearing, whether it is judiciary that i serve for however long and here in homeland security, and i call both assignments a privilege. what this country needs is real comprehensive immigration reform so that we're not confusing and juxtaposing benefits and the right opportunity for those who want to immigrate to this country and enforcement -- particularly enforcement against those who would want to do us harm. secure communities certainly has its failures and its value. i think it's important that we try to determine what lessons we

have learned and how we can be more effective. i happen to applaud the president's decision on the dream act. living in a state like texas, we have seen 99% good as opposed to harm. many of us have met these students that will be impacted up close and personal, and i appreciate that there have been a number of utilizations of powers under the law that your agency has been effective in utilizing. but i think this executive order will be helpful to all of us. but it would be better under comprehensive immigration reform. so i speak to two issues, and i'll do it quickly. a 14-year-old texas girl who was missing from 2010 until 2012 was mistakenly deported to colombia by immigration agents. it was proven the 14-year-old gave i.c.e. agents a fake name which belonged to a 22-year-old

illegal immigrant from colombia who had warrants for her arrest. she was held in a harris county jail in my community. i.c.e. agents took the 14-year-old's fingerprints but did not confirm identity before deporting her. another incident, according to media report, james majkowski, a chicago area resident who was born in india and adopted by an american family in new jersey and naturalized as a u.s. citizen at age 1 was flagged as an illegal immigrant after a drug-related arrest because his status was never updated. he was held in a prison before i.c.e. cancelled the order. obviously both cases are very troubling. and i think we have engaged, my office engaged i.c.e. on one of these troubling stories, the one in houston. what failures in the secure community databases and program procedures could allow a u.s. citizen to be detained? what is i.c.e. doing to such? also, please share before the subcommittee the outreach and collaboration efforts i.c.e. initiated through secure communities if at all and lessons learned on both of those cases, please. thank you.

>> thank you. with regard -- let me start with the database issues. obviously, one of the lessons that has become clear is that when you have an information sharing system that depends on information in databases, the sharing and the results that come from it are only as good as the information that's in the system. so we have to have accurate records in place. the chicago case is under litigation, so i've got to be careful about what i will say in that case, but i do think it highlights the need to have accurate records from all of the pieces of the puzzle. part of secure communities is

that congressman -- mandated the sharing of information, and it's not simply i.c.e. databases. it's all across the homeland of security. we need to make sure the information is correct. with regard to the 14-year-old, i view that case as a very sad case. as you know, the young lady's history was somewhat troubled. there were many steps in -- along the way, all the way from the moment she was arrested by the local police. she managed to fool the judge, the prosecutor, her own defense attorney in that particular case. ultimately i.c.e., ultimately colombian authorities. she got a residency upon her -- in her time there. but, you know, we did meet with you and other members of the caucus, and we took a hard look and what it told us is that particularly with regard to juvenile offenders, when we have

some sense that something is awry, even though on the surface everyone is saying that it is proper, we've got to go the extra mile with juveniles to make sure that we are not making a mistake because mistakes can be made. it's why i am a big believer in improved transparency of the secure communities program. you're right that we, as an agency, we're not as transparent as we should have been. we should have had better outreach in many communities, secure communities is misunderstood. there's a lot of rumor, innuendo, concerns about things. the best way to answer those criticisms is to have outreach to meet with people. we're doing that. on the -- and then to involve members such as yourself, i very much appreciate the assistance that you gave us in texas when we had our first outreach on the

secretary's memorandum with regard to the dream act kids. that was the very first outreach in the country. it happened in your district. and i think those kinds of things are very, very helpful. so we've just got to get out there. when a mistake is made, not run from that mistake, own that mistake, try to improve the system. it operates on a very large scale and mistakes will happen. and then get out and explain to people why we're doing things the way we're doing them, what the reasons are for them, and to do that in a dispassionate and professional way. >> madam chair, may i just thank you for your indulgence. just there was one element, director, where the fingerprints were not checked. in your review and working with juveniles, are you going to be more -- this is under the young lady that was 14 -- be persistent in looking at those elements to be able to ascertain juvenile or not or what condition this person is in? >> we are. and one of the tricks in her

case i believe was that she had never been encountered before in a way that led to her fingerprinting. so there was no other prior fingerprint to compare against the fingerprints that were taken at harris county was the very first time she had been fingerprinted in a way that i.c.e. could have checked. and we just -- we need to figure out a way, particularly with young juveniles to have extra procedures in place. i will tell you that i've never seen a case like hers my entire time in the federal government. as i noted, she was able to adopt an identity that many, many parts of the system believed. that's not a perfect answer and the result needs to be that the system needs to deal with that, even when a troubled person adopts an identity like that. but i will say i do think it's a relatively rare case.

>> i thank the chairwoman. and before you close, i would just like to make an entry. i don't know for your closing. >> yes, we're going to be closing. >> to the ranking member, i think this has been a very helpful hearing. i appreciate the director's comments. but the director's comments. with young people, i think we need to really be focused on how we make sure that we are attentive to those kinds of cases and i would also ask if the chair and ranking member would consider incidents that are occurring at the border. there are lawsuits going on with respect to certainly very fine leadership at the border but troubling incidents, where documented u.s. citizens, papers are being taken away and they are being forced to sign papers that they are not u.s. citizens. we want to make sure that we don't have illegal entry but we

also -- those of us in texas are concerned that our u.s. citizens, who make -- decide to live temporarily in mexico, are having their documents voided out of pressure and intimidation. i believe it's a very viable hearing and inquiry to make and i will write a letter to that he can tent and ask for further opportunity for us to look into that. i yield back. i hope both of the chair and ranking member would consider that as an important hearing tha, that we give resources to ccp, i think those resources should be used in an effective and legal and up standing manner, as they have been. >> i hearing will be held open for ten days. so any other additional comments, questions, letters, what have you can be submitted

for the record. i want to thank director martin. i think this was a successful hearing. a lot of good questions and answers and challenges ahead for your agency, for the committee, for the agency as well. we have to do our best to make sure that we have secure borders and i know you're running for an airplane. we appreciate your service and on behalf of a very grateful nation, we appreciate the men and women in your agency that work diligently each and every day that keep our country safe. with that, this committee will stand adjourned.

in a few moments, america's nuclear future. and in a little more than two hours, the house agricultural committee marks up it's version of a new farm bill, including a debate on food stamps. shreveport in march, april in little rock, be oklahoma city in may, jefferson city. watch for the continuing travels of c-span's local content vehicles on book tv and american history tv. next month, look for the history and literary culture.

louisville, kentucky, on c-span 2 and 3. the 15-member commission was created in 2010 to review federal policies on nuclear fuel. this is a little more than two hours. come to order this morning. welcome, one and all, general, professor pete for son. ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate the efforts of a lot of our witnesses to be here

today. today's hearing is really one of several that we hope to hold on the work of the blue ribbon commission on america's nuclear future. specifically today, we'll be focusing on the consent-based recommendations made by the commission. senators will have five minutes for their opening statements and we'll recognize our first panel of witnesses, two members of the blue ribbon commission. if you go over that, that's okay. but not too far over that. we're following the first panel's statements, one round of questions. and somewhere during this we'll probably start with some votes. we have one vote at 10:30.

and so we'll deal with that. and then start right back up. maybe if we're lucky, we'll be able to continue in that session. i'd like to try that. the second panel of witnesses will come forward and their testimony will be followed again by another round of questions. so that's sort of the game plan. we'll see how it works out. this country, we all have 104 currently operating nuclear power reactors. they are providing this nation with clean, reliable power. they provide roughly 20% of the electricity to the people of this country. unlike fossil fuel, they do not emit sulfur dioxide, mercury, carbon dioxide, all of which harm our health and our environment.

currently, our nuclear reactors are storing their spent nuclear fuel on site in a safe and reliable manner. i've been told that the technology we have to store spent nuclear fuel called dry cast storage can be safe for another 50 to as many as 100 years, perhaps even longer. however, our nuclear reactors were not designed to keep their spent fuel on site forever. and as our reactors aged and are decommissioned, we must find an ultimate resting place for our nuclear spent fuel. unfortunately, our country has been on a path to finding a place for nuclear spent fuel for decades. it was over 30 years ago when the congress realized the importance of finding a permanent solution for disposal of our spent fuel and high-level waste. in response, congress passed the nuclear waste policy act of 1982, moving this country forward toward deep mine geological nuclear waste

repositories. after years of study and debate, we find ourselves 30 years later in what's really a dead end. we have no functioning nuclear waste repository and none in the foreseeable future. i applaud president obama for realizing that we need to forge a new pathway to dealing with our nuclear waste by forming this blue ribbon committee which is represented here today. i want to thank general scowcroft. i want to thank congressman lee hamilton, commissioner peterson. the other commissioners for what i'm told is very good work on this effort. i believe the commission did a thorough job reaching out literally to thousands of americans and folks all over the world in searching for the best way to move forward in this front. the blue ribbon commission recommendation provides us i think with an excellent roadmap to enable us not just to find a new path but to go in the right direction. before we start running full

speed ahead, i believe we need to make sure we fully learn from our past mistakes and not repeat those missteps. if not, our country may well find ourselves 30 years from now in another dead end situation, the kind we face today. i believe one of the biggest mistakes that we made is that we were unable to get consent from all parties on the location of disposal. somehow we've learned to -- communities, really states across the country to compete with one another for the siting of prisons in their states as opposed to other states. we haven't learned how to get communities compete for our disposal sites for spent fuel. some of my colleagues who've heard me discuss in the past, and delaware, state site prisons is not easy thing to do. very dense population. we find there are a number of other states around the country who figured out part of their economic development plan would