someone that represents they own a property and knows anything about it and offers that property to the federal government for use under this program, some due diligence would have had to have occurred to verify either the assumptions another to refute the misrepresentations that were made. are you familiar with this? can you offer any -- >> i've been informed that somebody within dhs looked at a hotel in upstate new york, and we were quickly informed that it's an up-and-running, functioning, occupied hotel. it's not a viable candidate for this situation. >> i think this misses the point. my real concern is that again, a local developer, doesn't own the

property, reaches out to a federal agency and makes its way through one, two, three other federal agencies and federal agents show up at the property. it's confirmed then, it could easily have been confirmed through some kind of internet search, google, that the property was not available. it just created a lot of confusion in the local community. >> well, i imagine it's just some investigators being thorough. as i mentioned, that property obviously is not an option to deal with this situation. it's an up-and-running occupied hotel. >> just seems to me more due diligence could have, should have been exercised here before

federal agents were sent unannounced to a functioning hotel and spa facility for the purposes of housing unoccupied children that cross the border. i yield back. >> gentlemen, i'd like to remind the members the purpose of this hearing is to address unaccompanied minors crossing the border. the chair now recognizes dr. brown from georgia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, january 29th of this year, department of homeland security issued document, an ad actually requesting people to apply for a job to accompany these children, these unaccompanied children to be placed across the country. in that document, it said up to 65,000 kids. back in january of this year, the department already knew these kids were coming. was actually trying to get

contractors, independent contractors to come onboard to accompany these kids. at what point did you all have a knowledge that there were going to be up to 65,000 children, unaccompanied children coming into this country? obviously this is before january 29th. >> congressman, i heard about this solicitation. i don't know where this estimate comes from or what it's based on. i can't comment. >> i didn't ask about the document it. asked at what point did the department project that there were going to be 65,000 children coming into this country? >> like i said, i don't know where that estimate comes from. i heard about this document, but i've never seen it. >> the point is, what have you all done? if january the department understood that there were going to be up to 65,000 unaccompanied children coming to the united states, as a medical doctor, i

try to prevent disease. i try to prevent problems with my patients. the administration should be doing the same thing. if you knew that up to 65,000 unaccompanied children were going to be coming to this country, for pete's sake, you should have been doing something about it. i don't see where this administration or department of homeland security has done anything. am i wrong? >> very clearly, since i've been in office, we've known that there is an issue of a rising tide of unaccompanied children coming into this country. i've known that since i've been in office for six months. the issue intensified, i'd say for me at least, in the period april or may. in april, i asked my staff to develop an overall campaign plan for the southwest border, the rio grande valley in particular to deal with the children and deal with the rising tide of those coming from honduras,

guatemala and el salvador, adults and children. i saw this myself when i visited there in january. >> mr. secretary, i apologize for interrupting. i just have about two minutes left and i've got a lot of questions. the point is, nothing has been done for just get ready for these children to come. is that correct? >> i have to disagree. >> i would like to know what you all have been doing to try to stop the flood because i believe the administration policies is what's invited these kids to come here. i understand that these kids are being placed with family members across the country. i have seen some statistics that over 90% of these individuals, and you just said, that they were begin a notice of peer. 90% have actually absconded and never have been heard from again. how are you tracking, following

up with these individuals if they don't show up in court? >> i don't know where the 90% comes from. i do know that through hhs we have a process to track the kids when they move. if they move with their, with the adult whose supervision they're under that hhs places them with, there is a process to track them. i inquired and i'm told -- >> these kids have come here illegally. they've been law breakers already. you place them with families and it's my understanding that some of these families may be illegal themselves, is that correct? >> i'm sure that's true in certain segments, yes. >> what is the department doing to try to deport ordeal with these families that are illegal in themselves? and then you've got another law breaker in the kid. y'all should be following up. i don't have but just a second or two, but who has given the

department of homeland security the directive of not enforcing the law to deport people who are identified who are here illegally? >> i'd have to disagree with that characterization, sir. there are priorities for removal. focused on public safety, national security and border security. and we've prioritized the an enforcement of the law in that manner. >> well, i disagree. it's been very obvious the president has been very public that he said that he's not going to deport these illegal aliens. we don't even deport people who have broken the law and committed felonies. i think this administration is inviting these kids, inviting illegal aliens to come to this country and wants to give them legal status. i find that intolerable. thank you, mr. chairman. my time expired. >> chair recognizes ms. jackson lee for the purpose of entering statements into the record. >> i ask unanimous consent to

submit the american immigration lawyers association statement dated june 24, 2014. statement of the women's refugee commission dated june 24, 2014, and finally, a "the washington post" story, younging my rants stuck in limbo mexican border, children stuck alone in shelter basis june 22, 2014. unanimous consent. >> without objection, so ordered. >> thank you. i would also ask unanimous consent to submit statement from the first focus campaign for children facinging my rant children and families. >> without objection, so ordered. >> mr. secretary, thank you for your testimony so far today. everything you've done so far to address the issue we are discussing in today's hearing, and i'd like to commend through you your director in el paso for ice, adrian mesias, your assistant director. there have been not accompanied

alien children butting my rant families transported from the rio grande valley to el paso. hundreds so far. more plane loads coming in this week. your team on the ground in el paso has been exceptional how they are handling and processing these families and how they are working with social service groups like annunciation house to make sure the children and families and security of our country are protected. thank you for that. i also want to, you and i discussed this privately, but i want to say publically that the border patrol agents, cbp officers on front lines of this crisis are doing an extraordinary job in very difficult circumstances. we hear story after story of border patrol agents bringing toys from their own homes for these kids who are in incredibly vulnerable, difficult situations. border patrol agents working in

cramped conditions. sometimes conditions that i know you are addressing, but border on perhaps unsafe, unsanitary and i know we are quickly changing that. i want to thank all these agents and officers who are on the line facing this issue directly. to follow up on ms. jackson lee's comments, i want to thank you and the office for civil rights and civil liberties for addressing the claims and allegations brought by the aclu and others about mistreatment offing my rant children in custody. we don't know what the facts are. we just know the allegations have been made. you have promised to follow up on that aggressively and get to the facts and address that issue once we have all the facts. i want to thank you for that, as well. mr. chairman, i would like to address the larger context of this issue brought up by you and your opening remarks about what has created the conditions for this crisis that we have right now. i will acknowledge, i do think

that the president's piecemeal administrative approach to this when it comes to the dreamers or through daca might contribute to a perception there are these permicos available in the united states. mr. king's point that given the way these children are processed and begin an order to appear and placed with families in the united states, that may create the perception. there's also the fact congress in the year and half i've been here has been unable to vote on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. i think that contributes to this issue. miss jackson lee brought up the wilbur force act under president bush. all those facts about congress and the administration's ability or inability to deal with immigration are lost on the families and parents of these unaccompanied children who are sent north. i can only imagine. we celebrated my daughter molly's 6th birthday yesterday. i can only imagine what that must be like to be in a position to put her on a train north

through mexico up to the border with united states, not knowing how she will fare, if she will get there, what will happen to her once she arrives. conditions have to be really bad, unimaginably bad, to me, for that to happen. while i agree maybe mexican do more, although i find it ironic so many of us question we have an appropriate border policy that he we would be implementing or imposing one on another country. mexican do more. perhaps we could completely fence the border and build a giant moat with alligators to keep kids and people away. maybe we could put these kids on a bus and drop them off at the border with guatemala. i don't think any of those consistent, one with the law, two with our values, three with my conscience or the conscience of many of the people in this country. i think which have to address the issues in those countries of origin. we have complicity in this. we are the world's largest drug market. those countries are in between the world's largest drug

suppliers and the world's largest drug market. i think your public relations campaign, mr. secretary, to those countries, to tell them this is a dangerous journey is well intentioned. i don't know how effective that's going to be. we need a public relations campaign in the united states. if you use drugs, you are complicit in the dangers these children face. we do have a humanitarian crisis here. there is no easy solution. it certainly won't be solved by walls or border an enforcement. i think we need to go to the countries of origin. with that, mr. chair, i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes miss miller from michigan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. unfortunately the central americas have had a very long history of both bad economies and violence, and both these things are probably as bad now as they have ever been, but to say that's a reason we suddenly have tens of thousands of children, children almost entirely coming from guatemala, theomguatemala, the honduras and el salvador,

traveling thousands of miles through mexico illegally entering the united states simply isn't true. i think it can be laid directly at the feet of president obama as a result of his daca policy in 2012. i hope our hearing doesn't judge just point out the problem which is very, very bad, getting worse, no end in sight, but i hope we can coalesce around actual options and solutions. several weeks ago i called on the president to call up the national guard. clearly, this is a national emergency. i don't think individual states like texas or arizona would have to fit the bill if they had their own national guard come up. this is a national problem. a number of members of congress subsequently joined me and i appreciate that in calling up the national guard. last week both governor rick perry and speaker boehner, as well, asked the president to call up the guard. i also called on the administration several weeks ago, almost a month ago to begin a very aggressive public

relations campaign in the centrals telling parents not to put their children in danger by paying mexican drug cartels up to $8,000 a head to smuggle their children into the united states. i'm glad to see that this was actually number 11 on the secretary's list of his action list he testified to today in our hearing. regarding mexico, which is our neighbor and in fact one of our largest trading partners, they are behaving so badly and so dishonorably they are complicit in human smuggling coming up from the centrals. i think we need to take additional steps now to protect america by getting our neighbors' attention. instead of increasing funding, hundreds of millions of dollars as the president called for, i think we need to stop foreign aid to the centrals immediately. i'm going to give you a couple of examples of what some of our usaid is being used for. developing civil society

programs. climate change. addressing the gender gap in education and work force. we would be better off spending this money in thor in cities of america. start with detroit. i would say no more money from america until they step up to their own responsibilities and stop their citizens from illegally migrating to the united states. again, regarding mexico, how can we continue to have free and fair trade with a country that not only takes our money but is actually profiting from these drug cartels from human smuggling of children? it is sickening to watch these children on the top of the train, the beast as they call it, sitting on the top of these trains coming up thousands of miles through mexico and the mexican government is doing nothing. we need to act decisively, we need to act now. i would say no more financial assistance either from the united states to the centrals that are shipping up their children to mexico, through

mexico and to the united states. and i also think in regard to trading with mexico, we need to reopen, reexamine and perhaps repeal both nafta, which is the north american free trade agreement, and i think we need to do the same with cafta, central america free trade agreement. we need to whack them, our neighbors, to understand that they are just not going to keep taking our money and we are just going to be sitting here like this. we are not the atm machine while this humanitarian crisis is happening with these innocent, innocent children. i would just ask the witnesses what you think of these additional options. secretary asked for options. in my opinion, we are not going to enforce our way out of this. we are not going to enforce our way out of this situation. we need to have some policy change and here are some suggested options. do any of the witnesses have a comment? >> congresswoman, i agree with you that a key to solving this

problem is mexico and central america, which is why we, i personally, i'm in dialogue with them. i believe in a number of respects we have a very valuable relationship with the government of mexico. in a number of respects that promotes the economies of our countries and this continent. but i do believe that we have to engage with them on our shared border security interest. i intend to have that conversation with them. our president has had that conversation with their president. we need to stress the situation that exists in south texas as a result of the migration that passes through their country from central america. we are doing that. and i believe the discussions had been ratcheted up, if you will, over the last several months as a result of the

situation we face. i agree with you with respect to that. and with respect to daca, we have to keep reemphasizing as i did in the letter i sent, which i believe was probably read by millions of people by now, at least i hope it was, daca is for kids who have been in this country for seven years. not for somebody who crosses the border today or tomorrow or yesterday. it's for somebody who's been in this country seven years. the smuggling organizations have a motive to distort and to pass out disinformation to encourage parents to pay them $3,000 or $4,000 a person to bring their kid into this country. that's what they're doing. they launched a misinformation campaign, which we have to correct. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> chair recognizes ms. sanchez from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you, gentlemen, for being

before us today. i want to make a couple of comments to some of the things i heard here and i want to ask you questions. first of all, people are slamming mexico because they've got these drug cartels, et cetera. the reality is the demand is coming from the united states. i mean, where are we? why haven't we done something about this demand for drugs? it's a supply and demand issue. people, americans are putting cash on the barrel head to get these drugs. so we can't just look at a country that is transiting drugs or a country sending drugs, what are we doing about the demand here in the united states? because that's where this money comes from. secondly, i just want to address, and i agree on so many things with miss miller, especially when it comes to borders, but i would have to respectfully disagree on a

couple of things i heard from her about not working with central american countries or mexico. first of all, we know this has been proven time after time after time that the education of a mother around the world, the education of a mother is central to the nucleus of the family, stability of the family and the economics of the family. this is a long-term investment we make when we have usaid in so many countries working to educate young ladies because they will be the mothers of the future. and with respect to working with institutions or working with make institutions in countries, we also do that. if you have a place, a country, and you can't trust the judicial system, you can't think you are going to get a fair shake if you

get picked up off the street or if you've got a business saying you can't get a contract enforced, but that's what makes america so great is that we have these incredible institutions. these democratic institutions, by the way you guys, and these judicial institutions we work on every day to make great america and we try to put that and help other countries to do. i think these types of things we are working on in other countries are incredibly important to give hope to people who live in those countries and to have them have an ability to stay in those countries and not leave them and come up to an america that we know right now when we see the border is being taxed. i would like to ask you about this whole issue because some have said that gang members or

individuals with criminal records are the ones that are accompanying these children who are coming up and being apprehended. my first question is, how does the border patrol screen these individuals for these issues? and what are your findings so far? >> each of the individuals who are arrested are interviewed by law enforcement professionals. so their observations plus the biometric capture of their fingerprints are checked against the data basis of the holdings of the united states government. everybody over 14 gets all ten fingerprints taken sent against the ncis data base to check against their prior criminal record from the united states. we have reports where this is probably the most acute reports of people who are recognized as being gang members as part of the population that's under 17. >> my last question because i'm running out of time. given the influx of these

unaccompanied minors coming into the country, mostly across the texan border, you are putting border patrol there. where are these personnel and resources coming from to handle this influx? what about the other areas if you are pulling them from other areas, what are we seeing happen there? >> we looked carefully and taken a handful of folks from along the southwest border from areas that are not as active as what we are seeing in the rtv. those people are dedicated for more boots on the ground for the border patrol function and to gather intelligence to find leads for investigative follow-up to hand over to i.c.e. to attack the networks that are responsible for the alien smuggling in that area. >> my time is up and i thank you. i'll submit the rest of my questions for the record. thank you. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania mr. meehan. >> mr. secretary, i'm very

grateful for your leadership of this agency at this particularly difficult time. you know my respect for you. i do respectfully disagree with you on this issue with regard to the deferred action on child arrivals. i've been, as you know, a prosecutor and we've been fighting violence and drugs for the last decade or more. the one changed factor has been the new permissive policy of this administration on deferred action for child arrivals. i also want to associate myself with the comments of my colleagues both here and on the other side. i hope every college kid who is sitting here with their visions of the important world they're playing with social activism and looking at investments for colleges or global warming will appreciate that when they're sitting in their dorm smoking dope purchased from these drug gangs, this is the implication, and maybe there is a little time

for social activism there, too. regardless, let me ask you a question about your apprehending children at the boarder with adults and you are going to hold them and send them back, and i appreciate that policy. let me understand what's the distinction if you take an adult with their children who arguably are more responsible because they're with their children. and yet if the child comes without their adult, we're going to take the child at the border and reunify with an adult who is probably here not under legal status. so what's the difference? why aren't we obtaining this child, reunifying and returning both of them? >> if an adult is apprehended at the border and brought their children with them, they are

priority for removal. we are guilding additional space to hold them so they can be returned quickly. we need to do that. i believe that is important to do. >> but what it's difference? >> the difference is if you are talking about reuniting a child with a parent who is in the interior, first of all, the law requires that if it's in the best interest of the child to do that, we will do that. there is a deportation proceeding pending against the child at that point. with respect to the parent, if the parent is a convicted criminal, has a criminal record or is in some respect a priority for removal under our existing policies, then they should be removed. >> with all due respect, what percentage right now of children are appearing for these hearings? >> i do know that unaccompanied children in removal proceedings are, in fact, removed. >> what percentage once reunited are returning for these status

hearings? >> i don't have that percentage. i know -- >> probably not very high. >> i don't have the number offhand. >> that is something we should know if this is so fundamental to the policy. i don't know the answer, but want to be very honest with the american people. this idea somehow we are going to institute legal proceedings and take -- we've got 65,000 children that have come over the line. now, you know and i know, when suppose we go through a legal process and find that that child has, is now subject to judicial order for return, you know and i know when i was a prosecutor, it took two agents to accompany that child back to his country. we used to fly an individual back. 65,000 children. how are we going to return them?

>> congressman, i'll say two things. first of all, we are talking about children as young as 5 and 7 years old. this is a humanitarian issue. >> i know that. >> so when you're talking about somebody who is desperate to be reunited with her mother or her father in the united states, i think as americans, we need to be careful about how we treat these kids. >> my time -- we all get it. this is what's so difficult about this. we are dealing with children and we get it, but we ought not be leaving the american people with the false impression that somehow the system is going to work and is actually going to lead to removals. once those children are here, they're staying here. >> the other point i make, if i could, is that we have to stay focused through this situation on public safety, national security and border security. so there are a number of people who are in this country who

still need to be removed, to whom we need to continue to apply resources. i've got to keep my eye on that ball, as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> chair recognizes mr. svehla from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to begin by respectfully disagreeing with my colleague from michigan with trade with mexico. the total trade volume between the trade of michigan and mexico is $52 million. michigan exports $12 billion in products to mexico. and 175,000 jobs in michigan depend upon trade with mexico. over the past few weeks, as i've tried to wrap my arms around this situation, as you have, what it's boiled down to, in my view, is i view it as three

separate crisis. we have the crisis in central america. tomorrow the house committee on foreign affairs will be addressing that. we know that the white house has initiated a response in that regard, so we'll save that for another day. the second crisis i see is a logistical crisis with respect to this sudden influx. you've addressed well the detention aspect of that. one thing i am wondering about from the ajudd kative standpoint, what do we need to do to make our ajuktive process more efficient? >> we are searching i.c.e. and doj resources into the region to deal with removal proceedings,

to deal with asylum claims. we need more lawyers and judges down there and more teleconference to expedite the run of the mill removal proceeding, which i'm sure you know can take a long time. we have resources all around the country we think we can devote to this so that everybody is doing a fair share of the work here. we would like to see the process move more expeditiously when it involves removal of asylum claims. we have a plan to do that. >> is the administration request in terms of dollars, does it include this part of the process? >> i believe it does. >> the third crisis i see and i

have some figures here that suggest that in the last fiscal cycle, that 85% of the unaccompanied children that were being detained were being reunited with family. do you know if that is an accurate reflection of what we are seeing to date in this fiscal cycle? >> i know that just over 50% of those unaccompanied children that hhs is placing is placing with a parent. i've seen the number 85% to suggest that 85% are being placed with a family member, but i don't know that to be -- i've seen it, but i don't know that to be accurate. i've seen it in various places. >> that sounds like the statistics i looked at in terms of the last fiscal cycle. my point, i suppose, is that's the third crisis i see which is addressing immigration reform

crisis. in my view, those parents and those family members of these children are being reunited with are the people working in our hotels and our restaurants and our construction sites. it's certainly something we need to address very quickly. just yesterday in texas, local leaders met and they did address one thing that we are seeing in terms of the 72-hour detention. some of the folks have been taken to buses so they can be sent to the other facilities. but the numbers are so overwhelming that the bus stations are closing because there's not enough buses. some of the local nonprofits are having to take care of some of those families. my question is, what federal grant programs are there that we can tap into on an urgent basis so these nonprofits working alongside cbp and dhs down there

can work with? >> i know we had a terrific volunteer effort. i know the red cross has really stepped up as well as a number of texas-based volunteer organizations have done a heroic job. in terms of grant making, i'd have to take a closer look at that to see what might be available. perhaps administrator fugate has thoughts. we can look at that. >> we can work with your office on those few points. i want to thank you, mr. vitiello and agents at border customs and patrol. i have witnessed first hand on plane rides up to the capital brownsville your agents caring for these unaccompanied minors. i know how hard they are working. i want to thank you and your agency on behalf of all the people that i represent. >> thank you, sir. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from south carolina, mr. duncan.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. let me say for the record thank you, gentlemen, for your service for our country. secretary johnson, i'm a big fan. i think you are the right man at the right time in this job. you have an immense challenge ahead of you. all the different hats you have to wear to protect our country. we are in a crisis situation in this country. if my comments show frustration, let me toll you i am frustrated. i'm frustrated by the crisis on the border. last night we saw the irs commissioner continue to obstruct congress' investigation into irs' targeting of conservative groups by a crashed hard drive and lost e-mails. i'm frustrated that brian kerry's death hadn't been vindicated through the fast and furious investigation. i'm frustrated when we receive the release of terrorists from guantanamo bay and not informing congress. a lot of lawlessness in this country. i think about and i'm reminded of john adams who, regardless of the mood in boston, defended the

british soldiers in the boston massacre. regardless of how we feel about immigration reform in this country, how can we sit by and watch our country's national sovereignty, my country's national sovereignty violated over and over and over on our southern border? not just this situation with children, but for a long time we've seen an increase in illegal immigrants coming into this country. we are calling the guatemalans and el salvadorans. i'm concern about middle eastern, asians and africans coming to this country, not to take the job, not so they can have a better life, but possibly do harm to this great nation. that is a concern. if children can come across because agents are changing diapers or doing other things other than securing the border, i'm sure that elements that want to do harm to this country can

exploit our southern border also. let the record show since 2006, there's been an increase of over 9,000 cbp agents in this country, since 2006 and now. over 9,000 more agents to secure our border and our border is less secure today, i think, than it ever has been. i want to read a portion of a late draft memo from deputy chief vitiello. the large quantity of dhs interdiction intelligence investigation processing detention removal of resources currently dedicated to address unaccompanied alien children is compromising dhs capabilities to address other transport or criminal areas such as human 134ugling, trafficking, drugs, weapons, commercial and financial operations. if the u.s. government fails to deliver adequate consequences to deter aliens from attempting to illegally enter the u.s., there will be a greater increase in

the rate of resit it very many. for facilitating human smuggling as a direct member of illicit alien smuggling organization or private facilitator. these consequences must be delivered at the border and within the interior the united states, ag through expand i.c.e. homeland investigations to target individuals facilitating unaccompanied alien children, family unit traveling to the united states. i agree with those words completely. this administration's mishandling of this situation encourages more lawlessness, encourages more folks to come here. if you talk about utilizing the resource of the united states, everything at your disposal, we heard the national guards will be called out. article 4 section 4 guarantees every state that joins this union protection against this, protection against this, article 4, section 4, look it up. every resource. how about voice of america? are we directing a spanish-speaking voice of

america into central america saying you cannot come into this country illegally? you will not get citizenship? in fact, you are going to be deported back to your home country. that is a resource we can use are we doing that? maybe we are, but we should. just like we should have national guard on the border. mr. secretary, you mention in your statement that we should do everything consistent with the laws and values of this country. we have laws on the books. the 2006 secure fence act, we've got a very porous southern border. we don't have a defense act. if you enter this country illegally, you will be deported. you cannot enter this country illegally. are we enforcing that? we seem to be looking the other way. are you willing to say if you enter the united states illegally of any age you will be deported back to your home country? >> congressman, as you well know, we have to prioritize

removals in accordance with the resources congress gives us. i have a finite amount of an enforcement resources, border security resources. so for the sake of homeland security, what we need to do is go after the worst of the worst first, which is what i believe we are doing. i think we could do a more effective job of that. i believe that we need to prioritize and go after those who represent threats to public safety. >> we increased your officers almost 9,000. >> yes, we have. >> and i'm sure deputy chief definitely thanks you for that. i support it, too. in terms of your question about border security, let me say this. i continually inquire in this current situation, are we taking our eye offer the ball? i want to know in the rgv sector, in particular, that our border patrol agents are focused on border security as well as dealing with the volume of the kids that are coming in.

over the last 1 1/2 months or so, we surged a lot of resources into that part of the country. fema, hhs and others, coast guard's down there to support cbp in their effort. as recently as i think yesterday, the chief and the deputy chief and i discussed this. i'll let the deputy chief answer for himself, but i believe it's the case that our border patrol agents on the border are on the job, they continue to do their job. >> mr. secretary, i'm out of time. whatever the chair will allow, let the record reflect that the president asked for additional $1.4 billion to assist this effort and we are $18 trillion in debt. with that, if the deputy secretary would like to answer and you'll allow that. >> yes. >> just to reiterate, we've been surging the resources that the border patrol has, cbp, the department into rgp the last

several years. so they are better resourced now than they were last year. this particular issue is a challenge for us. in fact, there are more people focused on moving the flow and booking in and processing both allenes and adult family units and adult males, all the people that come across. they are better resourced than they have been previously. >> thank you for that. for the record, i would like to include the article that has his memo. >> without objection, so ordered. chair recognizes the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chair. mr. secretary, thank you for your attention and your agency's hard work on this crisis. i just want to go through a few questions. first, would you agree, mr. secretary, that we have a broken immigration system in the united states? >> yes. >> would you agree that because we have a broken immigration system, because there is great uncertainty about our immigration system that in this chaos, this crisis with

unaccompanied minor children has occurred? 2. >> i wouldn't put it that way but i believe uncertainty in the law and uncertainty that i believe the smuggling organizations are creating is a reason for the recent influx. >> mr. secretary, you would agree that this crisis and the attention your border patrol agents has had to give to these children has diverted away from their attention to securing the rest of our southern border? >> as i mentioned a moment ago, that is an issue that i'm constantly focused on to make sure that doesn't happen. as i think the deputy chief's comments reflect, we've surged a lot of resources into the rio grande valley sector to make sure that everybody remains focused on their job in addition to dealing with the recent increase to processes people through the system, as well as

maintaining our presence on the border. i believe we are continuing to do that. >> miss miller, my colleague from michigan, placed this crisis and its blame squarely at the feet of president obama's daca program, the deferred action program. that was implemented in 2012, is that correct? >> daca was implemented june 2012. >> here we are where the peak levels of unaccompanied children migration is occurring in 2014, is that right? >> yes. daca is intended for kids who came into this country seven or more years ago. >> if miss miller is indeed right this is squarely the president's fault because of daca, wouldn't you have expected to see these peak levels of children coming across the border perhaps 2012 or 2013 rather than now? i guess i'm asking, is it fair

to solely place this on daca or is this something much more complex? >> let me be clear. i believe first and foremost, and i believe most people believe first and foremost, from everything i heard, everything i've seen and my own conversations with these children, that the principal reason they are leaving their countries is the conditions in those countries. they are really bad. it has to be really bad for a parent to want to part company with his or her own 7-year-old. that is the principal reason we are seeing this. i do also believe that the smuggling organizations are creating a misinformation campaign about the legal situation in this country. it's in their interest to create that misinformation. and i believe they are. i believe, therefore, it's imperative for us to correct the record about what is available and what is not to somebody who

crosses the border. >> mr. secretary, you would agree there are some short-term and long-term solutions to what we can do? >> yes. >> a short-term would be something you've already done, writing an open letter to the parents of children crossing our southwest boarder to dispel the myths about what it means to come here, and the dangers that the children will go through in their path. >> if there were -- if this administration's policies were the principal reason they are coming here, would you see kids from a whole bunch of other countries, too. >> would you agree another short-term solution would be working as the president and vice president have been doing so, to work with mexico and guatemala on that much smaller border between mexico and guatemala, in addition to working on our much more vast boarder? >> yes. >> mr. secretary, would you agree that a long-term solution would be putting certainty in our immigration policy so that there are not misconceptions as to what it means to children anywhere across the world?

>> yes. >> thank you, mr. secretary. with that i yield back the balance of my time. >> chair recognizes mr. palazzo. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do believe daca and our failure of enforcing our immigration laws are the cause of this. the number of unaccompanied children has grown since 2012. last year it was a record of 5,000, now we have 65,000. i don't blame just the president for not enforcing our immigration laws. i know many do. it's not just that. it's even members of congress. talking about a pathway to amnesty lays out the welcome mat for people around the world that want to come into the united states illegally, why our borders are not secured. it's irresponsible to talk about what we'll do before we can stop

the flow into the country. this is not a surprise what has happened. it's everyone. we need to secure our borders and make sure people cannot get into the country illegally. we need to make sure people can overstay their visas. if i can get a quick answer. my constituents are frequently on flood alert. we prepare for emergencies, invest in mitigation, we are still dealing with the aftermaths of sandy, irene and lee. the president's smart budget request did not ask for additional funding to pay for this crisis at the border. we know we knew about it as far back as january. here is my question. how can you guarantee me and my constituents that the money to address the crisis at the border won't come from the same pots that helped pennsylvanians back home deal with floods by putting fema in charge, you've kind of signalled a disaster declaration is coming. i'm concerned that our flood

disaster funding will be constantly drained by the situation. if you can quickly answer that. >> well, i can assure you, congressman, that if your constituents or anybody else faces a major disaster, we will support a response. >> but is it coming out of those same pots of money? are we draining the money that will be used for flood disasters by using fema? is it coming out of that same pot? >> fema's coordinated role doesn't mean that fema is undertaking to support all these agencies. all these agencies are paying for this out of their own -- >> i'm just worried about where the money is coming from. does that mean that pot get drained a little more? quickly. >> congressman, the funds being used for this were already funds expended under current authority to deal with these issues. funding that's being directed is

done through inner agency agreements. money is not coming out of drf to pay for those functions, which are primarily funded by congress. >> if i could go back to the -- you know, if it's not our lack of enforcing immigration laws, then why don't they stop somewhere in mexico? why come all the way to the united states? why put these children a thousand miles and risk their lives to get to the united states? there's nowhere in mexico that is better than honduras or guatemala? i don't buy that. i don't think the american people do either. department of homeland security was created to stop bad things from happening before they happen. here's a copy of the ad that dhs put out in january 29th. in fact, we wanted an answer from the contractors by february 19th. it said there will be approximately 65,000 children in total. my question is, who knew that there was going to be 65,000? the largest amount that ever came was 5,000.

somewhere we pull out this number of 65,000. it happens to be correct. why was the administration surprised? why are we acting surprised now if in january we expected this to happen? and why weren't we prepared if we expected 65,000? why didn't we do anything to stop this in advance? you talked in your testimony that the president talked to the president of mexico last week and vice president biden just recently -- why then if back in january 29th we anticipated this happening? >> first of all, i don't know where thatte estimate comes fro. >> it's in dhs' ad. >> i don't know where the estimate comes from. i don't know who created the 65,000 estimate. in all likelihood, we'll probably exceed that at the rate we're going. we've known this has been a problem since i took office six months ago. i've been hearing about this issue going back to my confirmation hearing. so -- and we've known we've had a problem in the rio grande

valley sector, which is why in april i asked my staff to create a campaign plan for the rio grande valley sector in particular for the southwest border to bring to bear all the resources of dhs on this issue. we've known we've had an issue with third-country nationals, children and adults. i issued the campaign plan in early may. the numbers very clearly have spiked more recently in april, may, which has required us to bring to bear the resources of the entire federal government. >> but we shouldn't be surprised because we saw it coming as far back as january. somebody did in dhs. i'd like to know who it is, if you could find out. >> i'm not disagreeing with you. >> but it went from 5,000 to 65,000. something happened. when the largest amount that ever came of unaccompanied children was 5,000, which was last year, something happened that 65,000 showed up and

somebody knew about it. and surprise? >> i think it was more like 38,000 last year. >> well, from 5,000 to 38 to 65. >> no, sir. you want to somehow put it on the doorstep of d.a. can. i keep saying that -- >> no, no, no. i'm blaming congress as well. and our lack of immigration enforcement. there's nothing wrong with our immigration laws. we just don't enforce them. we've released 36,000 criminal aliens backn to the streets. 160 of them committed murder. if we could release people who have committed murder, i'm sure it has something to do with it. thank you. >> gentleman's time is expired. mr. richmond from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. secretary, for coming today. let me just go back to some basic questions. i've heard today a number of times that we should send the

kids back. do many of the kids actually not make it and die along the long route to make it to our border? >> the route is definitely treacherous. i can't tell you with any degree of certainty who doesn't make it because i'm just not in a position to know that. i have heard in a number of different places that these kids are exploited by the smuggling organizations. they travel over a thousand miles up the coast of mexico on trains and trucks. it's getting hot. it's exceedingly dangerous. >> and what happens to them if we just turn them around? >> well, if we just turn them around, they just go back to the conditions that they were motivated to leave from. >> if they make it back. if they make the long journey back. besides the humanitarian reasons

and reasons of conscience and our morals, the william act would keep you from turning them around, wouldn't it? >> well, the 2008 law is not in con flukt with commencing a deportation proceeding against the child. it's my understanding that the law would not permit an expedited removal of an unaccompanied child. that's my understanding of the law. we do expedited removals. let's say a mexican crosses the border. they're apprehended by one of the chief's border patrol agents. we can do an expedited removal of the mexican right back into the country of mexico. we can do expedited removals of adults into central america where there's no immigration judge involved. but in terms of an expedited removal for an unaccompanied child, my understanding of the law is that's not available. >> and as much as you heard

today that we should just either turn them around or expeditiously remove them, do you know of any legislation introduced that someone put their name on to repeal the william force act? >> not to my knowledge. >> we also talked a little bit about -- and i heard you mention a little bit about mexico and the fact that you have -- the vice president has met and the president has had telephone conversations. has the government of mexico started taking any steps, any affirmative steps to help us with this issue? >> we have over the last several years been in discussions with them about our shared border security interest, and we've increased that engagement in light of this current situation. and i believe we'll continue to have productive conversations. >> well, specifically on this issue and the fact you just mentioned we're looking at probably over 60,000 unaccompanied minors this year,

have they taken any steps to help us with this issue right now, besides just conversations? >> i'm sure they will help us with the public affairs campaign. excuse me. and we will continue our discussions about our shared border security interest. i've had those discussions beginning in february, and i believe they'll be productive. >> mr. chairman, and i know the secretary has to leave, so i'll yield back so my colleagues can ask some questions. >> thank you for that. to get through all the members in the time we have, i am going to strictly enforce a five-minute rule. mr. perry from pennsylvania. >> thanks, mr. chairman. and if it hasn't already been done, i'd like to submit a copy of the advertisement that's been referenced. i would also like to just reject

categorically any claims made by members of this committee that somehow america or american citizens are at fault for this crisis, this situation on the border. with that having been said, gentlemen, thank you very much for your service in these difficult times. we're very appreciative. i would like to turn to mr. vitello. is that correct? thank you, sir. how long have criminals been smuggling people across the bord border, to your knowledge? >> my entire career, 29 years. >> so at least 29 years. and have smugglers lied to people south of the border that might be interested in seeking to cross the border about the conditions or what they might encounter or their status when they come here? have smugglers lied to people in the past? >> that is the experience of the border patrol. >> so in your opinion, in your estimation, what has changed recently in the last two or three years that has fostered this immense increase in traffic, especially of people

that are young? 17 and below coming -- what has changed? and are there any metrics at all you know of to support the claim you might make shortly? >> i think lots of things have changed. i think the -- i mean, we've talked about all of the push factors. i've seen these reports. people are fleeing, you know, difficult conditions. they're reuniting with family in the united states. they're fleeing economic uncertainty and failed governments, both locally and nationally. >> so the conditions that you're talking about, the crime, the uncertain conditions, the poor conditions economically, what has changed dramatically? because would you admit that the numbers have increased dramatically? >> no doubt about that. >> is there a corresponding increase dramatically in poorness of conditions in these countries south of the border to correlate? >> i just don't know. i think it's been a while that those conditions have existed. >> yeah, it's been a while, right? my concern is there's some narrative here that seems to be

perpetrated among the american citizens that somehow things have exponentially decreased south of the border and that's counterpart to this exodus south of the border into the united states. that's what's causing it. i'm not sure it's true. you don't know at this time of any metric that would support that. >> not metrics. >> so do you think there's any difference in our policy? and i would agree with the remarx of mr. barletta that a congress that has implied that wholesale amnesty might be in order if you make it across the border. but are there any other policies from the administration or otherwise that might be contributing to this circumstance currently on the border? >> i think that we're addressing in the broad spectrum all of the things that i believe will help make this better. >> i understand. but is there any particular policy that might be -- you know, whatever the numbers are. 5,000 to 38,000 to 68,000. is there anything you can think of that supports it?

>> i'm not sure i'd categorize it as policy. we've struggled not to have a sufficient level of, in this case, detention for people who bring their children across the border. as it relates to the unaccompanied children, the law dictates how they're processed, both in the initial for book in and deportation proceedings, and then turning over to -- >> i understand that, but what's changed to drive so many to come recently? what's changed? >> i'm not sure. >> okay. i'm not sure. and i'm not sure either, but i think our policy has changed. the public perception that you can come here and stay has changed. >> i've seen those reports. those are reflected in the intelligence we've collected. it's in the -- >> it's not reflected? >> no, it is reflected. in the open source reports. >> so has human trafficking also gone up as a result of these increased numbers? >> i'm not sure it's gone up. i think these populations have gone -- have increased, which leads me to believe that

smuggling has increased as well. >> all right. mr. secretary, i have to move on. i appreciate your answers. regarding the 29 january advertisement for escort services, i understand you were on the job for about a month. so you're somewhat unaware. do you know what drove that policy decision? do you have any idea? to advertise. >> i haven't seen the document. >> i'm going to provide it and have it -- >> i believe it's an improvement document. >> plthere's a couple points of contact. if you could in writing respond to me about what the policy decisions were that drove the advertisement. and do you know if this is unprecedented? have we advertised for these escorts in the past? and if not, why not? and if now, why now? >> i'd have to see the -- >> all right. i yield back, but i would like those answers in writing. can i get a commitment to get them? >> i always believe in being responsive to congress. >> thank you. >> chair recognizes gentle lady from new york, ms. clark.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank mr. secretary, mr. vitiello for your testimony here today. it's been very enlightening. i want to thank you for your thoughtful approach to really handling a multifaceted, multidimensional, very complex crisis. there are a lot of moving parts here. and it's clearly something that we have to work with in terms of a work in progress. i was glad to hear about the diplomatic component to what you're doing in terms of reaching out to el salvador, honduras, guatemala. my question is a logistical one, similar to the one mr. vella raised. what exactly do you anticipate in terms of the logistical

challenge of reuniting children who don't have any relatives in the united states? how do we work with embassies, consulates to reunite children from various countries with their parents back home? and how do we identify that? have you given thought to that as of yet? >> well, once the child's identified as an unaccompanied child, the law requires dhs turn the child over to hhs. so your question really goes to hhs. >> okay. >> and their process, which i'm not fully equipped to answer. but they have a process of identifying a family member and acting in the best interest of the child. >> very well. i just wanted to get a sense because i can imagine it's a daunting task. i did want to comment for the basis of this hearing that i

find it very troubling that we would want to move a military operation such as the national guard to our borders to address unaccompanied minors. and i just want to put that on the record because we can't say it's a humanitarian crisis on the one hand. and i think just about every colleague has acknowledged that. and then want to put arms on the border to meet children who are fleeing clearly an untenable situation in their homelands. do you have a sense of the average amount of children coming in daily and which nations, what percentage are coming from what nations? >> in the rio grande valley sector, where almost all of this is occurring, we're encountering about -- the number varies, but

we're encountering lately about 350 a day. >> and do you have a sense -- are they -- i mean, do you get a sense that they're being -- for instance, if they're being smuggled, are they children from varying countries, or are they typically grouped by country? >> honduras, guatemala, el salvador. >> so you could conceivably run into children traveling together but from different countries? >> i'm not sure about that. i'm not sure about the -- how they configure themselves in these groups. i do know that something like three-quarters of them are from honduras, el salvador, guatemala. >> i'd be interesting, mr. secretary, if we could drill down at some point to get a better sense of which countries seem to have a larger percentage of children coming in. if, mr. vitiello, if you could

get a sense of, are these children meeting in the desert? are they meeting on railway cars? because at least what we're seeing from the press is that the children tend to gravitate and come across together, so you're not seeing individual kids necessarily but children traveling together. >> they're very clearly coming in groups. they're herded, shepherded by a civilian guide at various points along the journey. that's part of the smuggling organization. and it starts at the point of origin in central america and goes through mexico. so they're clearly traveling in groups. they're not traveling alone. and the numbers are roughly equivalent among the three countries. honduras might be slightly larger than the other two, but they're roughly equivalent. >> very well. i yield back, mr. chairman. i thank you once again. >> mr. plaza is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as an active member of the national guard, i see first hand

the importance of the national guard supporting our armed forces to protect our country. as guard members return from overseas, many of them stand ready and willing for their next mission. as many of my colleagues have pointed out today, the national guard can play a pivotal role in securing america's borders. we've seen successful guard missions in the past with operations jump start, phoenix, and nimbus. last year i called on the department to use the national guard to help secure the border. in may 2013, i offered an amendment in this committee to the border security results act, which would ensure that dhs considers lessons learned from past national guard missions on the border. both the current and previous administrations have used the national guard on more of a short-term ad hoc basis rather than on any long-term, strategic plan. secretary johnson, wouldn't it be beneficial for the department to partner with the national guard and develop a long-term strategy for the guard to assist along the borders? and wouldn't it be the borders would be more secure if we had a

well-planned, budgeted strategy that consistently used the guard members rather than just using them sporadically? >> congressman, first of all, i want to consider every option to deal with this circumstance. i take no lawful option off the table. as i'm sure you know, the guard has limitations, including -- a guard can't be involved directly in law enforcement. there are some exceptions to that. and the department of defense obviously has a lot to say about this too. it's their resource. it comes out of their budget. there are a lot of demands on the guard, particularly in this season. we're dealing with hurricane season. there may be different crises they respond to. but i've heard the calls from some that we put the guard on

the border. i'd want to understand better what the options are for the use of the guard depending on the direction of this situation talks. but i don't take any option off the table. but there are definitely some limitations on the use of the guard in this respect, i think, and we have to be mindful of those. >> mr. vitiello, you've been with the border protection for a while. were you a part of any of these guard missions in the past? can you comment on whether there's pros and cons? >> so, yes, we've had a great relationship over the years with the national guard and operation jump start and the ongoing operation fay lynx now in which we use national guard resources to do things like surveillance and sensor monitoring for us. it's not without its challenges. we were blessed to have the guard when we were building the new 6,000 agents. it gave us a bridge to more capability on the ground. we learned from them and the

resources that we're reusing from d.o.d. as they come back from theater and are pressed into service for border security. so we've learned a lot from them in all manner with regard to plans, strategic deployment, et cetera. but having the guard on the border has some limitations. this work is best done by law enforcement agents, in my opinion. learning from the guard, there are some things that they can do. i think the secretary is right to keep our options open. but as it relates to this particular problem, where it's most acute in the rio grande valley, it's not a challenge to arrest people who come as children or families with children. the other zones along the southwest border and in south texas are well patrolled and are either better equipped than they were last year or just as well equipped as they were last year. >> all right. well, i think originally when i -- last year it was suggesting the amendment was to ask dhs to study the lessons learned. it was to look at it.

don't take any option off the table. but with the guards basically sustaining combat missions, humanitarian missions the past 12 years, they've proven they can multitask and do numerous things. i still believe it's much more cost effective and efficient to surge the guard to the border, get the operational control, and work them into your plan. they're going to train somewhere every year. and you could rotate them in, rotate them out. fix the issues, figure out what they could do. to congressman clarke's issue, we don't want kids walking across the border and being met with guns. but there's probably other agencies, nonprofit or federal groups, that could be out there. but our borders are dangerous. people are -- we don't have control over our borders. we don't know what's coming across. but we do know there's drug cartels, gun running, there's drugs. that would be another mission. it could be an escort mission. it could be a rove and patrol. it could be communications.

it could be providing the necessary assistance. because i don't think it would be wise to expand the full-time employees of the border protection agency. i don't think the american people want to see more federal law enforcement agencies when they have this tool, this cost-effective tool at its fingertips. i just want to urge, mr. secretary, to really consider this. i know every member of the national guard that i serve with would love the opportunity to secure our borders. the american people want to know that our borders are secured and that we're safe and sound. so thank you for being here today. >> chair now recognized mr. barber from arizona. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for convening this hearing on this very important issue, this crisis that we're facing on our borders, particularly in texas and arizona. thank you, mr. secretary, and the other witnesses for being with us this morning. my state is directly affected by the influx of these children from central america.

we have the border patrol station in my neighboring district, but nevertheless, the impact is felt throughout southern arizona. i share the concern of many of my colleagues. virtually all of us have either young children or grandchildren, and we can imagine what it must be like for these children to be in a strange environment without their family members. and i just want to say that i've seen what our border patrol agents are doing, and they're doing a noble job trying to keep up with a very difficult situation. the cartels are exploiting the situation in many ways. i want to get to a question about that in a moment. i'm very concerned about the influx and what implications it has, mr. tesecretary, for the security of the border. i represent one of nine border districts, 83 miles of border. the people i represent, particularly those who live and work along the border, are

concerned about their safety. the concern they've expressed to me is as border patrol agents have been pulled into the nogalis station in particular to care for these children, we've compromised their ability to secure the border and keep people safe. right now we have about 1200 kids, i believe, at the nogalis community. they've been moved from the border patrol station into a warehouse where they're trying to accommodate the need. and we've estimated that maybe 60,000 unaccompanied minors will be coming and be apprehended this year. as i said before, the border patrol agents, many of whom have family members that have children, have been bringing in books, have been bringing in toys, bringing in diapers, caring for these children. clearly this is not their job, but this is what they're doing. first of all, how many unaccompanied minors are still in cvb custody as we speak? and how many of them are in

custody in the tucson sector? let me start with that question and i'll move on to two others. >> well, first of all, i'm going to nogalis tomorrow to inspect the situation there. and one of the things i'll be asking is the question you asked. are we having to divert border patrol personnel from their border patrol duties? it's very important to me that we minimize the circumstances of that. the capacity at nogalis, i think, is about 1200. it's near capacity with unaccompanied children. we were at one point sending family units there. we're not. we're just sending the unaccompanied children there. from that point, they go to hhs custody. overall, children apprehended in the rio grande valley sector

that are in custody right now, i don't have the number offhand. it's probably -- i don't have the number offhand. i wouldn't want to hazard to guess, but i can get that to you. >> very good. i appreciate the fact you're going to be asking about the impact that the agents being asked to come to nogalis to staff up for these children, what effect that's having on border security. i've been in touch with people who live and work along the border, ranchers and, in fact, heard from some agents about the fact they've been pulled off shifts, that we have less agents on the ground that are helping to secure the border. so mr. secretary, if you could get back to us with some information about how many have been pulled and what the impact is. and let me just close with this one question. it's a common question. i've been particularly discouraged by the fact that virtually nobody in arizona knew that these children were coming. i found out about it through the newspaper, the local sheriff found out about it the same way. even the sector chief found out about it as the children were

arriving. what steps is the department taking to make sure that if we have any additional transfers like this, that local authorities and officials are properly notified? >> well, first of all, it shouldn't have happened that way. the congressional delegation, local officials should have gotten notice that this situation necessitated that we extend our processing to nogalis. i've instructed my staff that when we have to go to these places, we give the congressional delegation and local officials advance information about that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. and thank you for what you're doing to keep up with this terrible situation. and i particularly want to thank our border patrol agents for what they're doing every day. i yield back. >> chair recognizes ms. brooks from indiana. >> thank you. and thank you again, mr. chairman, for holding this very important hearing. thank you all for your service. my question i want to follow up

on the smuggling questions and actually to chief vitiello. could you please talk with us a little bit about additional resources that are being provided to you all to prosecute the smugglers, and has there been an increase in prosecutions of smugglers in the last six months? >> i would have to get back to you for specifics on prosecution cases in the last six months, but we have surged our own resources to develop leads for case work to understand what we know or what we can know more about alien smuggling networks. i.c.e. has also surged resources at this problem for the same purpose, for them to increase their level of case work looking at smuggling networks and just to the point as it relates to border patrol resources, the nogales placement center is being conducted on agent overtime. we've added overtime in all of the locations that have helped

us process folks, whether it be nogales or el paso and certainly in the rio grande valley. >> so smuggling operations have been going on for years and years. this is in the new. i'm a former u.s. attorney in the bush administration. we did smuggling cases. but this is unprecedented levels is what it seems, obviously with children. what are the smuggling operations? what is your intelligence telling you? what kind of groups? is it ms-13? is it barrio 18? is it the gangs that have developed smuggling organizations, and is that really what's bringing these groups? >> i think that over the years, over the last several years, the sophistication of smuggling networks and their connectivity to cartels has been a concern for quite some time. the work that we have from the field intelligence reports that have been generated to our office suggest that people contract smugglers both in their point of origin. sometimes they wait until they're in mexico. sometimes they wait until they're at the border. but that's the kind of thing

that we recognize. post-arrest interviews give us information. we look for indications for intelligence in things like pocket trash, develop phone numbe numbers, and pass those leads in the local sense to the inner agency and certainly to homeland security investigations to follow up and try to attack those networks as they bring folks in. >> do you have any idea from the young people that you've interviewed how many kids have died? >> i don't have any direct information about that. >> do we have any information about any children who have died or are missing? >> not specifically. i mean, i think that, you know, we recognize that this journey is a very difficult one. certainly at the border over the years we've seen people fail in their attempt by succumbing to the elements. >> and mr. secretary, as you've indicated, there is a public relations campaign that you initiated. are we talking about increasing

prosecutions of smugglers in central america so that we can create that deterrent effect and let people know they are being prosecuted, what the penalties are, and that we're actually catching any of the smugglers, if we are? and maybe if we, in our law enforcement resources, working with the mexican authorities are not being successful in our smuggling prosecutions, i'm curious whether or not we're talking about that. >> the answer is yes. i'd like to add to what the deputy chief said. homeland security investigations, which is part of i.c.e., has been surging resources to deal with the smuggling organizations. in the month of may, they made something like 163 arrests of so-called smugglers. identi i've directed we add resources to that. the department of justice is also adding resources to this effort. i think the key is the money trail. because the money trail often originates in the united states. so if we can track the money, we

can stop the flow of money that goes to pay these organizations to smuggle the kids, we go a long way to dealing with this problem. >> and are you publicizing the prosecution of 160 individuals, which i would commend you, for the month of may in central ameri america, you know, letting everybody know who has been arrested and what has happened? >> it's in our interest to do that, yes. >> and i have grave concern that the groups like ms-13, which are growing in this country, are bringing these kids in who now owe ms-13. would that be correct? they owe them a bit of debt for bringing them into this country. is that fair to say, chief vitiello? >> it is often the case that people contract with smugglers without a payment up front. and so that is a concern. >> and so now these young people are coming into our communities owing the gangs some debt. would that be correct? >> it's important for us to know who's responsible for this smuggling and recognize where the networks are in all three

countries. >> i certainly hope we keep track of them in our country. thank you. i yield back. >> so the gentle lady's point, this committee will be introducing an anti-smuggling bill in the future. mr. sanford is recognized. >> yes, sir. mr. vitiello, thank you for your testimony. mr. fugate, you've been incredibly patient during this testimony. a lot of questions haven't been directed towards you. given the fact we are in hurricane season and i am from the coast, i'll be calling. and to you, mr. secretary, i'm a huge fan. you know, the things you've done in the united states military are just incredible. i've been watching you over the last couple hours during testimony. i wrote down, bearing of a military office, verbal dexterity of a philadelphia lawyer, and preciseness of a ceo. so i'm a big fan. but in the few minutes i have,

i'm going to ask a couple fairly pointed questions. i'd ask you answer them as qu k quickly as possible. all with the caveat of i'm a big fan. fair enough? >> okay. yes, sir. here it comes. >> you know, going back to being a lieutenant way back when, it just strikes me that, you know, as you guys set up a perimeter in the military, it is not a conditional perimeter. it's not contingent on what mexico might do or pakistan might do. it is an absolute perimeter. i think one of the things the american public is thirsing for is the same kind of decisiveness and reality they see in the military in a perimeter that isn't breached on the southern border. why can't we have that in short form? >> well, first of all, you have to realize these kids probably

want to get caught. in some cases, as -- >> well, not want to. they're running to officers. >> they will run to the nearest officer and say, here i am. >> right. >> so you have to ask, you know, will it increase border presence deter that? >> i guess let me rephrase it. i only have a couple minutes. should we have a border that is in essence conditional? because part of the testimony was based on what we might get mexico to do, what we might not get mexico to do, or what we might get guatemala to do. shouldn't it be at least a goalpost an absolute rather than conditional border? >> we knead to have secure borders, absolutely, if that's your question. we need secure borders. so one of the things that i've tried to do here in my testimony is lay out all the things we're doing to deal with this situation, which not only involves processing the kids but turning the tide around. >> but i mean, part of what we're doing now -- because i

think there's a real difference between words and actions. and a lot of our actions have been absolute. our words have been absolute. the words you used were, we're going to bring to bear all assets of the federal government. i think that most people don't believe that. they believe that if we brought to bear all assets of the federal government, we could have a secure border. >> translator: wel >> well, let me say this. i'm going to say what i said before. i want to know every option, and i want to consider every option. and i'm prepared to seriously consider every lawful option -- >> no, we've been here a couple hours. i understand. but i guess going to the point, though, as a strategy. i mean, you're an able, fit guy. military guy. as a strategy f you loved your kid and wanted to get him in america, wouldn't you send the kid first, and given our present policy of nondeportation and sending them to a family

somewhere domestic in the united states, get them secure and then you'd be able to evade and move and maybe get into the border on your own and then get reunited with your family. >> i have to tell you, the conditions for me to -- my kids are 18 and 19. but the conditions for me to part with them when they were 8 or 9 and say, go have this thousand-mile journey, and i'll see you later, would have to be pretty dire before i'd give up the responsibility. >> if i'm not mistaken, i think a billion people around the earth live on like a dollar a day or some astoundingly know number. i don't remember the exact statistic. i think there are a number of dire circumstances around the globe which goes back to conditional versus -- one last question since i'm out of time. i think, you know, there was frequent reference to i don't think the law allows me to send an unaccompanied minor home. and my question to you would be,

which comes first, the law or the constitution? because as i read through the 14th amendment, i think the constitution is fairly clear on what citizenship entails. >> well, let me be clear. i don't believe that the law would allow us to send an unaccompanied child home in an expedited removal proceeding. they are given notices to appear. deportation proceedings are begun when they're apprehended 37. >> but for practical purposes, would you suggest once they're here, they're here? and you didn't refute that. >> the law requires that once a child is identified as unaccompanied, cbp has to give them to hhs. they do what's in the best interest of the child. that's what the law passed by the congress requires. >> understood, and i'm out of time unfortunately. i know you have to go, but thank you very much for your testimony, sir. >> thank you. and let me thank the witnesses for your testimony. mr. secretary, let me personally thank you for showing up on such

a short notice on such a very important issue. i know you didn't create this. you inherited this. i know you're working hard to resolve it. i pledge the support of this committee to work with you towards that effort. with that, members may have additional questions in writing. without objection, this committee stands adjourned. >> thank you, sir.

so that ends this hearing on the migration of undocumented, unaccompanied children across the united states southern border. we've been asking for your thoughts on the matter. james writes on facebook, make sure that they are taken care of as well as we would want our own children to be taken care of in a similar situation. they should be healthy and safe. and robin, though, feels differently, saying, what are we going to do about the 45% of the children that live here now in poverty? worry about home first. do they not matter? we welcome your comments. log on to our facebook page or tweet us using #cspanchat. more coming up later today on the veterans' health care issue as house and senate negotiators will work to combine competing bills. conference committee is scheduled to get to work at 2:50 p.m. eastern time. we'll have it for you live here on c-span3.

and today is primary day in five states. utah, colorado, oklahoma, new york, and maryland. in addition, there's a run-off between republican senate candidates in mississippi with incumbent thad cochran up against tea party challenger chris mcdaniel. there's also a special election in florida to replace trey radell, who resigned. we'll have victory and concession speeches, as well as results from all the voting when the polls close this evening. that, plus analysis from reporters, your calls, tweets, and facebook comments. all coming up tonight on our companion network, c-span2. religion is a powerful identity forming mechanism. it's, you know, part of human society as figuring out who's us and who's them. who is my group, and who is the out group? religion answers that question pretty easily. if you pray like me, if you eat like me, if you go to the same,

you know, church as i do, then you're us. and if you don't, then you're them. and you can see very easily how that kind of us, them, in group, out group mindset can very easily lead to extremism, to marginalization. after all, as i remind people, religion may be the most powerful form of identity formation, but just as powerful is violence. how do you know who's us and who's them? if you're fighting alongside me, you're us. if you're fighting against me, you're them. so far from religion and violence being these two things that are at odds and should have nothing to do with each other, they have, as everyone knows throughout history, been much more aligned than we would like them to be. >> religious scholar and best-selling author reza aslan is book tv's in-depth guest. he'll take your calls live for three hours sunday, july 6th. in the months ahead, august 3rd,

former texas congressman and republican presidential candidate ron paul. and september 7, the former chair of the uggs commission on civil rights and children rights advocate mary frances berry. and this month on our online book club, we're discussing "the forgotten man," a new history of the great depression. start reading and join others to discuss the book in our chat room at booktv.org. book tv, television for serious readers. now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone any time with c-span radio on audio now. call 202-626-8888 to hear congress coverage, public affairs forums, and today's "washington journal" program. you can also hear audio of the five networks' sunday public affairs programs beginning sundays at noon eastern. c-span radio an audio now. call 202-626-8888. long distance or phone charges

may apply. now a discussion on cyber threats to the u.s. and how such threats affect foreign policy decisions. it's part of a recent conference held at george washington university. this portion runs about an hour. ♪ >> so good morning and welcome back. i'm samuel goldman, an assistant professor of political science here at george washington university. and also a senior contributor to the american conservative. and i'm delighted to be able to moderate this panel on national security, state overreach, and

reform, reclaiming civil libties ins in the aftermath of war on terror. we have three distinguished and interesting panelists. adam serwer of msnbc, marcy wheeler, who blogs as empty wheel, and connor of "the atlantic." and the panel will follow the model of the first session with statements of about ten minutes from each panelist, followed by a few questions from me, and i hope questions from the audience. but before turning to the panelists, i'd like to exercise the moderator's prerogative of offering a brief introductory remark. but i'm a professor, so when i say a brief remark, i mean a long and pedantic remark. and i'd like to begin the panel by observing that in american politics, the freedom of religion is sometimes described as the first freedom.

and that's because it appears first in the first amendment, which itself introduces the bill of rights. but i think there's a case to be made that our real first freedom is found a bit later in the fourth amendment, which as everybody knows, holds that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. and what i think is important about the fourth amendment is not simply that it subjects searches, seizures, interrogations, and surveillance to the test of due process. but also that it seems to introduce a moral principle,

which is that searches must be reasonable. and i interpret this to mean that merely following the appropriate legal procedures isn't good enough. according to our legal and constitutional traditions, the people have a right to live their lives free from intrusive scrutiny, even if it is authorized by legislation. well, of course there are real threats to national security and to the lives of citizens, and we wouldn't want to minimize those. but it seems to me that a question that we might use to begin or at least to pose as an overarching concern is what the fourth amendment means in an age of terror and modern communications and how we can recover the spirit or moral principle, at least as i've interpreted it, while protecting ourselves against these real threats. so to help answer those

questions, and no doubt to raise new ones, we'll turn first to marcy wheeler, followed by adam serwer, and then connor will have the last word before we turn to discussion. so marcy, please. >> for a piece for cato that was published yesterday -- i think yesterday. i've lost track of time. i argued that the administration's response to the snowden leaks was to double down on hard power. at a moment where what the government, what the united states had been doing with the internet, which has been an important part of our soft power projection for years, and tech companies, which have been an important part of one of the bright spots in our economy for years. they instead turned and kind of doubled down on hard power, on using the internet as a tool of security rather than a tool of reaching out as americans.

i mean, obama paid lip service, i think, to not spying on europeans as much. he paid lip service to not weakening encryption standards. but those are unenforceable. and there's no means to ensure they're doing -- and they're weak. and i think that bespeaks to a model of knowledge that the united states has kind of adopted of late, which is this notion that we can and should know everything. that the approach to terrorism is to be all seeing, right? it doesn't work that way. one of the things we learned in the ig report from the boston marathon attack is that the nsa actually had collection on the tsarnaev brothers before the attack that they just had never accessed. we don't get to learn about that. we don't get to know exactly what the nsa had, but it's that plus the warnings from russia

ought to have more discussion. but nevertheless, the nsa was all knowing about tsarnaev, and it did us no good. and there's an irony there because that has come, i think, both bureaucratically and by choice with this increasing commitment to sigit. in other words, we're going to ensure america's place in the world solely through or increasingly through this technical omnipresence. that's led to the atrophy of humans. i think there are probably great human intelligence spice out there, but we have the human people driving drones right now and less and less people who are collecting themselves, which leads us to be -- to rely on partners like saudi arabia or yemen or pakistan who maybe don't have the same interests that we do. so there's this knowledge of -- there's this system of knowledge

that i think is hue brisic and dangerous and isn't actually serving american interests very well. and it comes with a kind of enemy. the notion behind it was that there are terrorists among us, and therefore we have to go and identify those terrorists. and the only way to do that is through this only nishs. that notion of terror is beginning to leach out into other areas. certainly if you look at anonymous or at wikileaks. i think that the model of searching for terrorists is -- has been used to at least some degree with those targets as well and there's this very dangerous prospect that it can be used more broadly and can be turned on genuine dissidents and people who are genuinely just criminals within the united states. and after i published the thing for cato, i was like, you know, the reason i think that the

government did this, that they've doubled down, is the cyber security threat. people forget that in that hearing where james clapper -- now we remember he lied about collecting on millions of americans. the actual -- i actually in realtime called him on that. i said, that's a lie and that's going to come back to haunt him. boy, was i right on that one. but the headline that actually came out of that hearing, so march of 2013, was that cyber security for the first time was the -- the intelligence community regarded cyber security, cyber threats, as the biggest threat to the united states, not terrorism anymore. during the response to snowden, the government down played that, partly because i think they didn't want to talk about -- there are different threats to privacy if you're using this dragnet for cyber security purposes than there are if you're using it for terrorism. plus, terrorists make a very nice boogie man. and the cyber security threat is

a lot more amorphous than that. and i frankly think there are still snowden documents that describe some of the ways they're using these tools for cyber security. i know there are, actually. that they're using them for cyber security that haven't been discussed as we discuss quote/unquote reform. and that's important because congress has repeatedly refused to give the nsa the lead on cyber security in this country. nevertheless, the president's review group alluded to it very strongly. they said the nsa should not be, you know, a domestic security force. when asked about that, the explanation was that they are playing this domestic security force in cyber security. that still remains very opaque to us. but it is very much a real threat. and i think -- so i think to solve the fourth amendment issue, i think you really -- it's not the terrorism thing that you really have to solve. it's -- you have to solve the

cyber security thing because it is a real threat, right? i mean, i don't want to minimize the degree to which -- and we talked earlier about state versus nonstate actors and cyber security is something where both of those adversaries can strike at the heart of the united states. and we need to recognize that. but i think one of the things that has happened in our discussion of cyber security is that we've conflated many things in what counts as cyber security. so we've -- you know, one of the kinds of cyber threats the government has most aggressively gone after is anonymous. some of what they do is legal. some of what they do is illegal. some of what they do is horribly embarrassing. but it's not an existential threat to the united states, and it's curious that's been sort of early on was the lead approach for the government to combat cyber threats. then there's china stealing, robbing us blind, right? and it's actually funny because that's what everyone wants to -- you know, there's this line that

sheldon whitehouse, keith alexander, a number of other people use. they say that cyber theft has been the biggest transfer of wealth in history, ignoring colonization and slavery and other things. it's a remarkable statement to make, unself-critically. so china is robbing us blind, but it's funny because what china is doing, you know, you can argue about economic espionage all you want, but that's still traditional spying. you know, stealing our war blueprints is spying. and when russia was taking us out to lunch in the cold war spyingwise, we didn't cry and say, oh, my gosh, they're breaking the rules and spying, right? but we're -- one of our primary responses to china is to say, oh, my gosh, they're breaking the rules of spying. no, they aren't breaking the rules of spying. rather than really, i think,

addressing the urgent need to bring security to especially our defense contractors, we instead are trying to pretend there's rules about spying. and then there's crime, which i think -- and we can talk about this. this is an area where there's some really interesting fourth amendment issues that are being played out now. one of the things that doj wants to do is be able to get a nationwide warrant so that they can go to a judge here in d.c. and be able to go hack into -- and literally hack into servers all over the country to target cyber threats. that's going to be an interesting debate, but at least we're having the debate publicly. which is important. if we can have a debate publicly about how to combat cyber theft in talking gangs breaking in and target and stealing everyone's credit card information, that's the kind of cyber threat that

most americans are going to care about. identity theft and losing their credit card. but that's also also -- that's an area where we're having legitimate debates, which is useful. and then the last threat, which gets conflated threat, which ges conflated in, threats to infrastructure. this is fear mongering of late. mike rogers amusingly said google is unpatriotic for not giving up european markets because they are opposing the reform bill before congress but we have to take these measures to protect banks that transfer $7 trillion a day. he didn't notice, i think, because he talked about it at different times that microsoft is going to be asked to sacrifice for the banks. but the problem of critical infrastructu

infrastructure. the problem they could strike at us, we don't talk about america's resilience. pg & e in california has to be one of the most critical players in cyber defense because they are one of the biggest utilities out there. pg & e, same things that led it to not fix infrastructure there, san bruno, are the same things that made it less adequate for cyber security. we're not going to address infrastructure problems. the big threat is wall street. oh, my gosh, people can come and break wall street. in 2008 wall street managed to break themselves without a single hackers involvement, yet we don't ask wall street to make themselves -- we're perfectly tolerant of wall street being

nonresilient even still. dan, i hope it's out there and can argue against me a bit. it worked. we haven't hardened wall street. it's still incredibly rickety. until we do things, ask private entities to harden themselves against cyber security, i think the notion this should be the fear monger thing to let the nsa into our back pockets is really problematic. so i think we will have an interesting discussion about cyber security going forward. the reform bill serves purposes, brings back internet dragnet and expands upstream collection. i think that with regard to the debate we need to be careful about not conflating threats before us. we need to point to fbi's success combatting actual crime and use that as a model rather

than necessarily putting nsa in our back pocket. i think we need to talk about resilience as a country generally because it's, you know, arguably climate change is at least as big a threat as cyber threats and resiliency is going to solve both problems or mitigate both problems. >> thanks, marcy. it's been about a year since disclosures. it's been almost a year since the house came within a handful of votes of defunding section 215 of the patriot act, which is cited as authority for fund dragnet program. we've seen very little in the way of legislative reform. certainly nothing has passed yet. there's a bill in congress. it's despite the fact two government panels and the

executive branch concluded it wasn't effective at preventing terrorism despite consistently brutal press in terms of the scope of the program, how effective it was and how dishonest intelligence officials were about describing its scope. and that's also despite some fairly big areas on both sides of the aisle trying their best to get something past, sensenbrenner and leahy. i'd like to make a few observations about why i think that's the way it is. first one is partisanship is not enough. there's a theory partisan self-interest can serve as a vehicle for legislative reform because when one party controls the white house and the other party controls congress, whatever, they are going to be selfish and want to nail the

other guy, so they are going to go all out in order to change things so they can really sick it to them. that's not what happened. no matter what party in power, what party in the white house, the intelligence committee usually gets what it wants. we saw this in 2009 with, you know, russ feingold tried to pass reforms similar to what sensenbrenner and lay hey came up with last year. congress controlled by democrats. democrats in the house, democrats in the senate. feingold's reforms didn't even survive judiciary committee. at the time he joked, called it the prosecutor's committee. he said he was scratching his head as to how a committee controlled by a wide democratic margin could support the bill it approved. i don't think there should be much of a mystery about that anymore. the fact is that legislators whenever -- whichever party are very solicitous of the

intelligence community for a number of reasons. if the intelligence community says something is really bad or that they need something to do x, legislators from both parties are going to listen. it actually doesn't matter how much they hate the guy in the white house. you can hear republican legislators talk about obama as an iron fisted dictator and hand the keys to everybody's personal information to them in a second just like that. there is, of course, a status pro bias in the system. i think that can be overstated, but can be underappreciated. the system is set up not to allow bankrupt changes in it. whether that's a virtue or not, it's certainly the case, it's true. difficult, gun control, whatever side you're on, incidents of mass shootings and congress didn't do anything about it.

in part because of the composition in congress and in part even with widespread public outrage over a particular issue that's not necessarily going to spur legislators to act. as far as -- again, i'm going back to this again. the intelligence community always has a lot of influence on congress. you can see them getting hammered in the press, legislators grandstanding committee hearings trying to show they are independent and sticking it to them. the truth is that when push comes to shove, they are quietly going to do what they say. one of my favorite examples of this, in 2009 senator al franken made a big show of explaining the fourth amendment to david chris, head of the national security division. he was in disbelief, couldn't believe he was humiliated by

franken who turned around and voted for the bill. there's a lot of showmanship for cameras when the cameras are off. when the cameras are offer and sausage making happens, legislators act differently. congress would rather be seen as doing something rather than necessarily doing something. that's not actually a joke. it's funny in sort of a #lol kind of way. there's a sort of, i think -- there are times when getting something is better than nothing. half a loaf is better than none when it comes to legislating. there are times you want to say you're getting half a loaf when you're really just trying to look like you're working. you know, the most recent reform bill, which almost every civil liberties group has now said is

inequality and withdrawn their endorsement of, which you saw the debate on the house floor, a lot of guys, legislators who work very hard to rein in the nsa defending a bill that really does not do that at all. adler is on the floor, a stallworth civil libertarian on the issues. he said a no vote would mean no reform at all. of course report from civil liberties group, no matter how youboty new york city reform at all. i think in general congress, you know - people were genuinely angered by the snowden disclosures and congress did want to be seen as doing something. i think that augers well for the passage of the bill. it doesn't mean government surveillance powers are going to change in a way that's substantively occur tails what they are able to do, getting information, private

information, without having to go through a rigorous oversight progress. another reason they have gone the way they have gone, these issues are hard, policy details are difficult. you're talking about, you know, an age group in terms of legislators are people often who, you know, very used to communicating on paper, let alone e-mail and text messages and everything else. the technology is like genuinely -- even for someone who is young, the technology issues are difficult to grasp. there are very few members of congress who get it. something you might say, you know, i wrote a piece last year about why this happens. you know, these legislators vote on intelligence bills they don't really understand. someone said, the classic response is, well, legislators vote on stuff they don't