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. i'd have a take a closer look at it. >> we can work with your offi.c.e. 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 tell you i am frustrated. i'm frustrated by the crisis on the border. i'm frustrated that 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 hondurans and el salvadorans. otms, other than mexicans, but i'm concerned about the 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 we ought to have. 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 leaked draft memo from deputy chief vitiello.

dated may 30th. 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 smuggling, 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 recidivism. to stem the flow adequate consequences must be delivered for illegal entry into the united states and 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 secure fence act. there are numerous laws that say if you enter this country illegally, you will be deported. that's against the sovereignty of this nation, that you cannot enter this country illegally. are we enforcing that? no, we seem to be looking the other way. would you agree with me, and 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 have increased your cbp officers almost 9,000 in ten years or less. >> 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. 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? >> 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 process people through the system, as well as maintaining our presence on the border. i believe we are continuing to do that. >> ms. 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. >> and if ms. milter 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 border, 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, then you would 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 border? >> 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. barletta. >> 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. congress has to share in the blame as well. any member of congress that starts talking about a pathway to amnesty lays out the welcome mat amnesty, and that's what it is, lays out the welcome matt 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 that people

can't overstay their visas. if i can get a quick answer. because i want to get to a second one. 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. my understanding is that 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 -- >> i'm worried about where the money is coming from. does that mean that pot gets drained more? yeah, quickly. >> the funds being used for this were already funds expended under current thought to deal with these issues. funding is through interagency agreements. money is not coming out of drf to pay for those functions which are funded by congress through other appropriations. >> if i could go back to the -- if it's not our lack of enforcing immigration laws, why don't they stop somewhere in mexico? why come all the way to the united states? why put these children 1,000 miles and risk their lives to get to the united states? there's nowhere in mexico that's better than honduras or

guatemala? i don't buy that and i don't think the american people do, either. the 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? in your testimony, 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? >> well, first of all, i don't know where that estimate comes from. >> 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 in 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, 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 adults and children. 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. >> we shouldn't be surprised, because we saw it coming as far back as january, somebody did. i'd -- >> i'm not disagreeing with you. we've known this was an issue. >> 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 at 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. so since daca, we've gone from 5,000 to 38 to 65? >> no. sir, you want to somehow put it on the doorstep of daca -- >> 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 back onto 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. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. richmond from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. secretary, for coming today. let me go back to some basic questions. i've heard to date a number of times 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 certainly 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 they kids are exploited by the smuggling organizations. they travel over 1,000 miles up the coast of mexico on trains and trucks. it's getting hot, it's exceedingly dangerous. >> what happens to them if we just turn them around? >> well, if we just turn them around, they 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 will burr force act would keep you from turning them around, wouldn't it? >> well, the 2008 law is not in conflict 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 i 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 border patrol agent. we can do an expedited removal, we can do expedite the removal of adults into central america where there's no immigration judge, but in terms of an expedited removal for an unaccompanied child, my understanding of the law is that 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 removal force act? >> not to my knowledge. >> we also talked a little bit

about -- 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 of mexico started taking 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 interests, 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 interests. i've had those discussions

beginning in february, and i believe they'll be productive. >> mr. chairman, and i know that the secretary has to leave, so i yield back on so my colleagues can ask some questions. >> thank for you that. to get through all the members in the time we have, i am going to strictly enforce the five-minute rule. mr. perry from pennsylvania. >> thanks, mr. chairman, and if it hasn't already been done, i would like to submit a copy of advertisement that's been referenced under unanimous consent into the record. all right. 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 are very appreciative. i would like to turn to mr.

vitiello? thank you, sir. how long have criminals been smuggling people across the border, to your knowledge? >> in my career, 29 years. >> 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's the experience of the border patrol. >> in your opinion in your estimation, what has changed in the last two, three years that has fostered this immense increase in traffic, especially of people that are young, 17 and below, coming -- what has changed? are there any metrics at all that you know of to support the claim that you might make shortly? >> i think lots of things have changed. i mean, we've talked about all of the push factors. i've seen these reports. people are fleeing 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. >> it's been a while. 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, and 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 remarks of mr. barletta and congress that's implied that wholesale amnesty might be in order if you make it across the border, but are there any other policies that might be contributing to this circumstance currently on the border? >> i think we're addressing, in the broad spectrum, all of the things 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 65,000, is there anything that you can think of -- >> i'm not sure i would categorizes it as policy. i think that we have struggled not to have a sufficient level of, you know, in this case, detention for people who bring their children across the border, and then the -- 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

turning over to hhs. >> 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 not reflected? >> it is reflected. >> so has trafficking also been gone up as a result of these increased numbers? >> i'm not sure it's gone up. i think these populations have increased, which leads me to believe that smuggling has increased as well. >> 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, and you said you were 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 -- >> i believe it's the recruitment document? >> a couple points of comment. mr. tony ross and rachel ali. 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 forres that escorts in the past? if not, why not? and if now, why not? >> i would have to see -- >> 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. >> the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from new york, ms. clark. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank mr. secretary, honorable fugate. mr. vitiello, your testimony has been enlightning, and i

appreciate your approach to a multidimensional, very complex i appreciate your approach to a 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 as 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. vela raised, which is 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 embassy, consulates, to reunite children from various countries with their parents back home? how do we identify that? have you given thought to that as of yet?

>> well, once the child is identified as an unaccompanied child, the law rivers that the child be turned over to hhs. so the question really goes to hhs 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 as soon 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 troubling that we would want to move a military operation such as the national guard to our borders to address unaccompanied minors. 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 untenable situations 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 are encountering about the number of varies, but we're encountering lately about 350 a day. >> and do you have a sense -- are they -- do you get a sense 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. >> 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 and guatemala. >> i would be interested if we could drill down at some point to get a better sense of which countries seem to have a larger percentages of children coming in, and 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 are seeing from the presses that the children tend to gravitate and come across together, so you're not seeing like individual kids

necessarily, but children traveling together. >> they're very clearly coming in groups. they're herded, shepherded by a -- a civilian guide at various points along the journey that is part of the smuggling organization, and it starts at the point of origin and goes through mexico. they're cheerily traveling in groups, not alone, and the numbers are roughly equivalent. honduras might be slightly larger, but they're roughly equivalent. >> i yield back. thank you, once again. thank you, mr. chairman. as an active mesh of the national guard, i see first hind the purpose of or national guard supporting our armed forces. many of them stand ready and willing for the next mission. as many of my colleagues have pointed out today, the national guard can play a pivotal role. we've seen successful guard missions in the past with operation.

jump-start, phoenix and nimbus. last year i called on the department to use the national guard to help security the border. 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 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? wouldn't it be the borders would be more secure if we had a well-planned budgeted strategy that consistently uses 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 posse com at that time tuesday. the guard can't be directly involved in law enforcement, and there are some exceptions, and the defendant of defense 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 calls from some that we put the guard on the border. i want to understand better what the options are for the use of the guard, depending on the direction of this situation takes, 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. we have to be mindful of those. >> mr. vitiello, you've been

with border protection for a while. were you a part of any of thinks guard missions in the past? and can you comment on whether there's pros and cons? >> yes, we've had a great relationship over the years with the national guard. operation jump-start and ongoing operation phalanx, where we use them to do things like surveillance and sensor monitoring for us. it's not without its challenges. we are 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 resource that we're reusing from dot as they come back from theater and are pressed into service for border security. we've learned a lot from them in all manners. having the guard on the border has some limitations. this work is best done by law enforcement agents. learning from the guard, there

are some things they can do. i think the second tear is right to keep our options open. as it relates to this particular probable, where it's most acute it's not a challenge to arrest people who come as children or families with xhirn. the other zones along the southwest border and in south texas are well patrolled and are be equipped than last year or just as well equipped as they were last year. >> well, i think originally last year, it was suggesting the amendment was to ask dhs to study the lessons learned. don't take any option off the table, but with the guards basically sustaining combat missions, humanitarian assistance missions, disaster relief for the past 12 years, they have proven that 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. you could rotate them in, rotate them out, fix the issues, figure out what they can do into congressman clark's issue, yeah, we don't wand kids being met with guns, but i don't think they would be met with guns. there's probably other agencies, nonprofit or federal groups that could be out there. you know, our borders are dangerous. because we don't have control. it could be communications, providing the necessary assistance. i don't think it would be wise. i don't think the american people want to see more federal law enforcement agencies when they have this cool, this cost-effective tool. i just want to urge, mr. secretary, to really consider this. i know every member of the

national guard i served this would love the opportunity to security our borders. the american people want to know our borders are secure. thank you for being here. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i want to thank you for convening this theory on the crisis we are facing on our borders, particularly in texas and arizona. thank you, mr. secretary and the other witnesses for being with us this morning. >> the patrol station in my neighboring district, but never, the impact is felt throughout southern arizona. i share the concern of many of my colleagues, virtual all of us have children, grandchildren, 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 car tells are exploiting this situation in many ways. i want to get to a question about that in a moment. i'm very concerned. what implications it has, mr. secretary, for the security of the border. i represent one of nine border driblgts, 3 miles of border, the people i represent particularly

those who live and work along the border are concerned about their safety. the concern they have expressed to me is as border patrol agents have been pulled into the nogales station in particular, we have compromised their ability to secure the border, and to keep people safe. right now we have about 1200 kids, i believe, in the nogales community. they've been moved from the station into a warehouse, where they're trying to accommodate the needs. we've estimated maybe 60,000 unaccompanied minors will be coming and apprehended this year. as i said before, the border patrol agents, many of whom have family members have been bringing in books, toys, diapers, caring for these children. clearly this is not their job, but this is what they're doing. so mr. secretary, three questions -- first of all, how many unaccompanied minors are still in customer by as we speak. how many of them are in custody in the tucson sector. let me start with that question. >> first of all, i'm going to inspect the situation there. 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. that's very important. to me we minimize the circumstances of that. the capacity of nogales i think is about 1200, and it's near capacity with unaccompanied children. >> we were at one point sending family units there. we're sending the unaccompanied children there, and from that 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 but i can get that to you. >> i appreciate the fact you'll by asking about the impact of the agents being asked to come to nogales to staff up. i've been in touch with people

who live and work on the borders. ranchers and heard from some agents about the fact that they have been pulled off shifts to help the agents secure the border, so mr. secretary, if you can't get back to us with some information about how many have been pulled and what the impact is. let me close with this one question. it's a comment and question. i've been particular ly 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 making to make sure when we have additional transfers like that that local authorities are properly notified? >> well, first of all it shouldn't have happened that way. the delegation, local officials should have gotten notice that this situation necessitated that

we extend our processing to nogales, and i've instructed my staff that when we have to go to these places, we give 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. i particularly want to thank our border patrol agents for what they're doing every day. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes ms. bush from indiana. >> thank you for holding this very important hearing and thank you all for your service. i want to follow up on the smuggling questions, and actually to chief vitiello. you could you please take about additional resources 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. we have surged our own resources to develop leads for casework to understand what we know or what we can know more about alien smuggling networks. i.c.e., homeland security investigations group surged resources at this problem for the same purpose, for them to increase their level of casework, looking at smuggling networks. just to the point as it relates to border patrol resources, the nogales center is being conducted on agent overtime. we've added overtime in all the locations that helped us process folks whether it be nogales, el paso and certainly the rio grande valley. >> so smuggling operations have been going on for years and year, this is not new. i'm a former u.s. attorney in the bush administration, we did smuggling cases, but this is at unprecedented levels is what it seems particularly, obviously with children. what are the smuggling operations? what is your intelligence

telling you? what kind of group? is it ms-13? barrio 18? the gangs that have developed smuggling organizations? is that really what's bringing these groups in? >> i think that over the years, the last several years, the sophistication of smuggling networks and connectivity to cartels have been a concern for quite some time. the work we have in the field intelligence reports that have been generated to our office suggest that people contract smugglers both in the 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 and things like pocket trash, developed phone numbers and pass those leads in the local sense to the interagency then certainly 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 you interviewed how many kids have died? >> i don't have any direct information about that. >> do we have any information about children who have died or are missing? >> not specifically. we recognize this journey is a difficult one. and certainly at the border over the years, we've seen people fail in their attempt succumbing to the elements, and i don't think it would be difficult for this population. >> mr. secretary, as you've indicated there is a public relations campaign you initiated. are we talking about increasing prosecutions of smugglers in central america so we can create that deterrent effect and let people know they are being prosecuted, what the penalties are and that we are actually catching any of the smugglers, if we are, and maybe in our law enforcement resources are working with the mexican authorities are not being

successful in our smuggling prosecutions? i'm curious whether or not we are talking about that at all. >> the answer is yes. i would like to add to what the deputy chief said. homeland security investigations which is part of been surging resources to deal with the smuggling organizations in the month of may. they made something like 163 arrests of so-called smugglers and i've directed that we added a resource to that and 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 we can stop the flow of money that goes to pay the organizations for the kids, we go a long way with dealing with this problem. >> and are you publicizing the prosecution of 160 individuals, which i would commend you in the month of may, in south america, letting who has been arrested and what has happened?

>> it's in our interest to do that. >> and i have great concern that groups that 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? >> it is fair to say that they negotiate with smugglers without a payment up front. that is a concern. >> and so now these young people are coming into our communities owing the gang the debt. is that correct? >> it's responsible to know who is responsible for the smuggling. >> and i certainly hope that we keep track of them in our country. >> the committee will be introducing an anti smuggling bill in the future. mr. sanford is recognized. >> thank you for your testimony. mr. fugate, you've been

incredibly patient during this testimony because a lot of the questions haven't been towards you but given that we are in hurricane season and i live on the coast, i'll be calling. mr. secretary, i am a huge fan. the things that you have done for the united states military is just incredible. i wrote down, bearing of a military officer, verbal dexterity of a philadelphia lawyer and so i'm a big fan. but in the few minutes i have, i'm going to ask a couple of pointed questions that i'd ask you to answer as quickly as possible so i can run through in my quick five minutes. all with the caveat that i'm a big fan. fair enough? >> yes. here it comes. >> okay. you know, going back to being a lieutenant wait 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 that the american public is thirsting for is -- is the same kind of decisiveness and reality that 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 -- >> not want to. they are running to officers. >> they will run to the nearest officer and say, here i am. >> right. >> so you have to ask, will it increa an increased border presence

deter that? >> should we have a border that is, in essence, conditional? because part of the testimony is what we might get mexico to do or might get guatemala to do. should it be, at least as a goal post, an absolute, unconditional border? >> we need to have secure borders, if that's your question. so one of the things that i've tried to do here in my testimony is lay out all the things we are doing to deal with this situation, which not obama involv not only involves the kids but turning the tide around. >> part of what we're doing now, because i think there's a real difference between words and actions, and a lot of our words have been absolute. the words that 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 to the federal government, we could have a secure border.

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 that we can find. >> 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, if 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 -- i have to tell you, i -- 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 on this 1,000 mile journey and see you later, would have to be pretty dire before -- >> if i'm not mistaken, 1 billion people around the world live on $1 a day. i don't remember the exact statistic. i think there are a number of dire statistics around the world which goes to conditional versus not on board. one more question, since i'm out of time. i think that there was frequent reference to, i don't think the law allows me to send an unaccompanied minor home. what comes first, the law or the constitution? >> let me be clear. i don't think 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 are apprehended. >> but for practical purposes, once they are here, they are here. unless you can refute that. >> the law requires that once a child is identified as unaccompanied, cbp has to give them to hhs and they do what is in the best interest of the child. that's what the law passed bit congress requires. >> understood. and i'm out of time, unfortunately. i know you have to go but thank you very much for your testimony. >> let me thank the witnesses for their testimony and mr. secretary, 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 and i know you're working hard to resolve it and i pledge the support of this committee to work with you towards that effort. with that -- members may have additional questions in writing and without objection, this

committee stands adjourned. thank you, sir. you, sir. and you can watch this video get at the c-span video library. go to c-span.org. a number of people have gone to media to discuss this further. texas congressman writes, today i'll be traveling to brownsville with the house judiciary to examine the issue of immigration at the texas border. and i was denied access at ft. sill. what are they trying to hide? i remind you that congress returns from the july 4th recess next week.

live coverage at c-span. the june jobs numbers were released today. 288,000 jobs were added last month. that drops the jobless rate to 6.1%. the associated press writing that it was the sixth straight monthly job gain. that's the best such stretch since the 1900s tech boom. an average of 208,000 jobs a month have been added. that's the fastest since may 2006. and the white house is releasing this statement about the report. while today's jobs report is encouraging, many families are still struggling with stagnant wages for decades. the president continues to press congress to take steps to further strengthen the economy including adding hundreds of thousands of jobs this year. that's from jason furman,

council of economic advisers chair. tonight at 8:00, a discussion on the origins of the universe with professor brian green. here's a preview. >> in the beginning it was hot, right? really hot. and as the universe expanded, the heat was spread out. it diluted and cooled down and

the pattern that the mathematic prediction. >> is space really a thing or just a useful concept in order to preserve our perception of reality? is space the voek cab cjust rea or is it really a thing? i see space as a thing in einstein's theory. >> space meaning the fabric of space and time together? >> space and time are stitched together. >> and that would suggest, even if nothing else existed? >> that's right. that's right. there's been a lot of debate

about this. if you were to move everything from space, the moon, sun, earth, everything, what would be left? would you have an empty universe that still has space and time or would you have nothing? a good analogy is, if you take an alphabet and start to remove the letters, z, x, a, b, when you remove that last letter, what is left? an empty alphabet? that's right. nothing. the alphabet comes into something with the letters that make it up. >> you can see all of that and an interview from the international space station with commander steven swanson starting tonight at 8:00 on c-span. right here on c-span 3, talks from the gettysburg college war conference focusing on the war in 1864 at 8:00 eastern. that's followed by a look at the

confederate forces and the tennessee campaign. american history tv in primetime begins tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span 3. the house oversight and government reform committee recently held their second hearing about the irs' recordkeeping processes and unknown e-mails related to lois lerner. attorney jennifer o'connor appeared as special council to acting commissioner from may to november of 2013. good morning, all. if you could please close the doors and be seated.

good morning. the committee will come to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. as i said last night late for many of you and i say again this morning, the oversight committee exists to secure two fundamental principles. first, americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. and second, americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. so it's our job to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watch dogs to deliver

the facts to american people and bring general reform to the federal bureaucracy. this is our mission. this is our passion. and this is what we're here for today. the committee meets today to continue our effort to get to the truth about the irs' targeting of conservative groups. last night we heard testimony from the commissioner about how and why the irs came to not save and in fact to destroy the disk drive that contained e-mails of the now well understood and criminally charged by the house former head of the organization lois lerner. i say that again. lois lerner has been referred for multiple criminal charges by the ways and means committee and

held in contempt by the full house. her disk drive is missing. his testimony included a number of significant admissions and facts. for example, commissioner testified that he has seen no evidence that there was any attempt in 2011 to retrieve six months of lost lois lerner e-mails from backup tapes or in fact from the main hard drive of the server. he testified that he does not know who at the irs was involved in leaking the knowledge about lois lerner's e-mails to treasury and onto the white house. he further testified that he did not believe leaking to the white house was a problem because the white house itself does not leak information. we'll chalk that one up to naive and not perjury. he testified that because he

does not know what was in lois lerner's e-mail, he has no grounds to believe they contain federal records. while i appreciate his time and effort, our relationship with the irs and the commissioner was not improved by his disappointing performance. in fact, one of the most troubling portions of his testimony was to tell us that someone who he could not name who worked for him had told him sometime in the entire month of april, not the 1st of april or 15th of april when we have to pay taxes, sometime in a 30-day period someone he could not remember told him one of the most important pieces of information any of us could

imagine. that thousands, tens of thousands or perhaps more e-mails of lois lerner were gone forever. i hope the witnesses before us today can help us understand further how we can have an agency that expects all americans to maintain critical documents for at least seven years and in fact the agency itself systematically destroys records after six months. they're worried about data integrity for a catastrophic event but not for criminal wrongdoing of their own employees. not for waste, fraud and abuse within the agency. this is an agency the commissioner was sent to fix. this is an agency that had lavish partners and did not even live up to the requirement for tax filing by its own members

when it held a party complete with a very expensive video at disneyland. this is an agency that targeted conservatives for their political beliefs. that asked them for who their donors were and whether they said prayers at the beginning of an event. what they did in every way and held out their application for 501c4 like a carrot never informing them that even the president's 501c4 wasn't registered. today the committee will hear testimony from o'connor. during an interview last year, irs chief counsel william wilkins testified that ms. o'connor was one of the two key supervisors overseeing the irs' response to congressional oversight. in fact, ms. o'connor was hired by the irs for the sole purpose of overseeing the agency's response to congressional investigations of the targeting scandal.

from may 2013 on, ms. o'connor led the response to the oversight of irs' targeting of conservatives. she was promoted to the white house counsel office to work on responding to congressional oversight across the entire administration. the irs supposedly has spent $10 million in its response to congress. i'm hoping ms. o'connor will enlighten us about how the irs spent so much of the taxpayers' money but supposedly took them over a year to realize two years of e-mails from the most critical witness had gone missing. and in fact, that same year since she first took the fifth. the idea that the irs just didn't notice is without believability.

we'll also want to know from ms. o'connor how the white house came to have insider knowledge about ms. lerner's missing e-mails and more broadly what role the white house plays in this investigation. today we will also hear from the archivist of the united states, david ferriero. these laws include the federal records act that were put in place precisely for the purpose of preserving important federal records. in particular i want to ask the archivist about a claim made last night. they said that irs didn't report a loss or destruction of federal records because there's no way to know what was in ms. lerner's missing e-mails.

in fact, we do know some things about where and were in ms. lerner's e-mails. we know from 2010 e-mail correspondents we found at the department of justice that ms. lerner sent over 1.1 million pages of a data base to assist the possible prosecution of those same groups that were targeted and that that information included 6103 personal identifiable information including donors. i am hoping the archivist whose loss and destruction would and should have been reported in 2011. the hearing today continues the committee's oversight efforts of the irs targeting to get to basic answers for the american people. the committee will continue to

aggressively search for answers about how and why the irs allowed to be destroyed lois lerner's e-mails. this information is critical to the committee's investigation of the irs targeting of conservative organizations. i might add in closing, the archivist is a welcoming friend of this committee. the archives fall within our jurisdiction. we take great pride in the work that the national archives does. just last night very proudly i showed to the commissioner and put in the record a little piece of history of general jackson demanding that his government in 1803 return some of the tax revenue taken from him for liquor that could never be produced because the still burned. that was not covered by the federal records act but because of the unique work that national archive does often with volunteers from around america

who come and study and research, we know what we did not know then and would have not ever demanded to store. so i would say here today to my ranking member and to all of the members of the committee, the federal records act is a minimum of what must be stored but there can be no limit to the maximum of what will benefit generations unborn if we can preserve a greater amount of documents with massive capability that our electronic era gives us. with that i recognize the ranking member. >> good morning. i welcome the opportunity to hear this morning from the archivist of the united states about outstanding challenges that federal agencies with

electronic records retention. during the bush administration, the federal agencies admitted to losing millions, millions of e-mails relating to ongoing congressional and criminal investigations including the u.s. attorney firing and outing of covert cia agent valerie plame and a host of other matters. our committee played an integral role in investigating these problems. representative henry waxman, our former chairman, engaged in a constructive effort to find solutions to these challenges. he hosted monthly meetings with the archivist and the white house counsel's office to monitor progress in implementing recommendations. i believe the archivist would agree with his predecessor that those meetings served a useful purpose. today the white house system

automatically preserves e-mails from all employee e-mail accounts. since 2008, there's been additional progress. on november 28th, 2011, president obama issued a directive to agencies managing federal records. the president also directed the archivist and director of the office on management and budget to craft a modernized framework to improve agency performance and begin managing e-mail records in electronic formats by 2016. i look forward to hearing a status report on these efforts. i also archivist will give us his view on legislation i introduced last year. the electronic message preservation act which will require federal agencies to reserve e-mail records

electronically. the committee voted on a bipartisan basis to approve my legislation but language since then and republican leaders have declined to bring it to the floor for a vote. although today's hearing could have potential to help improve agency systems from managing electronic records, i was dismayed last night that chairman issa issued a letter to compel ms. o'connor to appear today. today's hearing title is "lois lerner's lost e-mails." it is true that ms. o'connor used to work at irs. she worked there from may to november of last year. the problem is that ms. o'connor left the irs seven months ago in 2013 well before these recent discoveries about lois lerner's e-mails. as commissioner koskinen testified last night, irs officials learned there was a potential problem in february of 2013 and it was not until may of 2014 that they understood the scope of the problem completed their investigation and

determined extent to which e-mails were available or not. ms. o'connor left the irs before any of these discoveries occurred. so why is she here? according to the chairman's own press release, it's not because of her old job. it's because of her new one. she currently works at the white house counsel's office. she's worked there for less than a month. one month. but apparently that's enough to warrant a subpoena from the

committee. last night republicans demanded to know when the white house first became aware that the irs was having difficulty locating ms. lerner's e-mails. i'm sure my colleagues will repeat those questions today over and over and over again. but we already know the answer. the white house sent a letter to congress on june 18th and it said this and i quote. "in april of this year, treasury office of general counsel informed the white house counsel's office that it appeared ms. lerner's custodial e-mail account contained very few e-mails prior to april 2011 and that the irs was investigating the issue and if necessary would explore

alternate means to locate additional e-mails." that was in april but ms. o'connor did not start her job at the white house until at least a month later. i ask to enter this june 18th letter into the record. >> without objection so ordered. >> today's hearing is not about policy. today's hearing is not about policy or substance. it's about politics and press. today ms. o'connor will join the ranks of dozens of other officials during chairman issa's tenure who have been hauled up here without a vote or without a debate as part of a partisan attempt to generate headlines with unsubstantiated allegations against the white house. regardless of how many times republicans claim the white house was behind the irs actions, there's still no

evidence. none. that the white house was involved in any way with screening applicants for tax exempt status. no one of the 41 witnesses we have interviewed has identified any evidence of white house involvement or political motivation. not one. and the inspector general has also, by the way who was appointed by president bush, has also identified no evidence to support these baseless claims. issuing a subpoena to a white house lawyer does not change that fact. i sincerely hope that today's hearing will focus on the serious examination of the long standing and widespread challenges of retaining electronic records and constructive solutions. i look forward to the statements of our witnesses and with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman.

members may have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. it's now my pleasure to welcome our panel of witnesses. ms. jennifer o'connor is an attorney currently in the office of the white house counsel and prior to that as mr. cummings said, worked as the primary deliverer of discovery to this committee while at the irs. the honorable david ferriero is the archivist and he's accompanied by mr. paul wester and i ask that he be able to answer questions and he'll be sworn in and my understanding for all of us is that mr. wester is the man most knowledgeable of working with cios throughout government to ensure that the federal records act are adhered to and as a result is in fact -- mr. ferriero i appreciate you bringing him and knows the most of what's been asked of

government and what government should and would deliver and at what budget. with that i would ask that you all please rise pursuant to committee rules and take the oath. please raise your right hands high, please. thank you. do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. for those who have not testified here before, there's a five-minute clock in front of you. i do not gavel people at five minutes but as you see it go yellow, you summarize. as you see it go red, bring it to a conclude as quickly as possible. ms. o'connor, please give us your opening statement.

>> chairman issa, ranking member cummings and ranking members of the committee, my name is jennifer o'connor. i practiced for many years at a law firm where i managed litigation matters. on may 30th of 2013, i joined the irs as counselor to the acting commissioner. i left that position on november 30th of 2013. i understand the committee is interested in my time at the irs. i look forward to answering all of your questions today. thank you. >> thank you. mr. ferriero. >> chairman issa, ranking member cummings and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify to the a disposal of records at the irs. accompanying me is paul wester. government and a member of my senior management.

first, concerning the reported unauthorized disposal, federal agencies are responsible for preventing the unauthorized disposition of federal records including unlawful or accidental destruction, deletion or removal from federal custody. agencies should carefully monitor the implementation of approved records schedule to prevent unauthorized destruction. when an agency becomes aware of an incident of unauthorized destruction, they must report the incident to us. the report should describe the records, the circumstances in which the unauthorized destruction took place, and the corrective steps being taken to properly manage the records in the future. if we hear about the incident

before the agency has reported it, we'll notify the agency and request similar information. the goal of this process is to ensure that the circumstances that may have led to the loss of federal records are corrected and not repeated. we learned of the unauthorized disposal of the irs records through a letter dated june 13th, 2013, from the irs to senators widen and hatch. in this letter the irs reported the loss of e-mail records of lois lerner, the former head of irs and exempt organization division dating from 2009 to 2011 as the result of a failure of hard drive. we asked the irs to investigate the alleged disposal of records and whether it was broader than was reported in the june 13th, 2014 letter. we asked for a response within 30 days. on a daily basis, professionals worked to ensure records management policies and practices protect the rights of the government and citizens and

identify the permanently valuable records that document the national experience. in november of 2011, the president issued a memorandum on managing government records, which resulted in issuing the management government records directive in august 2012. goals to require electronic record keeping to ensure transparency, efficiency and accountability and demonstrate compliance with statutes and regulations. there are a number of activities associated with these goals but the action is by the end of 2016 federal agencies must manage all e-mail records in an electronic format and by the end of 2019, all permanent electronic records in federal agencies will be managed electronically to the fullest extent possible. the effective management of e-mail is a central animating issue for the national archives as we work to meet the requirements of the directive to help agencies meet the goal of managing their e-mail and

electronic form by the end of 2016, we have issued updated guidance known as capstone. the capstone approach was adopted as part of our ongoing efforts to evaluate how agencies have used e-mail records and provide agencies with a workable and cost efficient solution to e-mail records management challenges especially as they consider cloud based solutions. it also offers the agencies the option of using a simplified and automated approach to manage e-mail as opposed to either print and file or click and file systems that require staff to file individual e-mail records. the capstone approach allows for capture of records that should be preserved as permanent from the accounts of officials at or near the top of an agency or an organizational subcomponent.

an agency may designate e-mail accounts of additional employees as capstone when they are in positions that are likely to create or receive permanent e-mail records. following this approach, an agency can schedule all of their e-mail and capstone accounts as permanent records. the agency should then schedule the remaining e-mail accounts in the agency or organizational unit which are not captured as permanent. as temporary and preserve all of them for a set period of time based on the agency's needs. capstone approach is part of our initial effort in providing assistance to agencies to enable them to meet the e-mail records requirement and directive. we'll continue to provide additional information and guidance as we strive to meet all of the directives mandates. thank you for the opportunity to

appear today. mr. wester and i look forward to answering your questions about federal records. >> thank you. mr. wester, i understand you don't have a formal opening statement but to set a tone for the committee if you would tell the committee about what your relationship is with cios and how you're working with them and how you're working to hit the deadlines of capstone on behalf of the archivist and how you receive documents from treasury and irs. if you could set the stage, i think that's a good nonpartisan way to begin. >> thank you. i work with 100 staff members here in the washington, d.c. area and around the country to provide records management assistance to all federal agencies across the government of which there are about 250 active agencies that we work with. the staff that works on records management policy activities at the national archives work with the cio council and other councils across the government

to identify different ways we need to approach this records management electronic records management challenge. what we've been doing since implementation of the directive back in august of 2013 is working with all of the different agencies across the government to figure out how we can meet the two deadlines so by the end of the decade ensuring all agencies are managing printable records and making sure that e-mail records are managed in automotive ways with temporary and permanent e-mails by the end of 2016. there's been a number of different activities which i can answer questions about as we go. but we work very closely with agency records officers across the government including at treasury and the internal revenue service so that they understand where we are trying to go with electronic records management as a government and understand what their obligations are with the federal records act and the directive itself in how we try to bring those two things together to make effective records management work across the government. >> thank you.

i'll now recognize a series of questions. last night we finished late so i won't able to get to best buy. two days before i needed to acquire a storage device so i spent about $150 and bought a hard drive for about $149 plus sales tax. the irs commissioner last night told us that it would cost about $10 million if he was going to maintain the kind of data that we were interested in. the 80 or so depositories as i understand would have been a fraction of $149 if they were simply moving them to a single place and backing that up. i guess, mr. wester, is it true realistically that a few hundred dollar drive and then duplicate of that drive realistically would be able to hold all of the data that those 80 depositories set aside as important permanent

documents. >> chairman issa, you identified one challenge we have to deal with is being able to store and preserve e-mail and other electronic records and as you identified the cost of doing this are coming down tremendously and that is not a huge factor within the issue that we're talking about. the issue that agencies are confronting is that they need to be able to organize that data and be able to provide access to it which is separate from the storage piece. that is where there are additional costs that agencies need to incur to be able to do that. having said that, a lot of agencies to be able to be responsive to request and to committees like this one and responsible for other kind of requests and business needs they have have to develop search capabilities to access those materials that are on those drives. and so that is where some of the complexity and the costs start

to add up. as agencies are doing that kind of procurement anyway to support their business needs, we believe that approaches like capstone e-mail approach allow agencies to be able to do that effectively. >> thank you. mr. ferriero, there's a document put up on the board dated october 6, 2010, in which lois lerner sent 1.1 million documents including personal identifiable 6103 information to department of justice in order to aid potential prosecution. have you viewed that e-mail? >> yes, i have. >> would you say that is a record under the federal records act? >> not having access to the records schedule that was created by which this message was created, it is an e-mail that is record whether it's a temporary record or a permanent record, i can't tell. >> when the commissioner said that in fact he didn't know if

the lost e-mails of which this is one included items covered under the federal records acts, he was mistaken, is that correct? >> all i can say is if it was a created from what i read it is a record. what i can't tell is whether it's a temporary record or a permanent record. >> lastly, this committee has jurisdiction. is it reasonable to destroy after six months data routinely so a request simply goes to data that isn't there any longer. if you want to know what was said or done, if it doesn't happen to be maintained by choice, it's gone at the end of six months at the irs. >> that's right. >> so the request to the irs are pretty useless and we now know what ftc it's 45 days. is that in fact in the best

interest of freedom of information in your opinion? >> there again, if it was a permanent record, then it is not best practice. >> ms. o'connor, you declined to come here voluntary so question subpoenaed you. you are not pleased to be here but it's important that you're here. you were at the irs and hired when we began our investigation and requested selected documents of lois lerner in may of 2013, is that correct? >> i started on may 30th. >> so they hired you when we said we want a bunch of documents, correct? >> the acting commissioner. >> yes or no, please. you're a hostile witness. were you hired -- >> i'm not at all a hostile witness. >> yes, you are. you were hired in may. in june when we were not getting delivery, we went and subpoenaed and in august you were at the irs, is that correct? >> i was there in august. >> in august of 2013, we requested all lois lerner e-mails and not any selection, not any limited group, are you

aware of that? >> yes. >> what did you do to determine the envelope or window of all at that time in august of 2013? >> so can i explain the process a little bit? i think it would help -- >> my time has technically expired so i would ask you be full and complete. wait a second. full and complete in what you did from august until the time you left to secure all the documents, please. >> a little background is helpful. when i arrived on may 30th, the irs had a team that was already in place collecting materials and beginning to respond to the congressional investigations. i joined to be his counselor and perform a number of different things a piece of which was helping to respond to the four different congressional committees and the ig and others seeking materials and so i played a role that was a liaison to him, his direction was to be cooperative and try to gather

and produce materials as quickly as possible. and also to be a liaison to your staff and the staff of the other committees who were interested in figuring out how they could get their priorities to them as quickly as they could. and by that what i mean is identifying the employees whose materials they wanted to see first and using search terms in order to identify the documents at interest. the reason search terms were necessary as opposed to turning everything wholesale among others as you know is there's a statute called internal revenue code 6103, which is a criminal statute passed by congress that requires the irs to protect taxpayer information and the way in which they do that in situations like this is they have to read every single document to see if there's taxpayer information in it and redact it if necessary before producing it.

a big piece of the effort was to figure out how we could move information as quickly to the congressional committee and move them what they were looking for. so in may what that amounts to is when i arrived ms. lerner's material had already been collected as had some other employees materials. there was more collection that went on after that. the process as they explained it to me and i'm not a tech expert but the irs material is protected with careful encryption and so it needs to be processed before it can be reviewed so they have to load it and then flatten it and decrypt it and the decryption creates errors and they have to do it again and in that piece of the process, which is the first piece of the process, they would run terms that congressional

committee staff had identified over the material and once that was done and material was viewable they would move it to a review tool and when i first got there one of the things that i was doing was talking about how to move volume quickly we had to remove people because irs never encountered something like this and didn't have staff in place to do this document review and production. in addition, the technical infrastructure wasn't there to support it so we had a lot of issues that we had to deal with in terms of adding servers and capacity and having technical experts deal with the systems that it would be stable. when we got to august which is where your question was, you did express an interest in all of the e-mails. we were at that point already sort of well into a process that had begun in may with ms. lerner and everyone else's e-mails loaded at that point had been loaded with all of the terms. and so they were being reviewed. so the staff who were working on this day-to-day continued to review all of that material. it was the intention as soon as

we got that done, we would circle back and make sure the subpoena was complied with. i left in november. we were still in the process of the rolling production. it wasn't finished yet but it was my understanding and i believe it to be true and i have no reason to think it wasn't true, they intended to continue to produce information but the difference between the selected lois lerner information and all of lois lerner's information comes from the fact that initially the process was organized around material that had search terms applied to it versus the material at the end. i hope that sort of lays it out quickly. >> in august of 2013, your testimony is that when receiving a subpoena and explicit instructions that this was our

highest priority that we wanted all of the e-mails of the person who took the fifth in front of this committee and who in fact was not cooperating and who indications were was at the center of this targeting of conservatives, the decision was made to get to it after you got done with all of the others so when you left the agency, they had not yet done the extensive search or not yet looked for all of her e-mails and as a result that's why we go until april of this year until we discover that all e-mails were to be found. >> i wasn't there when the discovery of the lost e-mails were incurred. >> on the day you left, they had not set out to discover all e-mails but had not complied with the subpoena in the sense they had not gathered all of her e-mails and they were waiting until they got done with other things they wanted to do and then they would look for all of the e-mails. >> that wasn't what i meant. >> i would like to know what you meant because obviously they

didn't know they were missing in the months that you were there after a subpoena asked for all of them. i appreciate that you told us in great detail -- i appreciate that. it helps us understand. you told us in great detail about the process that you went through but of course the process you went through was a process that you determined that you wanted to go through. we issued a subpoena and 6103 redaction doesn't take the place of your gathering all of that. they were entitled to receive all of her e-mails without redaction and so was ways and means if they chose to receive it. >> right. i believe that -- it was gathered before i got there. my understanding from the team -- i didn't interact with them directly. my understanding from the team who did gather it was they gathered everything that was there and so in the process from the point at which i got there to the point at which i left, the team who was working very hard on being able to get you material was reviewing and

processing and redacting as necessary all of the material that had been loaded into which the search terms that your staff and staff of the other committees had identified. the process -- i wasn't there when the process of going back to look at the ones that had originally been loaded but hadn't hit the search terms were reviewed. when i left, my understanding is that was something that was going to continue because the agency seemed fully intending to continue to comply with your subpoenas and i have no reason to believe that it didn't. >> thank you. mr. cummings? >> thank you very much. ms. o'connor, let me ask you this. you were at irs for about six or seven months from may to november of last year, is that right? >> six months from may 30th to november 30th, sir.

>> and i was wondering when you came in, what instructions were you given with regard to production of documents? in other words, what were you told was the priorities and what were you instructed to do. just curious. >> his strong imperative was that we gather and produce everything that the congressional investigators and the inspector general wanted. and he wanted it to be done as quickly as possible. he was interested in being completely transparent and the directives he gave to me -- one of my roles was to be his liaison to the team working full time on the document production. in that capacity, one of the things i tried to do and worked on doing was to help them get stuff out faster and to review faster so that more volumes of the material that the committee was looking for and there were

four different committees, four different investigations, but he wanted to be able to get all of it to the investigation staff and committee members in part because the irs had been asked by the inspector general not to conduct its own investigation and not interview witnesses so the investigative activity was happening in the congressional committees and at the ig so it was important to get them that material. that's what he told me to do. that's what i worked with the team on doing. >> is that what you tried to do? >> it's very much what i tried to do. >> and so you left in november, is that right? >> yes. >> of 2013? so you were not there this past february when the irs first identified potential issues with lois lerner's e-mails, is that right?

>> that's correct. >> you said something that was very interesting. you said when you got there, ms. lerner's information had already been collected. is that what you said? >> yes, that's correct. >> what does that mean? >> well, to my understanding -- i didn't directly interface with the staff who did this, but professional long-term irs staff went to ms. lerner's computer and took the hard drive and imaged it and took e-mails on it and made copies of all of that. my understanding is that a set of staff and again it happened before i got there so this is my understanding also went through her office to collect any paper copies that were -- i think they collected everything and went through it to find out what was responsive. >> they actually went through her office, to your knowledge, to try to find paper copies? >> to my knowledge, yes. again, i want to clarify that i didn't witness it. i wasn't there. that's what i was told. >> i see. and so -- let me ask you this.

did you feel that you were able to carry out the instructions? in other words, he told you to do things quickly. he told you to be transparent and he told you -- that's what he told you. did you do that? >> we did our best. there was hurdles with technology and we had to add resources and add staff and add technological resources so i think, you know, nobody thought it was as quick as they would have liked. we worked very hard to get the material to the committees as quickly as we could. >> you were not there in april when the commissioner learned that some of ms. lerner's e-mails may not be recoverable, is that right? >> i was not there in april, no. >> you weren't working at the irs when commissioner koskinen was there? were you there at any time when he was there?

>> we didn't overlap. >> so you never worked for him? >> no. >> and how long have you worked at the white house? >> about a month. i just got there. >> you just got the job? >> yes. >> so congress received a letter from the white house last week on june 18th that explains how the white house found out about ms. lerner's e-mails. it says this -- and i quote, "in april of this year, treasury office of general counsel informed white house counsel office that it appears ms. lerner's e-mail account contained few e-mails prior to april 2011 and the irs was investigating the issue and if necessary would explore alternate means to locate additional e-mails." so the treasury told the white house in april, which would have been a month before you started at the white house, is that right? >> that's what that letter says. i wasn't there, so i don't know. >> i want to thank you for being

here today. i know this is difficult. are you a lawyer? >> i am. >> you know what a hostile witness is? >> i do. >> chairman said told you that you were a hostile witness. and you said you were not, is that right? >> that's correct. >> do you consider yourself a hostile witness? >> i'm definitely not hostile. >> so you got a subpoena last night. a unilateral subpoena. no committee vote. no debate at all, nothing. you had to turn around and testify here this morning. i want to state for the record that we've seen no evidence that ms. o'connor did anything inappropriate whatsoever and we want to thank you for your service and for your testimony. mr. ferriero, let me turn to you. the challenges at irs are not unique. many federal agencies have had problems retaining electronic records. i know the president has made some improvement with his

memorandum in 2011 and that you and the office of management and budget have set target dates for agencies to improve their electronic data systems. but we can always do better, can't we? >> we sure can. >> as you know i introduced a bill a year and a half ago amending the federal records act to require you to establish minimum standards for federal agencies to manage and preserve e-mail records electronically. the bill would complement your efforts to get agencies to modernize their record keeping systems. this bill passed our committee with bipartisan support. i'm very pleased to say. you have testified several times in support of legislation that you think the legislation could help improve the quality of the federal e-mail preservation. >> i certainly do. in fact, the directive relied heavily upon the language of

empa as we were crafting the directive. >> i sat here last night. and i listened to you know, the testimony of you, mr. webster. i'm trying to figure out, how do we -- it seems as if when -- it seems like our system and probably other agencies, we're so far behind the electronic -- i mean the i.t. modern world. how do we get ahold of that and move forward? sounds like that was part of the problem here. >> and that's what we addressed in the directive. i agree we have a lot of work to do in the federal government. working with our cio partners. >> is it too big to solve? >> no, it's not too big. we've created something within the national archives this capstone project which is one

solution. that takes advantage of existing technologies. the biggest problem over time and this is in the paper environment as well as the electronic environment whenever you have a human being in the middle of it making decisions is, then have you problems. and of our focus has been on getting the human being out of the process and relying on technology to capture the information that we need to capture. >> my last question, what can we do? you know, i can be see us sitting here, i probably won't be here but in five years, ten years from now, sitting here going through the same situation. what can can we do as members of congress during our watch to help address this issue?

i mean, you said people. we've got to have a people. we capital have the, let everybody go. so what do we do? >> we have the directive, and we're moving ahead. we have the support of the administration for this and we have the empa bill. if you could convince your colleagues to get the empa bill and get it through the senate, that would also help us because that would legislate the change in the federal records act that we need. federal records act today says print and save. this is 2014 and we're printing and saving? this is embarrassing. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i just want to make sure i make the record clear on something the ranking member said. i checked with congressman gowdy who has a lot more knowledge of law and i do. he said a term i should have used was noncooperative witness rather than hostile since you and the white house refused to provide your services here on an ordinary ordinary request and we had to subpoena unilaterally based on the denial that you would appear otherwise. so i want to make sure that i don't use a word that perhaps

does make people think something isn't true. this is simply a witness that refused to cooperate without a subpoena. >> mr. mica. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just for the record, i heard the ranking member start with the comments that we were hauling people up here unnecessarily. that was his phrase. and i would take great difference with that comment. first of all, last night, we brought mr. koskinen back, the commissioner. and we brought him back, and i went through his testimony when he came to us in march. and he never mentioned any problem with the e-mails back in march, lois lerner's e-mails. the chairman showed everyone on the committee both sides of the aisle asking for lois lerner's e-mails.

he came and said to us that last week, this is his testimony in march, last week we informed this committee and others that we believe we completed production of all of the requests. under the inspector general's report of may 2013. and he, in fact, testified last night in his written testimony that he had been aware of technical problems back in february. so i think we had every right to call him back. the other side would intimate that this it is some kind of republican stirring things up. my goodness, last week, the entire country and the congress was stunned to find out that 27 months of lois lerner's e-mails had supposedly been destroyed or

her computer crashed. so i think we have every right. mr. archivist, the law says that federal records law requires that the national archives be noticed when documents are destroyed or lost. is that the law, sir? >> that is the law. >> okay. and miss o'connor, you were brought on board after this report. this is not a republican report. this report was prepared by the treasurer inspector general for tax administration to see if groups were targeted and it confirmed that. you're aware of this report, miss o'connor? >> i have read the report. >> you were brought on what, to compile the records from and all the information pertaining to what was in that report or. >> i was brought on to give advice to active -- >> we requested in may certain documents.

when you came on in early june, the irs sent documentation attention notices to employees who were identified as having documents including relevant e-mail potentially relevant information to investigators. you were part of that request and noticed to employees in early june. you were there in early june? >> i was there in early june but my understanding is that a subset of employees had already -- >> this had been sent out. you're aware that request had been made to employees to preserve and present documents? >> absolutely. it's important notice. >> that was your job. it's appropriate that you're both here today. when did you first learn that there were e-mails missing? >> i learned that miss lerner's e-mails were missing as the result of a computer crash the week before last. >> so you were in charge from may until november of compiling

information from congress and you never heard before that that there was any missing documentation as far as e-mails? >> i didn't hear that any of miss lerner's e-mails were missing. >> when you were compiling this information for the four committees of congress and working with mr. werfel, who did you report to? >> mr. werfel. >> were you aware he was reporting your activity and what was found? you were in charge of reporting to mr. werfel, right? did you -- did you interact at all with anyone at the white house? >> not when i was. >> between may and november when you were there, if i get your e-mails, your schedule, like who was the -- shulman was before that. >> i can't recall -- >> he came and testified that the only time he went to the white house was for egg rolling.

then we subpoenaed the white house records and find he went there 113 times or something like that. but you had no contact with the white house during that period? >> actually you're jogging my memory. i want to use that as a footnote to just say i'm doing this completely by the fly off my memory. there -- >> was there some contact? >> yes, i'm going to tell you what it is. >> now you wind up in the white house. you had a subsequent job i guess helping with the obamacare situation. >> could i answer that question? >> yes, go right ahead. >> i feel like it's something important to finish the sentence. mr. werfel went to the white house in i think late june with secretary lew in the order to give the president his report. i went into the white house with him. i wasn't in their meeting. >> was this matter discussed at all? >> i wasn't in the meeting. i just accompanied him to the building. >> we would find that record. no other contact in the white house during that period? >> no. >> would you be aware that your activities were being reported to mr. werfel? and usually they have the