captioning performed by vitac >> is the canadians as forthcoming with their watch list or are we not getting that information? not only do we have a northern border issue but 40% of our so-called undocumented immigrants are coming from airplanes, airports, overstays on visas in general. so i would think that would be important information to share. >> yes so we set protocols to exchange when each of us identify a threat through our commercial aviation targeting. we have protocols established to exchange that information and request additional information from each other to do that. and that's where we have our

liaisons situated and physically present at each of our different targeting centers to be able to facilitate that exchange of that information. we also do a lot of what we call rules sharing or joint rule creation where as we sift through the reservation data and airline information, we create rules on what we're looking for what we would consider to be activity we would want to look closer at and sit down with the canadian government and come up with giantjoint rules between the two of us so we can go through on an north american approach on how to do that. >> i will submit questions i have for the cbp regarding racial profiling -- racial profiling, specifically excessive force issues which looks like i won't have time to ask here but i would like to submit them and get those responses. but the last question i really want to ask is just, again the resources we're applying to the challenges. and you all, again are exhibiting extraordinary leadership and commitment in our canadian partners, extraordinary

partnership, canadians should be praised. but i really am concerned about the personnel challenges including home 293,000 border agents stargs ss stationed on the northern border compared to 18,000, and the size of the challenge. that means about 2,000 border agents are responsible for roughly 300,000 people that cross the u.s. canadian border each day. do you all share my concern that we need more resources targeting the security of the northern border given the vastness of the terrain, and the large amounts of people that are coming through, just in general, are we resource short on our northern border? >> yes. and we have articulated those needs in the administration's 15 and 16 budget requests. work load staffing model that measures the activity at least at the ports of entry and work of volume and attributes a staffing number to accomplish that. i would be happy to follow up

afterwards on how that methodology work and what those numbers are. >> thank you. >> if i may, senator, one of the things that homeland security investigations is looking at is that when there are plus ops along the northern border or the other border our counterparts in office of field operations at the port or between the ports under chief fisher a plus up in cbp border patrol or inspectors is logically going to result in more interdictions, which could also result in more referrals for the need for investigators and more investigative work. so we would ask that the committee and it wouldn't just affect us as we undertake more criminal related investigations that would affect mr. hartunian and the prosecutorial resources as well. we would ask the committee to look at it as a -- as integrated

agencies, how each one affects the other. >> thanks, senator booker. senator sass. >> thank you, chairman johnson and senator carper for hosting this. i would like to talk about the term operational control. in 2011 the gao found that cbp had operational control of 32 miles of the canadian border. we have since abandoned that definition. i wonder if you can explain what operational control meant then why we abandoned it and if we had the same metric today, would we be at 3 it 22 miles or in a lot healthier place. >> thank you senator. that's an excellent question. first of all, operational control was defined back in 2004 in our previous strategy as the extent to which we were able to identify develop and track and bring to a law enforcement resolution all entries along the border. the fundamental premise within the 2004 strategy was predicated on deterrence. wanted to prevent the entry in the first instance all across

the board. so we started getting additional technology like border mile fence, which we measured in a linear fashion, and started applying border patrol agents in the same manner and technology in the same manner. operational control has a default equaled the amount of technology deployments we were doing. if you add five more miles of fencing cameras, it was acceptable based on our internal definitions of the levels of control to be able to count that as operational control. the difficulty came in two different areas. first and foremost is we were actually measuring the inputs. we weren't necessarily measuring the outcomes as a result of those deployments. and secondly, at some point in time, which it did, those resourcing capabilities run out. and so we could not as an organization then come back to this committee or others and say, well we can't gain any more operational control based on our definitions, unless you give us more stuff. we switched to a risk-based

approach to then take a look at measuring the probability of individuals coming across the border versus the mere possibility, which the previous strategy was predicated to be able to secure the border in that fashion. >> if we had a lot more than six minutes, i would unpack whether or not the last point you made, which i completely concur with that we run a risk-based approach, whether that's reconcilable with -- it sounds like you're saying we have a baseline budgeting approach around here. many of us are new. garre gary peters and i can ask new guy questions. whether or not you think the threat threatts ares are driving your budget requests or year over year what the congress would tolerate drives the budget requests. we talk about the relative threats between northern and southern border and i wonder if that's a place to pivot to the radiological concerns. napolitano testified that dhs

deployed radiation detection across northern ports of entry. yet in 2011 the same gao report found it wouldn't be difficult at all to get nuclear material across the northern ports. i wonder if dhs is still using the same equipment. i wonder if that technology should be called a failure from that point because of the experience of 2009 to 2011 and if better technology exists today, is that something you're requesting of us? >> senator, again, i would defer an answer to that question from john wagwagner responsible for the port of entry operations. >> that equipment is still in place and we're working with the domestic nuclear detection office as part of dhs to look at the recapitalization of that and what is the right equipment to purchase and design and deploy to do that. we're looking at the calibration settings of the equipment. reducing what we call the nuisance alarms, to really better focus on what the threats are and what are operational

protocols in response to them are. >> what would you say to the gao 2011 report that it would be easy or not difficult i think was their term, to get nuclear material across the northern border and is that the case today as well? >> i don't necessarily agree with that. >> what would give you comfort? >> -- equipment functions as it was designed to do. it looks at you know, it looks at detecting what it was designed to do. i don't -- i'm not familiar off hand with the report or how they drew that conclusion to say it would be easy to do whether it would be open or concealed or how it would be detected, really have to go back and look at that. >> okay. i think we'll follow up with a formal question on that as well. when you think about the sources of canadian threat, one way to think about the problem is what can we deter at the border. and another is the nature of potential terrorist threats originating in canada changing. so you could have illegal immigration into canada, have legal immigration into canada, and you could have home grown

terrorist threats inside canada. after the ottawa attacks, the canadian government said they thought home grown terrorism in canada was a real and potentially prevalent problem. how do we respond strategically after the ottawa threats and potential threats in the future, if there were another instance of domestic terrorism inside canada strategically inside dhs, where would that threat be assessed and how would it change our behavior? >> well, senator, in my experience, as the department has matured since 2003, we have heard so far this morning in terms of integrated planning and execution, sharing of intelligence and information, the more as time goes on, the more dependent all of us are fighting the same fight on each other to be able do this. nobody -- no component within the department of homeland security owns the corner market on protecting america. we are so dependent each and every day, it becomes clearer when john and i stayed up and get our intelligence briefing every morning about the evolving

threat, that's a really key thing to -- as a take away. this threat changes all the time. and we have to be able to be as responsive and perhaps more predictive as we start seeing those changes, which is it the reason why a couple of years ago cbp transitioned into integrated counternetwork operations as a strategic philosophy which means we're not just going to put border patrol agents every 25 meters and fence behind -- or in front of them and cameras behind them and we're going to try to deter somebody from coming across. pragmatically, in my 28 years experience, that does not work for a couple of reasons. one as a strategic objective if you have deterrence as a goal, one, you are always going to fail because somebody will come through. and number two, it is very difficult to measure. so if you try to figure out if you're deterring more people this year than last year, it gets very difficult to really understand -- i get mired up in all the statistic to remember whether in fact we're winning. when we look at the intent and

capability, which defines the threat of the adversaries, it be organizations or terrorism or as a 2011 strategy to combat transnational organized crime, introduce the convergence of tcos and terrorism, those are the things that our organization within the department of homeland security are trying to get better each and every day. >> thank you. we're at my time but i'll follow up with more strategic questions by letter. thanks. >> thank you, senator sass. senator peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for hosting this hearing, which is so important for the northern border, along with ranking member carper and for michigan we're at the center of an awful lot of trade between canada and transactions across our borders. if you look at the volume of trade that goes across ports of entry of the top five in the country, detroit is number two, and port huron is number four. so we are definitely the tip of

the spear, so to speak, when it comes to border control. and so it is a very important issue for my state, as well as for the industry and that's why i certainly want to thank senator johnson for his co-sponsorship of the amendment that i put forward and the recent budget bill to make sure we're fully funding our ports of entry. that's why i'm going to make a brief pitch to make sure that we continue to get funding for the international border crossing, particularly with our new bridge, that we're constructing between detroit and windsor and port huron. they do a great deal of traffic. they have been promised improvements in that customs plaza, which have not occurred. and we need to have those. and it is vitally important to our economy. and i want to thank all of the panelists here. this is -- an interesting hearing and you have an extremely difficult job in the fact that you really have dual purposes, i look at my border crossings in michigan. we're asking you to keep us

safe. and we're also asking you not to delay us while we cross the border, so that we can move trucks for just in time delivery for manufacturing facilities, which rely on that. we have substantial agricultural interests that crops on those trucks that can't rot. they have to go across the very expeditiously in order to get to the markets. and so that is a conflicting role, one that you do well, but we're asking you to do even more when it comes to moving traffic more eefficiently. i want to ask mr. fisher and mr. wagner, you mentioned a number of things happening to expedite the movement of goods in trade. what is working and what is it that you need for you to do your job of protecting us while also making sure we can make sure trade is moving efficiently? >> thank you. and it is a couple of programs that we have that we really need to, you know, push and further get participation in. in the trade environment, it is

our trusted trade programs, it is linking it to the canadian programs, getting more companies and more businesses and more trucking companies enrolled in them. but it is also building the infrastructure to support the crossings and allowing us to deliver on the promise that we can expedite those low risks or secure supply chains and it just can't be over, the bridge structure, or through the border crossing. you have to have the resulting highways to feed into that to support that. so it is getting higher percentage of transactions into those programs. on the traveler environment, it is the nexus program. it is getting more travelers into those nexus lanes getting preapproved to go back and forth much easier. it is less time we spend on these enrolled populations as we call them, allows us to better focus on everyone else. so getting those percentages up but also having the infrastructure to support and allowing us to then deliver on the promise we make them of this facilitated or expedited

crossing to do that. it is working closely with the canadian government, looking at ways to increase the use of facilitative technology, most notably the rfid enabled traveler documents, looking at can we get a higher saturation of those types of documents. those save us time at the border. they save us resources. we don't have to physically handle the card and read it through the reader. it reads automatically. we have seen great strides on the u.s. mexico border by getting a higher saturation of rfid enabled lanes. it allows us to do the queries automatically as the car pulls up and building the infrastructure and segregating the traffic according to risk and/or facilitative technology. just like the toll booths do with ez pass, exact change and everyone else. we have the nexus to ez pass lane or the century is the ez pass lane. the exact change is something we call the ready lane. that's something with an rfid document, but not necessarily vetted and preapproved like the

trusted traveler program of nexus or century. and then everybody else goes over to the side and might be a longer wait there because of the -- we don't -- we know less about them or they have a travel document that doesn't allow us it facilitate the crossing. it is pushing that and getting more people enrolled and the infrastructure to support it. >> well we continue to have delays at port huron and detroit. you're making great strides to expedite that. it costs money. it costs a lot of money with the delays and based on how the system works now. are there additional resources you need or just a matter of time to implement the systems? >> it is additional resources also. we have mentioned earlier we have a work load staffing model that takes all of the activity an officer does at a port of entry, takes the average time it takes to do it, takes how many times a day it is typically done and comes up with the amount of hours to run a port of entry. and divide that by the available work hours of an officer and we come up with the staffing number of what we need to run based on the work load for that port of

entry. we can mitigate that need for new staff by some of our business transformation improvements that we make. so things like one of our current efforts is the trucks pull up, and are still paying cash, couple of dollars in change to pay the user fees to cross the border rather than buying the decals. we're looking at ways to pay that in advance online so we're not collecting cash in that primary booth and making change to deliver back to them, and the resulting savings in the work load savings and the type of savings, that translates to staff at some point. the facilities piece, we recognize facilities are extremely expensive just between the facility itself the staffing, the equipment needed and the highways to connect it. a lot of coordination needed a lot of -- we would like to see a lot of regional planning to look at crossings as a systems of crossings rather than individual bridges or tunnels or crossings that sometimes compete with each other for traffic. and for toll revenue.

we really like to see regional planning efforts that take them as a system of crossings working with our canadian counterparts to move that traffic north and south i'm running out of time. i have questions also related to racial profiling and the justice department's exemptions of the cbp for racial profiling and with some of the border patrols activities in the michigan as well that a number of my constituents have raised. i will do that in writing and look forward to your response to some very serious concerns that have been raised to me, and i would like to hear your response. thank you. >> thank you, senator peters. senator mccain. >> i thank the witnesses for being here. chief fisher last month congressman salmon and i introduced legislation that would provide border patrol with access to federal lands to conduct routine patrols and install needed surveillance equipment to detect illegal

entries across the border. gao testified that border patrols access to some federal lands has been limited because of certain land management laws. for example the organ pipe national monument they did not approve the land manager did not approve of border patrols request or plan to install detection equipment, in this case, a tower. we see this time after time where the land manager is making a final decision on the installation of this equipment as opposed to the border patrol. can you explain to me why that should be? one, good it's true and two, why that should be. >> well senator, i don't know for a fact that is true. i'm not going to dispute your

report and what ga may have found. i can imagine in some locations along all of public land there are decisions that are made within the department of the interior, fish and wildlife that perhaps are anathetical to the policies and the policylicy we would take. >> it seems to me it should be your organization, not the land manager. during a hearing, chief fisher last month ago, general kelly, the commander of the u.s. southern command issued a warning about the threat that budget sequestration poses to security along our southern border. general kelly warned that the potential threat of terrorist crossings our southern border, quote, is extremely serious and called the budget cuts under sequestration a catastrophe which could effectively put me

out of business. mr. wagner, and chief fisher, do you agree with general kelly's assessment of the fact of sequestration on your ability to control our borders? >> senator, i would agree with the general's assessment in terms of how the assessed threat is really serious in terms of identifying risk along our border. i think that is accurate. >> how about being able to carry out your dutys? >> there are challenges. >> yes, sir there are challenges each and every budget cycle with or without sequestration. we have finite resources. >> it doesn't matter to you? >> no, sir. it doesn't matter to me. >> then tell me, for the record tell us whether it matters or not. >> senator, it does matter, yes, thank you. >> how serious is the impact? >> at times it can be very serious. >> thank you. mr. wagner. >> i concur with the chief. it is something we manage through. it is an additional challenge that can be distracting from the mission. it can have detriment --

>> you can manage through it right? >> we have to. we have no other choice. >> how -- again, i don't know what -- am i not making myself clear? i want to know the effect of sequestration of your ability to do your job. >> it makes it more difficult. >> how much more difficult? >> the entire process getting a budget six months into a fiscal year makes it much more difficult. looking at cuts arbitrarily across the board makes it more difficult. >> how about your ability to secure our borders? >> we do the best we have with the process that we go through. >> i'm asking how it affects your ability to enforce our borders. what's the matter with you today? it is a pretty straightforward question. i want to know how sequestration affects your ability to enforce our borders? >> i said it makes it more difficult and more clefrn inghallenging. i don't have a number i can put -- >> okay. chief fisher, general kelly also said and i quote terrorist

organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives intent to cause great harm to our citizens or bring weapons of mass destruction into the united states. that's general kelly commander of southern command's testimony last month before the armed services committee. do you share that view? >> yes senator, i do. >> would you elaborate? >> yes senator. i mentioned earlier in terms of the 2011 strategy to combat transnational criminal organizations and in particular the convergence where that strategy looked at the possibility of organized crime and terrorism basically coming together to be able to exploit vulnerabilities along our border in other areas as well. we see that as an emerging threat. that's our shift to strategy -- to taking a look at risk and risk mitigation as opposed to

just putting border patrol agents and fence everywhere was the reason for that as well. >> are you seeing apprehending people coming across, particularly our southern border and also our northern border that are not from the traditional countries that we usually see immigrants? i'm talking about mexico central america, are you seeing people coming from many other parts of the world that you're apprehending? >> yes, senator. on average over the past three years along the southern border in particular because of the volume, we see individuals that are represented from over 140 different countries. >> 140 different countrys? >> yes senator. >> and could you give us some examples of the kind of surprise -- that would surprise the average citizen? >> although the vast majority is still with the contiguous countries of mexico on the southern border central and south america i think we saw some of that increased activity predominantly from countries like guatemala, el salvador and

honduras in particular. >> chinese? >> i beg your pardon? >> have you seen chinese come across the border? >> yes. >> africa. sub-saharan africa? >> yes. north africa. i have a list of 144. i don't have them with me right now, sir. >> would you please submit that to the record and the numbers of those from these -- part of this obviously is international human smuggleing operations. but also it could be disturbing to all of us to see how far away many of these illegal immigrants are coming across the border. does that concern you as well? >> it does, senator. i would happy to provide that list to you. >> thank you. are you expecting another large number of children showing up on our border on our southern border in the next couple of months? >> senator, i'm confident at this point that based on where we are halfway through this year

that we will not see the level of unaccompanied children and levels of family units that we saw last year. >> but you will see a significant number? >> again if you're defining significant as -- if you compare that to 2010, 2011, it will be up above those levels, but it is going to be down over the proceeding two years. >> i thank the witnesses. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator mccain. senator ernst. >> thank you mr. chair. i, gentlemen, i appreciate you being here today. and thanks for your service in protecting our great country. today, we have heard a lot of testimony about shared efforts between canada and the united states and i do believe that they are a strong partner for us. i know senator booker had mentioned, you know, sharing the no fly list information that would be very important. but are there any other specific initiatives that we need to look at as far as joint activities

with canada? anything that in your mind and maybe chief fisher if you can address this or mr. wagner, but specific initiatives that we really do need to take a hard look at and implement? >> yes senator. i would say i briefly mentioned the ibet teams where we're working very closely embedded many cases physically in space where we can share information. and equally important, not just the sharing of the information is them being able to figure out what we collectively are going to do about that information on a particular threat. and if you take a look at the two countries and the different jurisdictional authorities, and associated authorities that go with that, we are a lot stronger in doing that. to the extent we can expand not just the concept but those teams and some regional concepts, i think we'll be better for doing just that. >> continuing to work with our cbsa and other colleagues in canada as they develop

additional targeting and information sharing systems, you know. they're working on a system much like our esta system for visa waiver travel, preapproval of that and working with canada to build a similar system so we have a north american approach in consistent targeting and identification of national security factors. and then sharing and exchanging the ways and the protocols on how we can address those at the earliest possible opportunity. >> okay, yes go ahead mr. spero. >> thank you, senator. just to expand on chief fisher and commissioner wagner's answer, one thing i would like to call attention to is we had talked about, i believe mr. hartunian talked about a lot of the leadership committees and collaboration that is going on whether the beyond the border executive group, or the cross border crime forum or bolt.

those are, as i said before very, you know, those are good -- great ways for us to strategize, identify the threats, both, you know, interacting with our canadian partners. but one of the things i want to expand on what chief fisher said in addition to the ibets, our hsi border enforcement security task forces are making a big difference. one of the -- they're the operators on the ground who are actually out doing the -- conducting the investigations, making the search warrants on both sides of the border and making the arrests and identifying and disrupting and dismantling the transnational criminal organizations. it is a great model. it is a model where we're allowed to -- we give our title 19 cross designation or essentially deputyize canadian law enforcement so they can come into the united states and conduct side by side with us

joint investigations under our close supervision but to have that connectivity investigator to investigator agent to agent, coordination, collaboration, and just working the cases together it is proven to be very successful model. >> these are all initiatives that canada is open to, and they are working well with the united states. is that a correct acessment then? >> yes they are. >> okay. are there any -- yes sir, go ahead, please. >> i would just like to highlight some of the other work that is going on in the pacific northwest. specifically operation ship rider. it is an rcmp u.s. coast guard initiative which in which different officers are cross designated to operate in each other's waters. i also wanted to highlight the fact that state of washington and the problems of bc to do a yearly meeting with their law

enforcement trade representatives to share issues problems and resolutions on our cross border trafficking and so unique to how we operate. we also engage in a mutual discussions with them on a quarterly basis in our joint management team, which has the oversight of the best and the ibet programs and we have a yearly meeting coming up called project north star in spokane, and in which we will again sit down with our canadian colleagues as well as our state and local officials and federal agencies, again to strategize and to implement those strategies in the near future. >> that's great. i appreciate the collaboration that we have with our neighbors to the north. through this process, have you seen any joint initiatives where the canadians have actually pushed back or they don't wish to collaborate with u.s. authorities? are there any of those instances

out there? >> anybody? none that you've experienced? >> no i wouldn't say -- the only reticence sometimes is the sharing of targeting information. they have certain privacy rules which they have to abide by. and so sometimes that can be a little bit difficult. i think we talked about the mlats and the information that is provided via that type of format. so -- but i think those are overcome on the -- in the field with operational matters. and between the different agencies. >> okay. >> senator from a prosecutor's perspective, we have made great efforts and i think great strides to bring our prosecution teams together to address some of the challenges that we face when we do cross border operations and investigations. sometimes there can be challenges sharing information. we have to make sure we're in compliance with the rules of each country. sometimes we have to make

charging decisions, who are we going to charge and what jurisdiction are we going to charge them. there are different considerations that come into play, based upon the law of canada or the law of the u.s. so i think we have come a long way in bringing our prosecution teams together bringing our -- the canadian provincial prosecutors and federal crown prosecutors with the u.s. attorneys to work some of the differences out. >> that's very good. i appreciate it. it is good to know what works and then if there are challenges out there as well. thank you, gentlemen. my time has expired. >> thank you chairman johnson for -- mr. chairman for the introduction and for the opportunity to talk about a border that we don't talk a lot about in this committee, which is the northern border. and it is interesting, senator mccain is still here because i think one of the challenges we have both on the north and on the south border is as we have put and deployed more resources at the points of entry, we have

opened up rural america, whether it is on the northern border or the southern border to mischief. things that used to happen through the port of entry now could in fact and are happening on the southern border in very remote locations which creates huge disruption to local communities, to rural america. i recently hosted ali maorcas in south dakota and i want to applaud blue and green. we gave him a great look at how cooperation works in north dakota. and your folks have been just absolutely fabulous on the northern border and cooperating with local law enforcement, cooperating with canadian officials, cooperating with local chiefs and sheriffs. it is just -- it is seamless. and the applause is all around. but there is challenges. and in minnesota, the challenges are wooded. in north dakota it open prairie. miles and miles. if i took you up there farmers are farming around the boundary posts. so this is not what you see

typically on the southern border. one of the big challenges we have is getting staff in remote locations. and i think you both can say that the challenge, i think we're down a number of custom and border protection officers in -- and we continue to struggle to get border patrol to stay on the northern border. and so my question to you is what are you doing within the department of homeland security to secure additional incentives for workforce to stay on the northern border? >> thank you. so recently we commissioned a group to look at that. we have a lot of places that it is hard to maintain staff at. what are the options that are at our disposal now as far as relocation incentives, paid moves, promises of limited assignments there of a couple of years and looking at what is the

right -- the right options to offer at the -- >> are you meeting with any resistance internally in making pay adjustments or incentive adjustments to secure staff on the northern border? >> no. we haven't. it is a matter of finding the budget funds to do it and what is the right approach at each of the locates. >> we're back to budget constraints, giving us a less secure border? i think that's the point senator mccain was trying to get at. >> we have -- >> i know you don't want to say that but -- >> i'm happy to say that. because, i mean -- >> we would like it if you say that. >> we submitted the staffing needs as part of the annual budget for the last couple of years. we received 2,000 more cbp officers and in the process of hiring them, but the need remains for 2,624 more. and it is just finding ways to pay for that. and these would be distributed in amongst with the work load staffing model to do that. >> i think we would be foolish to say that lack of -- that we

can manage the borders, either the northern borders or the coastal borders which we haven't yet talked about, or the southern land border without additional resources. be it additional aircraft that can monitor the border, basically transport folks in north dakota we don't have any capacity for detention. and we have a huge number of what i would tell you are undocumented workers, who are working in construction in north dakota, who are pulled off roofs and pulled off construction projects, only to be on those construction projects the next day. and so i understand the lack of capacity, but i also think that we have to be realistic about the squeeze that we're putting on rural borders. we're trying to take care of it, whether it is san diego or mcallen or el paso, we see the problems there and we ignore

cochise county and to the west. so you guys have to help us work through this because as we push the envelope and put more and more restraintsen those border crossings, we're going to move the bad guys to rural america, whether it is on the southern border or the northern border. the other question that i just want to broach quickly because the focus is all the people coming to the country, but we have a fair number of people who are crossing into canada from this country and that causes concern for canadian officials. mr. wagner, i was interested in your exchange with senator booker, because it seemed like we were maybe two ships passing in the night. do the canadian officials not share their watch list with us? >> i don't believe we get their actual watch list. >> why is that? >> i don't know. >> is that because we won't give them ours or is it because they have privacy regulations that we can't work through? >> the fbi manages it for us. and we're users and consumers of

it and we contribute to it, but we're not the owners of that. >> what i heard all of you talking about is this extraordinary cooperation you get from the canadian officials. sometimes laws don't allow it to be seamless, but i can tell you as a former attorney general from my state whether we used to do intel briefings on the northern border with local law enforcement, whether it is break ins, burglaries, drugs, the royal canadian mounted police were at those events. so i can tell you locally it works very well and it sounds like you believe that it works pretty well kind of country to country. if you were going to make any changes in that relationship what would you recommend? any of you? >> i mean it really strengthening the information exchange and the access to the information that you have internally within your organization or your country. we exchange a lot of information with the canadian government, the land border our entry

records are serving as their exit records and vice versa so we can start the exchange and identification of who is overstaying and we can also see who left the country. in the commercial aviation environment, we're doing joint -- what rules creation and joint targeting efforts to look at threats to north america. not just necessarily the u.s. or canada, but it is what access do they have to be able to share with us, which brings up the watch list. >> are we sharing lists of folks who are on the list for deportation with the canadian officials? >> i'm not aware -- i don't know. >> mr. chairman, i'll submit some additional questions but i do want to once again give you a high five for all the great work that is done in north dakota with constraints on resources and for the extraordinary cross border cooperation and local government cooperation. you guys are doing a great job up there. your folks should be make you

proud. >> thanks senator hidecamp. i wish i would have been here for your questioning because i know this obviously affects your state quite a bit in what is happening on the border. chief fisher, i do want to go back a little bit to the question from senator mccain in terms of what is going to happen this year with the unaccompanied children. we shouldn't be minimizing this. yeah, it is down from last year, but last year was a humanitarian crisis. i don't know what you call you know, 60% level or where are we at in terms of the total number that have come compared to last weir year? somewhere around 60, 70% of last year? >> just so i'm clear it was not my intent to minimize that flow what happened last year by any stretch. and just looking at it because it is more of a statistical anomaly last year. for us it is people coming

across the border for a variety of reasons. we saw what happened last year in southern texas. what the department of homeland security did this year and each year over last three years we have seen increases from individuals from central america coming between the ports of entry. what changed last year was not necessarily the seasonal trends. that continued almost exactly the way it has been over the years. but what did change was the volume. and what we try to do, what we did do with the secretary's leadership is start looking at after july when the numbers started going down, was really looking back and saying, one, how can we be better prepared to react to it and really to better predict it? the other interesting -- at least interesting for me to see in how the secretary approached this is the department of homeland security was one of three departments that had equities and jurisdictional authority to respond to this. when you take a look at health and human services that is a

very big piece when it comes to unaccompanied children. you look at the department of justice, in terms of not just the prosecution, but, you know what do we do across the board between the three different departments. that, i think, was the first time in my experience we started seeing inging peaks of volume along the border. >> can you use the word -- that was an anomaly, far more than a statistical anomaly. it was a humanitarian crisis. it was one fueled by the actions of this government this administration. i don't have the chart here. we used in other hearings, but we have a chart that shows the number of unaccompanied children coming from central america declining. call it a manageable level. i think under 10000, again i don't know the exact numbers, i don't have the chart but then that just -- you had deferred action on childhood admissions and that shot up. cause and effect very clear. by the way, in our trip down to mcallen, texas, i want to commend the custom border patrol

and the really tremendous effort that they put forward to address that humanitarian crisis, but it continues at what, a 60 or 70% level. still a problem. and, you know, just having met with general kelly i don't want to put words into his mouth but i think he is confirming what is my sense is that no matter what deferred action childhood admissions says, no matter what the deferred action on parents you know, whatever -- no matter what those -- those memorandum, those executive actions say, it is what is the reality and the reality is if you're a parent or a child in central america, you send your child or you come up and you get into america, bottom line is you're staying. that's what the coyotes are telling them. even though we have a countercommunications strategy to say, no, no this doesn't

apply to you, the reality is it does apply and i have to admit, as i delved into this problem i know you are custom and border protection, the conclusion i'm really coming to is you could almost be renamed custom and border processing. because that's certainly what i saw in mcallen texas. as long as we continue to apprehend these individuals, as long as we have these incentives for people to come into this country because they realize they get here, they aren't going to be able to stay, as long as we detect them, apprehend them and process them with the notice to appear and then disperse around america into the shadows, we're going to have that problem. we need to recognize that reality and start addressing. i guess this is a pretty good staff work here. they have given me my chart, which pretty well shows the reality of the situation. so this is far more than statistical anomaly. this is something that our immigration laws, executive

actions actually caused. and until we're actually -- until we're willing to admit that reality we're not going to stop it, we're going to continue to have this human crisis occurring, maybe only 60 or 70% level, but still a humanitarian crisis from my standpoint. do you want to respond to that at all? tell me if i'm wrong. >> senator, i do want to thank you for complementing the men and women in your valley and the greater south texas. i've been down there and prevery proud of the work they do each and every day. thank you, sir. >> i do want to get back to the northern border and the drug trafficking there. because, again if you really take a look at the root cause of so much of our border insecurity it is the insatiable demand for drugs in this country, and what that has spawned over the last 50, 60 years. really our demand has caused so

much of this problem, so much of this crisis. so i want to get some kind of sense of what is happening on the northern border where it is flowing. listen, i go every year, fishing to canada, i've gone through the ports of entry, pretty calm. bunch of folks with fishing boats. but i also understand the -- how porous that border is as well, just hop in the canoe and you're a camper and who knows what you're transporting. understanding we don't have the statistics, which is part of the problem, by the way, in evaluating how to provide greater security of the border, we don't have the information. and there is a real disparity in information, whether customs border patrols or protection is talking about 70% -- 70%, 75% operation rate or on the ground saying it is 30 35%. i want some sense of what is happening on the northern border specifically, as best as people can tell. i realize you don't have exact information but is the drug smuggling, human trafficking,

would potential terrorists we're concerned about, are they going to come through ports of entry or coming through the areas in between the ports of entry? can anybody address that basic question? mr. spero? >> yes, senator. thank you. you know from our investigations, and, again, we get a lot of referrals, a lot of our case work comes from referrals from the ports of entry or ports of the border patrol, but not all of our investigations are referrals. some are from our own confidential informants or state and local partners. we understand that, you know one day the vulnerability could be at the port. one of the ways that we look at national security is that it is our job to make sure that we're investigating criminal fraud cases when it comes to people either pretending or appearing to make themselves appear that

they're eligible for an entry visa to come into the country, whether that's a student who is coming in under a different name or doesn't intend to go to school or whether it is a worker who claims they're going to be working at a particular job in a particular industry and purchase that visa. or whether it is in the interior where the fraudsters are trying to go to one of our other sister agencies, citizenship and immigration services to obtain a permanent residence or maybe even eventually u.s. citizenship by any kind of fraud. so through our document and benefit fraud task forces, through our participations, where we can bring hsi can bring our title eight civil immigration authority, our ability to investigate fraud or title 19 customs fraud you know, we're looking at all types of vulnerabilities, not just focusing on one. so whether that is people who are flying directly into the

country, right into the interior, but maybe on a fraudulent visa or applied for asylum with fraudulent application, that's a big vulnerability and that's something that we take seriously. seriously, but also some of our other -- or other national security strategies are to make sure that sensitive technologies -- we use our ex port enforcement and counterproliferation program to make sure the sensitive technologies are not getting outside of the country -- >> again with a i'm not getting or hearing is some sense for how much of the problem is coming through our ports of entry and whether we have to beef up personnel or improve -- fund them in a deficit neutral fashion or whether they're coming in between the ports of entry. how do we ever get the information? we realize it's not the volume so we're not calculating percent apprehensions or anything else. would it make sense to utilize what drone flights we have or

what detection capabilities we do have, would it make sense based on the anecdotal arrest and apprehension rate to do some level statistical sampling some measurement to get some kind of information so that policymakers who are going to be tasked with allocating those skars resources from some sense of where the problem does lie on the northern border? do you understand the issue the information i'm looking for here this terms of where the problem lies and what we need to do to really assess the extent of it and direct proper solutions? >> i believe i do senator and one of the things that -- and certainly with the sake of time i'd offer up the briefing to you or your staff. as was mentioned earlier it's not as simplistic just to say it's just happening at the ports or it's just happening -- the metrics that we use in terms of between the ports of entries there are 12 and we take a look at trends not just on the

southern border, we take a look on the northern border and we get, trains with john's folks and try to figure out, say, for instance, in a place like is swanton, so what is the dynamic there, what is the business model of the elicit networks that operate in canada that are exploiting the u.s. border. that scenario is likely to be different than blaine, washington or in detroit. so for us to just -- at least for me to simplistically say it's at the ports of entry, between the ports of entry, it really depends on the area of the border. and we do have methods to be able to inform our judgments on where those redeployments should go. >> first of all, i'm not asking for simplicity here because i realize it doesn't exist this is incredibly complex and it's sector by sector and area by area and state by state and even beyond that. again, i realize the montana border is completely different than the canoe area up in

minnesota and lake superior and detroit. i mean, this is a vast, vast border and all kinds of differences. i guess what i'll ask you, yeah, let's do a briefing. i want to understand the complexity. i want to understand exactly what you do know about anecdotally, have people loaded up canoes, are they flying it in small planes are they cata putting drugs across the border with cannons? it's unbelievable as i've delved into this situation the number of methods the ability to avoid detection, the use of the drug cartels block off the bridges to these kids so that they can funnel them and put pressure overrode the system over here so they can you know, divert customs and border patrol so they can smuggle the drugs over slas else. trust she, i understand the enormous complexity of the situation, but i don't have the information. okay? i know it's plex, but i really don't know how kplebs, i'm not

sure anybody does but if we're going to start crafting solutions to provide better border security, you know, we need to better understand the complexity of it. >> agreed. >> i would look forward to a briefing. i was hoping senator ayotte wanted to come here and offer some questions. let me first offer all of you the opportunity to headache a final point you know. this is something senator carper has done, i learned from it. if i was a witness i'd be sitting here going i want to make this point. here is your opportunity headache that final point if senator ayotte gets her we'll finish with her. >> thank you for the consideration and obviously the opportunity to be here today. it was brought up a couple of times this morning alluding to some of the effectiveness of reporting in terms of what my office reports versus what may have been in the recent past art lated specifically by mr.

caretta. for the sake of brevity let me say this one i have seen what mr. caretta mentioned in terms of a host of things the effectiveness rate, what he is hearing, what the policy is based on presumably what i have directed to the work force in the field among other things. let me state for the record that none of that is based on truth. it is true however, that mr. cabrera is entitled to his opinion. he is not, however entitled to had is own set of facts and i would, not now, but with your staff be able to clear that and tell you, in fact, what the policy is by my handwriting what the transition has been over the last couple of years and what i expect from each and every border patrol agent in uniform as it relates to data integrity and reporting if there are any allegations of misconduct. thank you again for the opportunity, senator. >> i appreciate that.

again, i have a keen understanding how difficult it is to get this information. this isn't like a manufacturing setting where you can study it it's all right there. this is enormously difficult, en mousily complex. we're trying to wade through that and try as best as possible to describe the reality and try to ascertain the truth here throwing that you're never going to get the full reality or full truth. we certainly do appreciate your service to the nation and, you know doing what you can to gap well a difficult situation. deputy commissioner wagner. >> it's really just a recognition of some of the economic activity that crosses that northern border, what it means to the economy of the united states and to canada. you know looking at -- within the office of field operations, we have a huge workload of not necessarily just enforcement work, you know, there's the regulatory functions there's the processing, like you mentioned. of the commercial vehicles that cross td border. we're welcoming our citizens home welcoming visitors,

tourists, business tourists ensuring their compliance with all the laws and regulations, but the majority of the transactions we do every truck, every piece of cargo, every person, every train, every boat, everything has to be seen by a cbp officer and admitted and released by the cbp officer. the great majority of those transactions are good law abiding companies and citizens and visitors. it's layering our enforcement processes on top of that without stopping or hindering that movement back and forth. really ferreted out those bad actors and things from coming in. that's where we try to reply really a dedicated and targeted effort based on intelligence based on our analysis and based on cooperation with our foreign partners and our partners within the governments at the federal and state and local levels to be able to best do that so we don't stop that commerce because that would be just as devastating as an attack. >> i agree. thank you. thank you for your service. special agent spero. >> thank you, senator.

i guess for my final point i would just like to add that i understand the -- your frustration with our ability to necessarily pin down exactly -- or identify exactly where the threats are because in immigration cuss tomorrow's enforcement or homeland security investigations point of view our focus is to attack trans national criminal organizations no matter what they're doing because what we're finding at hsi is these organizations are smuggling guns drugs, people weapons. it's the roots that we're trying to identify and attack and the organizations. that's why we feel like our elicit path attack strategy puts us on the right path. we are not focusing on the individual committing the crime. when we had hit that -- when we to.that seizure, we make that

big seizure or get a referral that's the beginning of the investigation for us. that's not the end. it doesn't stop there. what our strategy is to attempt to identify the whole scope of these global organizations, whether it's terrorist organizations or other criminal organizations. so that's, you know, reaching back and using that foot -- our international footprint to identify the bad actors or members of the organizations in the source countries in those transit countries, here in the united states if the united states is the ultimate destination can country but also working with our canadian partners. so you know, we're kind of changing the way that we measure success. i understand that the -- the old methods of straighten dietment, convictions, seizures and comparing them to the previous years or matching up with what the resources are aren't the best way to determine success. we've implemented a model where we're looking at what are the

cases that we're doing that are having the biggest impact on border security public safety and national security. so i absolutely i want to thank you for holding this hearing and bringing the attention to the northern border and certainly for giving me the opportunity to represent the men and women of immigration, customs enforcement and homeland security investigations. i know that they're out there every day trying to do the best they can to enforce the immigration and customs laws of the united states. >> we thank them and thank you for your service. mr. rodriguez. >> thank you, senator. i wanted to make a couple of notes interest an operational perspective. again, when we talked about additional resources for the northern border i want to make sure we don't overlook our intelligence capabilities and the challenges that we face and to that aspect i think our most critical support that we provide our partners is with intel analyst support. so i know we talked about agents investigators, but i don't want to leave that

component out as far as the need for int fence analysts. they play a critical role this our investigations. secondly i just want to point out a few gaps that my partners wanted to make sure i mentioned and that was radio inter operability along the border. it continues to be a problem especially in those remote areas that you're damn lar with as well as our radar coverage especially over the cascades where we have these deep canyons and we can't get radar to look down in there. so that also is one of the gaps we still need to address. and finally as far as looking at specifically drug trafficking organizations, we measure our success with the numbers that we dismantle and disrupt and, again, a third of our numbers are multi-national poly drug organizations that are impacting not only our southern border but also the northern border because we're seeing more and more of our southern border dtos coming

up and again trafficking more meth and cocaine into the united states and canada. >> they're businesses and they're looking for additional product lines and looking for additional markets and they're finding them and they're growing and metastasizing and it's an enormous problem. i also want to comment on the radio -- what we hope is complete operability or intra operability. it's consistently mentioned to us as a problem, it's probably not the sexiest technology cure but it's an incredibly important one so we have definitely heard that message as well. mr. heart neon. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would agree we face all the threats you've described and it can be frustrating, threats from potential terrorists, drug smugglers, alien smugglers, human traffickers, you name it and those are the threats that we face. i think we should think about it in terms of how we address those threats and we do it in a couple

of ways. first, we have to have really robust prosecution refresh sheems i think our u.s. attorney offices along the northern border, i know them all, they work hard, they bring good cases and now that we're staffing back up after some of the lean budget years that we experienced i think things are book looking up and the future is bright for us. robust enforcement certainly very important. the second thing that we need a close collaboration between our law enforcement agencies and with our canadian counterparts and we could use some assistance perhaps with some of our doj law enforcement agencies having resources to work within some of these task force formats, atf and dea in particular but we have to work toward integration with our canadian counterparts and we're taking steps to get there. finally as you described, we have to address some the root causes. i think we have to take a comprehensive approach to the --

to the drug problem that we have and to the crime problem that we have and that means to do other things other than just prosecute and incarcerate people. we can't just do that we have to take a more well-rounded approach, we have to spend effort on reentry and on prevention and i think the attorney general's smart on crime program is i think well-designed to take a comprehensive approach toward our crime problem. so thank you for the opportunity to be here today. i appreciate it. >> thank you. we're actually working on right now a field hearing on high levels of incarceration rates we will probably do that in milwaukee, somewhat talking about the issue you raised there. i did want to -- didn't want to is you a question because coming as a district attorney in the northern border sector when we were down mic allen we just did a sunday driving around with people off hours and local law enforcement was telling me that

the fight over prosecutorial jurisdiction isn't the fight that i would have expected. normally i'm hearing people, they want the collar, they want to be able to prosecute that criminal. that's not the case in the southern border because it's so expensive to prosecute and people's budgets are strained basically they're fighting over not having to prosecute individuals and as a result we got, again an deck totally we were told physicals there's 500 pounds of marijuana they don't even bother the ross cushion. that's on the southern border. as long as you are a district attorney on the northern border, what is the jurisdictional battles, what is the type of prosecution's threshold, the discretion that you use. >> we do have thresholds, typically large drug quantities the larger drug quantities are prosecuted in federal court primarily. we work very closely with our local district attorneys particularly along the northern border, four-county border area in the northern district of new

york. when we have a case that perhaps doesn't rise to the level of a federal prosecution we'll consult with our state counterparts and the case may end up being prosecuted in state court. i think we work collaboratively with them. i wouldn't say that there's a competition or desire to hand cases off. my experience is that we work very well, that we have a particular interest and needs and priorities and i think we can meld those together quite well. >> i've got four minutes left to vote. you've already voted. will you close out the hearing? is that okayy doeky. >> i'm a rookie here. let me say thank you all for the time you took i read the testimony, it's all very thoughtful, i know there's a lot of work and detail that goes into it. thank you for taking that time, taking your time here to come and testify. you're very thoughtful answers to our questions and i want to thank all my colleagues, this is a very well-intended hearing

which i think indicates how importantly we view this problem, but it also speaks to the complexity. there is an awful lot of -- awful lot of questions that need at least some answers and i know those answers are very difficult to get to. so again i want to thank you and i will turn it over to our ranking member. >> thank you, sir. thank you all for hanging in with us, at this point in time the finance committee has been in a mark up, we don't call it a business meeting but mark up on the trade legislation so i'm trying to be in two places at once not too long dog it too well and we're voting. it's a full morning. i want to ask a question that goes back to something that -- i don't know, chief, if you said it or mr. wagner said t but somebody said it you mentioned maybe -- maybe -- mr. hartunian it was you, but the party of native american lands was

mentioned. this action on the border between our country and canada and we have a similar situation with -- in -- along the border of mexico and at times i've heard from the mexican border that sometimes the smugglers, drug smugglers human traffickers use that land as a conduit to get through and try to get the cooperation of the folks who own that and live in that land -- live on that land. whoever raised this would you and others just chime in about how this is of interest to us on the north as well as on the south southern border. mr. spero. >> yes, senator thank you. there are -- that is true, there are some -- there certainly are some complexities when conducting investigations of crime on the native american reservations. one of the complexities certainly on the thorn border in the area of mohawk indian

reservation that mr. hartunian and i share jurisdiction with is just plainly the geography, it's tough terrain and ripe for smugglers to ex light in all seasons and then certainly you have that added -- the winter months. >> which country is it in? >> the indian reservation actually has territory both on the canadian side and on the u.s. side. the geography itself poses a lot of challenges towards law enforcement. on top of the geography in addition to the geography there is some political sensitivities with the native population wanting to maintain as much sovereignty as they can sometimes we have to over come that challenge of gaining their trust. in some cases it's a very

close-knit small population and that, again, poses some issues or challenges for us that are somewhat unique, but on the other hand one of the things that is getting better from our standpoint and we're making a lot more progress is our marina best up there. >> i'm sorry. >> our macina border security task force. we actually have the mohawk police service representatives on that -- participate on the task force as well as the st. regis police officers on our task force. they have been -- there are members that have been cross-designated with title 19 authorities so they're necessarily depp u advertised customs agents and are working those cases with us. in reality we know all of the challenges, i met the smuggling organizations know what they are, too, and they try to do their best to exploit

everything. so we're trying to do a better job with our outreach on the indian reservation, our close coordination and collaboration with the -- with the that i testify american police forces on that reservation and working together to do everything we can to mitigate that threat, sir. >> all right. others on this point, please. anybody? chief, mr. wagner, let's go down to the southern border with mexico. do we have a similar situation in some areas along the southern border is this how do we figure out how to work with the native americans to be able to secure that portion of the border? >> yes. senator, as described in the -- on the at that hone ma odom situation which the geography takes on the western portion in arizona, both in tucson and what we call the west desert, that tribe does extend in the united states and into mexico. so part of their -- when you

look -- when we look at the border in terms of trying to you know identify, you know, likely roots of entry over the years as we have built both primary pedestrian fence and vehicle barricades it was -- it's always challenging to try to work with the tribe, work with the leadership in the tribe and letting them know if they will allow us to put some impediments along the border or bring infrastructure or technology to help increase our situational awareness. early in those discussions years ago it was very difficult to make the case until the infrastructure and technology started to manifest around the reservation, which obviously the path of least resistance came through the tahona owe dumb nation. up until the middle of 2013 the vast majority of trafficking across the southern border came through arizona and the vast majority of that traffic came through the west desert and the nation.

they realized the vulnerability and we are working a lot better with them. as a matter of fact, we are currently in the process of developing integrated fixed towers. now, the first phase of that as you well know was in nogalus. in late summer we were in the process going to transition into phase two and we currently have authorization from the tribe to be able to move into deployment of integrated fixed towers to cover a vast region of that reservation. so that will be for us something that's been a long time number coulding, sir. >> all right. thanks very much. last question i will present to all of you here today is -- goes back to something i oftentimes say. i like to say. find out what works, do more of that find out what doesn't work and do less of that. that advice was presented to the finance committee a couple years ago when i was serving on it at a hearing by allen blinder. allen blinder when he was asked what should we do on deficit reduction with respect to

healthcare and reigning in healthcare costs and he said i'm not an expert on this stuff here is what i would do find out what works, do more of that. and i said do you mean find out what doesn't work, do less of that? ? he said yes. so with that spirit and that thought in mind could you all just take maybe a minute or so apiece and just talk to us again about what is working on the northern border that appears to be working that is recommend cabell along our northern border and to be ex ported to the southern border and make some of the best practices interest your experience and observation on the northern border that would be smart to try on the southern border. mr. hartunian. >> yes. thank you, senator. great question. what's working, robust enforcement. that's not it to say that's not happening on the southern

border. i think our u.s. attorneys offices are working very hard, their ausas are working hard to get the job done but it's a critical component. i think what works on the northern border is slows collaboration with the canadians, while that may be a bit more challenging in mexico i think it can be done and close collaboration between the prosecutors of both nations. that is something that we're seeing happen more and more. we're working to improve that make that happen more frequently and i think that that's certainly an important approach that we can take. so i would relate those two things. >> is one of the reasons why we work better with the canadians in terms of sharing information is we have less concerns about that information finding itself in the wrong hands in canada? >> well, i think -- you know, i think that there is cooperation with the mexican authorities, you know i think in all cases we have to be careful how we share law enforcement

information. that's certainly not a barrier that can't be overcome. >> okay. good. thank you. mr. rodriguez please. >> from -- >> you were in dea weren't you for a number of years. >> for 27 years. >> thank you for that as well into from my perspective it's just not the one meeting, the one event the one policy discussion. we have a number of conversation cans both with our federal partners on the border as well as with canadians year-round, it could be case specific it could be program specific, but -- and if we have to we then follow up on these discussions where we will put a working group together to work on maybe some ship rider issues or intel issues that we need to look at specifically dma or ecstasy. so that's -- i think those are the best practices that work well for us on the northern border and that makes us unique and that we need to keep going

and hopefully we can eventually have those types of processes in place on the southern border to help there. >> all right. thanks. mr. spero, same question please. >> senator carper, i appreciate the question. i actually had a little bit of extra time to formulate my answer and i guess the best way for me to describe it or the way i look at it is that it's not necessarily how do we take what's working on the northern borer an bring it town to the southern border, but it's an exchange of best practices across both borders as well as the interior of the united states and i use the border enforcement security task forces or the best as the example. the best was originally created in lor raid dough in 2005 to combat the violence associated with the trans national criminal organizations that were affecting specifically the southern border. that model, the success of that

model with the collaboration and cooperation of working together on the cases was then brought up to the northern border and now we have four northern border best task forces. i happen to oversee two in my aor of buffalo, the port of buffalo best as well as the nacina best, but at the same time it doesn't just stop there. we don't bring what we've learned from the southwest border and thing it up into the northern border. we had a great framework to start with, but then we take that to the next level. so our abilities to expand those best. we actually have over -- just about 43 members now of our best team in am macina. so our abilities to incorporate our canadian law enforcement counterparts at all levels, whether it's the rcmp and the cbsa but the -- quebec or the

regional police offices and having as much not just information sharing, because of course information sharing is extremely important, but we're able to actually take the information and those collaboration sessions and put them to use in our investigations and that's how we complete that last piece of identifying, disrupting and dismantling the trans national criminal organizations that are the biggest threats to the homeland. >> good. thank you. mr. wagner. >> senator, at the ports of entry it's really we focus on the risk segment asian of the workload and looking at ways to better utilize the physical infrastructure that's there and getting the most efficient sees we can out of it. how we define something as lower risk or high remember risk is dependent on what access to the information we have, that's also enhanced by what our foreign art nurse are sharing with us. we have very good data exchange

information exchanged with the canadian government and the mexican government. they have different capacities as to what access they can get and what information they collect and then within their own privacy constraints what they can share with us, but it's a little different within both countries we we do robust information exchanges as well as mexican government as well as the canadian government that helps us headache that risk segment asian development. >> my time was expired and my colleagues are back. would you answer that question for me for the record please. >> yes, senator, you mentioned it briefly. i think the institutionalization of what we see on the northern border as far as shared information which then you have a degree of sustainability in that effort. we can do a lot better on the sw in that regard. thank you senator. >> thank you all great job. >> thanks for holding down the fort. >> the senator floor picking up senators, thank you all for being here.

i appreciate it and you know, representing new hampshire, northern border is receipty important to us and i'm not if you've been asked this very yet, but one of the directors of national intelligence, james clapperer, has identified drug trafficking obviously as a major trans national organized crime. in my state we're seeing a heroin epidemic and i know a lot of that's coming over the southern border. so what's the biggest issues that we're facing on the northern border and how -- can you help me understand how is the information sharing with canadian authorities because that's where my local law enforcement and my state police and even the federal officials that work in new hampshire would be working on the canadian side. whoever is best to take that question. yeah. >> thank you, senator.

well, with specific to heroin, you're right, we are seeing heroin that's coming up through mexico and the intelligence that we're developing from our ongoing criminal investigations and our closed investigations is that, you know, we're seeing either precursor chemicals or heroin coming from china, it's getting into -- it's being imported into mexico under the control of the cartels, the cartels are using the existing smuggling get works to get them into the united states through the southwest border and whether those smuggling networks are -- you know, the smuggling networks you use to smuggle anything so whether it's people or whether it's drugs the cartels have control of the networks and the pathways and they're using that to get heroin into the country for either ultimate consumption here in the united states or in some cases on into canada as

well. one of the things that we had -- we were talking about was our ability and our need to make sure that we do everything that we can across all levels of law enforcement, whether it's federal, state or local law enforcement or in my particular neck of the woods even travel law enforcement and international law enforcement as well particularly with our canadian counterparts on the canadian side of the borer. where we have the biggest issues in my particular aor, the macina or rouses point area. we use our security task forces as a mechanism to share information back and forth with our canadian counterparts. so we have -- we actually have crossed-designated -- we've given essentially title 19 or customs authority basically making state and local law

enforcement designated customs officials, but also we are able to do that with canadian local law enforcement officials as well and then they can come and work the networks on this side of the border. so that the idea here is to open up information sharing, work the cases together and instead of -- not only trying to remove the u.s./canadian border as a potential barrier to law enforcement, this this some cases we're even actually able to use it to our advantage. so we understand it's a problem, you know heroin seems to be on the rise but one of the things that we think is the best way to conduct any -- to identify disrupt or dismantle these trans national criminal organizations no matter what commodity they smuggle, whether it's heroin, cocaine or marijuana or firearms for that matter, is to identify

the scope of the organization. in the source countries, transit countries, destination countries and work together with law enforcement at all levels to share the information and work the cases. >> so i get all that, just thinking about how do we drive up the price of heroin? because one of the problems we have right now with heroin is it's so cheap. obviously the more we can make it tougher for them to transport this stuff over -- it's so cheap that some people are addicted to prescription drugs, they go over to heroin and it's really fueling this huge public health epidemic, not just in new hampshire, it's across this country. i mean, do we need to give you bigger -- what do we need to give you to help you to drive up the price to really come down on the people transporting heroin? >> one of the things that we look at in any of the drug trade and whether it's the heroin, you know, and i should have also mentioned before one of the

newer trends that we're seeing with respect to heroin is the heroin laced with the fentanyl which would be the deadliest part of the drug. >> it's heroin on steroids basically. >> absolutely, ma'am. almost with any business model i think that, you know, if we can be more effective at reducing you know the supply then that would drive up the -- that would be one way to drive up the price. another thing that we're trying to do is with almost every enforcement program that we have at homeland security and investigations there's also a public service announcement message that goes along with it. so if we do have a particularly big search warrant where there's a big seizure or arrest or big sentence we try and get out to the you be public that, you know, hey, if it's the kids that are using the heroin laced with fentanyl to get out there and say, look, you don't know -- you don't know what you're using, what the impacts are on you.

so not only did we just conduct this investigation and make this arrest, but this -- parents, this is where -- kids, this is why it's important that you don't use it, because you don't -- >> we've got to do a better job overall with that. i have a question about in terms of canada. as i understand it right now, and i'm not sure whoever the best person to answer the question i will just field it. right now as i understand it canada doesn't have a is it system in place to screen inbound airplane passengers against the terrorist watch list and so they are moving toward the capability. is this true? and if so, those on the terrorist watch list can presumably enter canada on an airplane. is that true? who knows about that and can you help me understand that? because i'm really worried about, you know, we've got these foreign fighters that have gone to obviously syria iraq yemen, some of these are canadians, we've had some americans, too, but, you know, canada is

fairly -- we have a great relationship with canada and so if you can get to canada without getting through the watch list it's really not that hard to get to the united states of america. so what are your thoughts on this problem? >> i don't know if they have direct access to the u.s. government watch list and that they screen against that directly, but they have a similar system that we do of screening airline passengers against the airline reservation systems and the airline manifest before that person comes into that country. we work very closely with them and we identify similar approaches to how we screen that. we call them rules and we set rules against how we scrub that data and how we identify national security or any other types of concerns. we do joint rule creation we do rules exchanges and we have certain protocols in had place that when certain rules fire we'll exchange information and ask each other about additional information. >> do you know if they have the equivalent of our terrorist watch list? war they checking their passenger list against? >> it's against their own systems and their own list.

they do, i believe, have a national security list, customs records, immigration lookouts, access to the inter poll. >> thinking about a friendly neighbor like canada why can't we -- why couldn't we join forces on some of that in terms of terrorist watch lists information? i know we do information sharing, but it seems to me that we've got some -- some -- if we can't trust the canadians we're in trouble. any thoughts on that? >> we don't own that information so it really wouldn't be ours to exchange with them. as consumers and users ever it we would welcome access to any additional sources of information. >> maybe i'm ask asking that of the wrong person. i serve on the aviation -- i'm the chairman of the aviation committee and i think this is perhaps a question i should direct to tsa. >> if somebody does fly into canada and drive across the border we run the same data base and watch list checks at the land border as we do in commercial aviation, they are the same systems and same data.

>> so you would catch it there. >> correct. >> catch an individual there if they presumably were on our list even if canada didn't catch it? >> correct. >> thanks. >> thanks senator. that is a really good point. my understanding is same as yours, is that they are not using our watch list and that's something i think we need to press to see what we can do to cooperate between the two governments. >> especially two governments that have a good relationship. >> correct. so, again, thank you for coming. again, thank you all for your time, your efforts your testimony. this hearing record will remain open for 15 days until may 7th for the submission of statements and questions for the record. this hearing is adjourned. next a republican leadership in new hampshire including remarks from steve king of iowa and former texas governor rick perry. and then ash carter on sexual assault and prevention in the military. then a format on women at the

carnegie endowment on international piece. today a replay of our complete coverage of the white house correspond events dinner from the red carpet a rivals and concluding with remarks interest president obama and comedian ses a lee strong starting and noon eastern on c span. >> their stories in first ladies, the book. >> she did save the portrait of washington, which was one of the things that endeared her to the entire nation. >> whoever could find out where frances was staying, what she was wearing, what she was doing, what she looked like, who she was seeing, that was going to help sell papers. >> she takes over a radio station and starts running it. i mean how do you do that? and she did it. >> she exerted enormous influence because she would move a mountain to make sure that her husband was protected. >> first ladies, now a book, pup lishd by public affairs, looking

inside the personal life of every first lady in the american history based on original interviews from c span's first lady series, learn about their lives, ambitions families and unique partnerships with their presidential spouses. first ladies, presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women, filled with lively stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house sometimes at a great personal cost, often changing history. c span's first ladies is an illuminating entertaining and inspiring read though available as a hard cover or an e book through your favorite bookstore or online book seller. this month the republican party of new hampshire hosted a leadership summit in nashua. speakers include you former texas governor rick perry and iowa representative steve king. this will be followed by a republican national committee panel on the 2016 elections. the two portions run about an

hour and 15 minutes. [ applause ] snoo thank you very much. i just really appreciate the chance to be here and the first in the nation primary for the president of the united states coming from the state where we have the first in the nation caucus, planning on being in south carolina next month where they are going to wrap up maybe the work that we will to in iowa and in new hampshire. i just want to let you know how important this is, that we get this right. our values are right. when i come from iowa and go to new hampshire i meet people that think like my neighbors and you love this country, you understand the principles of constitutional conservatism. the thing i forgot to tell you about me is this, and jennifer didn't put it into the introduction and, yes, i serve in the united states congress and i do high job there as i see fit and the best as i know how.

when you see people that come into new hampshire and start rumors and they go to south carolina and iowa and start rumors, i think i'm the only member of the united states congress that can go to iowa and new hampshire and south carolina all in the same week and not start any rumors. and in the process of doing that -- my long island friend -- in the process of doing that i also have the privilege to meet the people that are stepping forward and we need to respect them, we need to invite them into our homes and plan our events and to these kind of things. two days of this kind of thing here and then a follow-up on sunday as well. but the early states set the tone. what will happen is in iowa where we're all politics all the time, just like it's all politics all the time in new hampshire, we will punch one or two tickets for new hampshire. you will look at that recommendation from iowa and you'll punch maybe only one ticket for south carolina possibly two. if iowa and new hampshire concur

on who we think that nominee ought to be a year from this coming january and early february, if we concur on that -- excuse me, just a year from now -- if we concur on that and south carolina punches that same ticket, if iowa, new hampshire, south carolina agree, we're very likely to have ourselves a nominee. one of the most important things we can do is get our values into the oval office. as i watch these presidential candidates i can tell you that they can see themselves standing behind the podium with the great sale of the united states as president, they haven't selected their platform yet. we know what they believe, but they don't all know what you believe and what you will get behind. so as they give speeches to groups like this and they see how it resonates they start selecting things for their platform. we help select the planks for the platform for the next president of the united states we shape them and hone them and ge give the next president the tools to get elected. here is a couple suggestions for a full spectrum constitutional conservatism and i hope they're

in there. one is a plan to defeat the ideology of radical islam globally. [ applause ] >> we can't be thinking that this is going to be a perpetual police action and a law enforcement -- they hate us they're at war with us we've defeated ideologies before and within a half a century and the previous century we defeated naziism japanese imperial and the soviet union. we can do this again. and i ask our presidential candidate shape that out. second thing, transformative tax reform. the kind that actually stimulates our economy and reaches into those 93 million americans of working age who are not in the work force because we have 80 different means tested well tear systems out there essentially briek them not to work. third thing, the will to balance the budget doesn't kiss in the congress today and i don't know how we get that had will to do

so as entitlements grow and discretionary spending shinks. we need a balance budget amendment to the united states constitution. if we send that out of congress to the states you'll ratify that in iowa and we'll do so in new hampshire and in south carolina and then we will be back to fiscal responsibility again. here is what this presidential race is about, it's about the soul of america. it's about who we are as a people. it's about what we believe in. do we believe in these constitutional principles? are we -- are we the unchallenged greatest nation in the world? can our children identify what that is brought that about? can they list the pillars of american exceptionalism? can they restore those pillars of american exceptionalism? whom speak to our soul in who will look in our eye in new hampshire and iowa and around this country? who can look into the eye of the

camera as president of the united states in the oval office as ronald reagan did and speak to our soul? whom come out of this lineup of excellent candidates that we have that will be used to be the individual who restores the soul of america? that's our challenge that's in front of us. this is about the constitution the rule of law, but it's more so about restoring the soul of america, who we are as a people and i hope that between iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and beyond as they go through this gauntlet of the nomination process we're able to identify that individual and help put the strength of our own convictions into him so that he arrives at the oval office ready to do those things that takes america to the next level of our destiny. god bless you here in new hampshire. i appreciate the hospitality. you're a great bunch of people. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you congressman. that was a rousing speech. our next guest i had the opportunity about a year ago to go with a group of republicans down to austin and to meet with our next speaker in the governor's mansion and what i found out about rick perry is that he has a passion for history. he took us on a tour renee, you remember this, danny, you remember this -- he took us on a tour of the mansion and every painting he had a story, every individual who is depicted there he told us some of the background of that individual. rick perry was the 47th governor of the state of texas. he served four consecutive terms from 2000 to 2015. he is the longest serving

governor in texas history and he presided over some of the longest periods of economic growth and job creation in the country. they say that things are bigger in texas. well let's so he the governor that in new hampshire we can give a texas-sized welcome. please join me in welcoming governor rick perry. [ applause ] >> awesome. oh, man, thank you all. we were here last night with the u.s. army association so i think y'all have them -- i'm not going to tell the army, but y'all outcheered them. so we -- we had a fabulous event

in here and got to share with some real heroes of this country last night. you think back about this country and you think about the people who truly were some extraordinary individuals in america. president lincoln obviously comes to mind. he had a quote that he said once, he said, while the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness and folly can be seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. obviously he didn't know about the obama administration. another one of his illinois nay tiffs. but the fact is in 2014 the american people they did exercise a little vigilance, if you will. they -- actually, it was the first time that we had the opportunity for the american people to make an informed

judgment on the obama years and it was then and only then that they began to understand what ending the war in iraq really meant. what the impact of that was for our country. for the world. it was then they saw the consequences of the empty words toward that dictator in syria, the red line that was drawn. it was then that we witnessed the russian president as he annexed crimea, the orchestrater of these policies that we have seen that i just mentioned will most likely be the democrat nominee for president. she's the one that literally brought the reset button to the kremlin, to reestablish those new relationships with russia.

well, they did reset us, that's for sure. they reset us back to pre 1989 from my perspective. the american people saw all of this. they saw the weakness abroad they saw lies about obamacare, they saw the sand dal with the va they saw the sirs looking into your records the swap of a military deserter for five terrorists and we saw a crazy man walk into the front of the white house and nobody seemed to know where he came from. i'm talking about the crazy man that walked through -- that wasn't supposed to be there, okay? don't get it -- i know somebody will take that wrong. but the american people saw all of that and in november of last year they said, that's enough. but just because they rejected the obama administration doesn't mean that they are embracing

republicans. basically what they said in november was we're going to give you another chance to govern to the republican party and i'm here to say that a congressional majority is a terrible thing to waste. [ applause ] >> two things are abundantly clear to me, one, america is at a time of testing and our leaders are failing the best. and number two, in response to the many crises that we are seeing around the world that we're experiencing in the world today, both at home and abroad, i might add, the conservative movement must be the agent of reform. there is something wrong when the dow jones is at record high but businesses on main street are struggling just to get a loan. since when did capitalism

involve the violation of moral hazard for the biggest banks while regulations are literally strangling our community banks? as a boy who grew up in a community called paint creek a place that, well, until i got to be the governor it wasn't on the map. i tell people one of my first acts as a governor was to call the text dot guys and say i want a little dot right here, paint creek. but that unincorporated place that those communities relied upon those small banks for the loans that kept the agriculture producers going, there's something wrong when we're told the economy is going yet one in -- american is either out of work, underemployed or has just completely given up looking for a job. it's washington's answer to the middle class has all too on be let's just spend more money. liberals in washington have spent 30 years krit sidesing reg began no, ma'am mix while delivering what i refer to as

trickle down liberallism. their view is clear give more power and money to the federal government, let the liberals, the ee lights as i refer to them take care of their approximate pet causes leaving an ever shrinking pie to the middle class of america. their answer to jobs is spend close to a trillion dollars on stimulus, wash that money through the bureaucracy and hopefully a few jobs will get created somewhere along the way. it is no wonder that washington is now the richest metropolitan area in america. not because they create wealth but because they redistribute it. we have to ask ourselves when did the accountability in america work from the bottom up instead of from the top town? where these large corporations don't pay taxes and single moms working two jobs have to. we're not going to fix

washington by electing a president who is from washington, of washington or for that matter for washington. change is only going to come from the outside from my perspective and so should be the next president. there is nothing wrong in america today that condition be fixed with new leadership. i believe that with all high heart. i think we're only a due good decisions away. we're only a few good decisions away and a leadership change at the top, from the best days this country has ever seen, from reviving this economy, rebuildings our military restoring our place in the world and i happen to think we can start with our tax code. we have the highest corporate tax rate in the western world. we need to lower it corporate taxes reform, we know what happens, the economists tell us, you lower the corporate tax rate

10% and mid-level jobs go up 5% to 10%. every blue collar worker in this country should be saying i'm for the republicans because they're going to lower the corporate tax rate so i see my wages go up. that's what this story ought to be about by the republican party as we go across this country. we need to repeal every one of those perverse incentives that keep people interest working. i happen to think one of the many flaws of obamacare is that it causes employers to move people from full time jobs to part-time jobs to avoid a massive tax insurance cost. repeal it. i mean it's easy enough to figure this one out. eric, we're going to put it back in your hands. we're going to put it back in the new hampshire legislature hands. i trust governors and legislatures to figure out how to deliver healthcare a whole lot better than i do a bureaucrat in washington, d.c.

[ applause ] >> come to think of it i trust governors and legislatures all across this country more than i do bureaucrats. how in the world -- how in the world are we ever going to really make progress in this country when we allow federal bureaucrats to decide what the curriculum is going to be in the states? i will suggest to you that the whole concept of common core is just like obamacare, a bureaucrat in washington, d.c. to sit there and decide what is going to be the right curriculum. that is nonsense. you're either for the 10th amendment or you're not. you're either for governors -- we're sitting in the white house. i believe in 2014 and bobby jindal who i admire greatly, an incredibly smart and bright governor asked the president, he said, mr. president, what do you think about how can we get flexibility to allow for the states to be able to have those collars and come up with the ways to deliver healthcare and the president looked at him and basically said i don't trust

governors and legislatures to deliver healthcare. that's the mentality that we're up against and that's the reason we've got to share with the american people that there is hope for the future. that the best days are ahead of us in this absolutely the the best days in america, and i will suggest to you, not only that tax policy, but also connecting it to energy policy in this country. i was incredibly frustrated. i was upset when the president vetoed that pipeline. because what he said is america is not going to be energy secure. he allowed a small deliver of his political base to make a decision that i'll suggest to you was terrible for the rest of this country. i happen to believe in a north american energy strategy. a strategy that canada, the united states and mexico working together. where we can be a secure region of the world. there are more known reserves in that area of the world than

there is in russia and saudi arabia. and we need to be using it. we need to be opening up all of those energy resources. have this country, have this region relying upon north american energy. you couple that with corporate tax policy. that lowers that corporate rate and here's the result. you will drive down energy costs. you'll see electricity become incredibly viable as that power source you couple that with a corporate tax policy that will give incentives enthe greatest days of america are in front of us. they're not behind us. that is the future of this country. that type of thoughtful policy that gives incentives, that inveigh rates the middle class. that gives them opportunities. when i think about what's

happening in america i know there is and i see that pessimism, but the best days can be ahead of us in this country. and i see the same pessimism as we go around the world. as we see our allies questioning whether america is going do be there. you as a citizen, you open up the newspaper, you turn on the tv. you flip on the radio, you grab your device. you see individuals being led to a beach in libya and be beheaded. you see a young jordanian pilot burned alive in front of us. you see the young christian college kids that are murdereded. and there's pessimism in the world. and we think back and look at libya and see what happened to libya and we see egypt. we think about our best friend

and most reliable partner, the most vibrant democracy in the middle east treated the way israel has been treated. we think about syria. and we realize that we missed an incredible opportunity to stop isis in its tracks in syria early by funding the syrian rebels. and we could have gotten rid of assad as well i would suggest to you. but our president stood back. and then they left isis and went into northern iraq. and at that particular point in time, i will suggest to you, had the americans delivered lethal weapons to those fighters in northern kurdistan, they would have stopped isis. but we didn't. today isis controls a greater part of that region in the world than the entirety of the size of the united kingdom. and while all that was going on somebody watching. vladimir putin was watching.

he realized crimea wasn't going to be a problem to annex. he realized he could venture into the the ukraine. there's messpessimism in the world. people look at the united states and wonder, what are we doing? there's pessimism in the world as we look at iran and we look at this negotiation that supposedly is going on that's with a country that is responsible for marines being killed in beirut. a country responsible for weapons that went into iraq and killed our young men and women. a country that still exports terrorism to hezbollah and hamas. there's pessimism in the world. but it doesn't have to be that way. just as i think the best days are ahead of us in this country with the right policies put into place, very quickly can we see that same type of change in the

world. i reminds people. i say look back to 1979. there was pessimism in this country, and there was pessimism in the world. think about what you saw in many 19 1979, you saw not only our wheat being embargoed but our kids didn't go compete in one of the great events of the world to the moscow olympics. we saw a debacle in the sands of iran. the world was really pessimistic at that point in time. this was a brutal period of time in america from my perspective. i was just trying to get started farming. that's what we were facing. but you fast forward ten years to 1989, and we saw the berlin wall fall the end of soviet

communism because we had rebuilt our military and a president had the vision to rebuild this country. and we can do that again. this is an incredibly -- incredibly resilient country. we've lived through a civil war. we lived through two world wars. we lived through jimmy carter. we'll live through barack obama. i promise you. we will do this. i am optimistic about the future of this country. i am. i know what's possible because i had the great opportunity to govern a state that has been able to do extraordinary things during that period of time. when you think about what occurred from december of '07 to december '14 1.5 million jobs

were created in the state. the wrest of the country lost 400,000 jobs. we saw 5.6 million people added. during that same period of time, we were 27th in the the nation in high school graduation rates in 2002-2003. by 2013 we had second highest graduation rates in america. that's what you can do when you free people from taxation overregulation, overlitigation. t americans will respond and they'll respond in a powerful way. that's our opportunity. it's in front of us. we're just a few good decisions and a leadership change at the top from the best day this is country has ever seen. ronald reagan understood it when he said when america is stronger, the world is safe. and that's is exactly what we're facing today. leadership that understands the faith they have in the american people. and that the sacrifices that have been made for us are powerful. when i walk off this stage i'm

going directly to the airport and fly home. to celebrate my father's 90th birthday. and i want to share with you in 2000 i took him back to his old air base. he was a 19-year-old air crewman on a b17. reflew 35 missions over nazi-held germany. and after we visited his old base and we visited the base i served at there back in the '70s we went across that english channel one more time. half way across my dad looked up, and he said '71. i said what are you talking about, dad? he said it's my 71st trip across the english channel. over and back 35 times on a b17 and one more time.

and we went to norm diandy and we visited that cemetery above the english channel, and we stood above that extraordinary site, that view, those thousands of graves. those crosses and stars of david. interestingly, they all look west. every one of them. west to america. west to america that they had left. left to america that they were willing to defend. to their death. to an america they would never return to. i happen to think today they look upon us in silent judgment, and today we need to ask ourselves, do we remain a nation worthy of their sacrifice? if we've learned the lessons of

their generation, that evil must be confronted that courage is the greatest weapon in the arsenal of free men and women, then america must always lead. if we are to always be free. and i know the answer to that. the answer to that is an overwhelming yes we will deliver this country back to the track and to the people who gave us the opportunity. the best days of this country are ahead of us. the best days of the world are ahead of us. because we're going to make the right decisions and we're going to elect the right leader to lead the country as we go forward. god bless you and thank you for letting me come and be a part of this today.