the security implications of extending the nuclear agreement with china. federal investigators say that the amtrak train that crashed in philadelphia on tuesday night killing at least seven people was traveling at

106 miles per hour before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit is just 50 miles an hour. more than 200 people aboard the washington-to-new york train were injured in the wreck. lawmakers gave their reaction during hearings and on the house and senate floors. we're going to show you just a couple of them now. >> before we begin today i'd like everyone to keep in their thoughts and prayers the passengers, employees, first responders, victims, families who were involved in last night's derailment just outside of philadelphia. a number of agencies in this bill, the department of transportation federal railroad administration, amtrak, philadelphia's transit agency partially funded through the

federal transit administration and the national transportation safety board are all working to respond to the derailment and investigate the cause of the accident and provide aid and comfort to the victims and their families. it's likely to be a while before we get answers on the why and how this happened. the ntsb is on site starting their investigation. i know the federal railroad administration and amtrak are there to cooperate and assist in any way possible. that's why it's so important that the committee complete its work so that these agencies can do their chores. with that let me turn now to the chairman of the subcommittee mario diaz ballart

on his maiden voyage on these choppy seas. mr. chairman? >> thank you so much. before we begin i'd like to extend our thoughts our prayers to the passengers, to the victims, the families of the victims of last night's disaster as well as to the first responders and health care providers who always do such a great job and tend to be unsung heroes. i know that we can speak for everyone not only in this committee but around the country, that our hearts and prayers are with them. again, it's a sad and frightening event. as the chairman said, as with any transportation disaster the ntsb will conduct a thorough and professional investigation and issue a report of their findings and from those findings, congress must look at what we can do to try to avoid this from ever happening again. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. i apologize for getting here so

late. i was in another hearing. i want to express my condolences to those who were injured in last night's terrible accident, to the families of the victims who died. also want to express my strong support for amtrak. tens of millions of passengers ride the northeast corridor every year, including me passing through penn station to my district in baltimore. sadly, the republicans on the house appropriations committee have proposed cutting capital funding for this service by 25% for fiscal year 2016. while we can not speculate on the causes of last night's accident media reports indicate that it occurred in a sharp curve and there are many such curves and tight turns along this very old coreridor.

we would never find it acceptable to operate 19th century technology and yet we continue to operate many sections in the northeast corridor on 19th century technology. we should be expanding it and take all necessary steps to make it into a good repair. a bill pending before congress would expand the fencing along the border at an expense of $2.4 billion, that according to senator cory booker. there was a hearing on technology and border security today that included testimony from homeland security and u.s. customs and border protection officials. senator booker asked them, quote, what's the payoff? before we throw money at the problem, we should find out if we're getting a return on our

investment. the hearing is about two hours. this hearing will come to order. our ranking member is still a few minutes out, so we'll get under way here. when he gets here, i will express again the fact that we're very glad that senator carper's stop was in wilmington. he was on the train that derailed and, of course, our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims of that tragedy. our thoughts and prayers are also with all of our law enforcement officials that, you know, step out of their door stop every day and risk their lives for our public safety. and rather than me say it, i can't say it better than what secretary jeh johnson said in the letter. i would like to read this. dear colleagues, this is national police week.

this week we honor the sacrifice and commitment of the men and women in law enforcement. we pay special tribute to those who have given their lives in the line of duty and offer support to their families. the past year our department lost two border patrol agents in the line of duty. this week's agents names will be added to the memorial in washington, d.c. i'm also mindful of border patrol agent xavier vega jr. who last august was killed during a robbery while fishing with his family in texas. whatever you are this week, i encourage you to honors to who have chosen the law enforcement profession. i ask everybody here in the hearing room, in honor of those individuals that secretary johnson was commending as well as all of our law enforcement officials that have given their last full measure just if we recognize a moment of silence.

thank you. i can actually ask consent to have my opening statement read into the record. and i guess what i would like to do is get right down to testimony. it is tradition of this committee that we swear in witnesses so if everybody rise and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> thank you, please be seated. >> our first witness is assistant commissioner randolph d. alles.

pronounce that right? alles. okay. i rarely get it right. don't feel bad. randolph alles is the assistant commissioner for the office of air and marine of the department of homeland security. oam is the largest aviation and maritime law enforcement organization. he served as the u.s. marine corps for 35 years, retiring in 2011 as major general. assistant commissioner alles. >> thank you, sir. and good afternoon, sir. good to see you again. you may recall we last visited our site in corpus christi in january. thank you for coming down to see that. i would encourage any members of the committee to come visit our sites. i think that's very beneficial in understanding what we do better. as you noted, the office is a critical component of our later border strategy. the personnel operate 257 aircraft, 283 vessels and sophisticated network across the u.s., puerto rico and the virgin

islands. oam's critical and maritime missions fall into four areas, main awareness, investigation, interdiction and contingency operations and national taskings. we not only contribute to the security of our land border, but facilitate efforts with the coast guard to secure the coastal shoreline through the coordinated use of integrated air and marine forces. since the consolidation of air and marine assets 11 years ago, we have transformed a border air wing composed of light observation aircraft into a modern air and maritime fleet, with sophisticated surveillance sensors and communication systems. we are working to increase the connectivity and net working among all our air and marine assets and continuing the effort to reduce the number of our aircraft type and position our assets for highest utilization increasing the operations. i would like to highlight a few of our assets and describe how technology is force multiplier

that respond to threats to our nation's borders. first is the -- our mq 9 predator that plays a critical role in the border strategy and management by increasing situational awareness so that air, land and maritime environments. it just returned from deployment in el salvador where it contributed to seizures of $362 million of contraband. second is our multienforcement aircraft, with sophisticated technology systems allow it to be effective over land and water, replacing several older aircraft, single mission aircraft and inside so it will be beneficial for us. beyond that, we use our cbp, beyond our borders, our track and airborne early warning aircraft which have been central in countering natural operations in the transit zone and also against transnational criminal organizations moving drugs out of the source zone through the

transit zone and in towards the united states. we work in conjunction with aviation assets, interceptor vessels to operate in coastal waters to combat smuggling and protect u.s. ports from acts of terrorism and we have our air marine operations center, national task force that focuses on criminal use of noncommercial air and advances. so chairman johnson and the ranking member when he comes and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the capabilities and our efforts and in securing our borders. i look forward to taking your questions and look forward if you can come out to our sites. thank you. >> thank you. our next witness is assistant commissioner mark borkowski, he is the assistant commissioner for the office of technology and innovation and acquisition with u.s. customs and border pro

section of the department of homeland security. he's responsible for ensuring technology efforts are properly focused on mission and well integrated access across cbp. mr. borkowski served as the component acquisition executive. prior to his deployment, he served as the border initiative program. mr. borkowski. >> thank you, chairman johnson and senator booker. appreciate the opportunity to be here today. i represent the acquisition community. our responsibility is to deliver the stuff that the operators need. we buy it. i know there is some question about the distinction between us and dhssnt. let me highlight that a little bit to start. dhsnt makes sure there is stuff there. it is not always ready. we don't always have systems, technologies, software that we need. so first has to be there. once it is there, we have to figure out how best to get it. that means we have to know what the options are, we have to do

the business case analysis, we have to figure out how many to buy and have to understand why we're buying it. and for that, of course, we ask the people in uniform, the green or the tan or the blue uniforms, the folks on either side, they describe what we need. it is our job then in acquisition to somehow put that in practice and deliver capability that those operators can use to produce mission outcomes. our focus, the thing we have gotten the most attention on recently, has been the technology for surveillance between the ports of entry. as you know, there is a program called sbi net, which was a very challenging program. we concluded it was not the right system to go across the entire border and much too expensive. we scaled down our ambitions somewhat and selected a much more modest portfolio of systems that the border patrol selected and tailored to each area of the border. we focused that on arizona because that's where the action was at the time. we are in the throes of completing that plan, which we call the arizona technology

plan. and it consists of everything from small, you can imagine handheld long range binocular like sensors to more complex systems on high towers with radars and cameras connected in a command and control center and the purpose of those systems is to give the border patrol better information about what's on the ground, what the threat of that activity is, whether it is a migrant or somebody carrying a weapon, and more options for how to respond. outside of arizona, obviously, the border patrol indicated to us there is activity there is migration. as we have done things in arizona, traffic migrated or for a variety of other reasons. south texas is an area. what we have done is because we were successful in the arizona technology plan, in saving money, we have been able to divert resources to south texas and largely that has been based on dod re-use. congress has been very strong advocate of us partnering with the department of defense, to use what was already taxpayer investments to leverage those

for our capacity and we have been very successful with that in south texas. for example, we're flying aerostats now and we now have surveillance that we probably would not have had until 2018 or 2019. that's a quick summary of our progress and what acquisition does. i look forward to answering your questions as we go forward. >> thank you. our next witness is deputy chief ronald vitiello. i knew it. vitiello. deputy chief of the border patrol, he has served as an agent in supervisory roles of tucson and chief patrol agent of the rio grande valley sector. deputy chief vitiello. >> thank you, chairman johnson, senator booker. it is a pleasure for me to be here to appear before you to discuss how technology and tactical infrastructure acts as force multipliers toward the u.s. border patrol border security enforcement efforts between the ports of entry. i'm pleased to represent the crucial contribution made to the homeland security enterprise and dhs.

this is a special week in washington culminating in the national police officers memorial on the south capital lawn. we observed chief fisher and the secretary commemorate the valor of the fallen, specifically in the unveiling of two new name on the memorial. we honor them and the 115 other guardians the nation lost in 2014. while the basic border patrol mission has not changed in the past 90 years, the operational environment in which we work and the threats we faced changed dramatically. today, our mission includes deterring acts of terrorism, and preventing and responding to other criminal activity. the effective deployment of fixed and mobile technology, tactical infrastructure is critical to border patrol operations. with the resources, our front line is more informed, effective

and safer. the border patrol works closely with the acquisitions colleagues within cbp and dhs to develop and deploy technology and infrastructure. the deployment of tactical infrastructure including fencing, roads and lighting is a critical component of our security efforts. it denies, deters and slows down illegal entrants providing more time for agents to respond. detection technology supplements physical barriers by extending the visual range. ground sensors alert agents to movement and activity while mounted cameras and sensors on aircraft fix towers and border patrol vehicles can be controlled remotely to verify targets. all of this technology and infrastructure works together and ultimately enables the border patrol to gain situational awareness and forewarn of any danger. the border patrol evaluates our posture and adjusts our capabilities to secure our borders.

we work to identify and develop technology such as tunnel detection and monitoring technology, small unmanned aircraft systems, tactical communication upgrades, and border surveillance tools tailored for the southwest and northern borders. there is no doubt that technology is a critical factor in the border patrol strategic plan, which implements a security approach based on risk. the strategy going forward will emphasize joint planning and execution advancing counternetwork approach, and a dhs wide unity of effort. thanks for the opportunity to testify how technology and tactical infrastructure help us secure the border. >> thank you. our next witness is director anh duong. close? >> yes. >> wow.

one out of four is not too bad. director duong is the director of borders and maritime security vision in the science and technology director of the department of homeland security. she focus on developing technologies to put into operational use along our sea, land and air borders and ports of entry. miss duong came to the u.s. as refugee of war from vietnam and spent 25 years working in naval, science and technology directing all of u.s. navy explosive research and development. miss duong. >> good afternoon, chairman johnson, and senator booker. good afternoon, chairman johnson and senator booker. thank you for this opportunity to testify along with my colleagues from border protection with whom we work closely. the science and technology directorates mission is to deliver effective and innovative insight, methods and solutions for the critical needs of the homeland security enterprise under the leadership of undersecretary broaders, we have direction and defined our visionary goals, which are driven by the 2014 quadrennial

homeland security review, white house policy, congressional guidance, and secretary johnson's unity of effort initiative. these goals are screening that matches the pace of life, a trusted cyberfuture, protecting privacy, commerce and community, enable the decisionmaker actionable information at a speed of thought, responder of the future, protected, connected and fully aware. and resilient communities, disaster proofing society. three of these goals are relevant to border security. screening at speed, enable the decisionmaker, and responder of the future. all three require a common enabler, situational awareness in order to screen people and goods with minimum disruption at the pace of life, enable decisionmakers at various levels and arm responders with information to keep them safe and fully aware.

from an operational standpoint, given our broad border against a multitude of ever changing threats. the need for situational awareness is paramount. smt uses technology to improve situational awareness, which in turn enables security. considering both smt visionary goals, and today's operational needs, we're pursuing an enterprise capability to provide improved situational awareness across the homeland security enterprise, called the border and coastal information system or basis. this work includes integrating and fed rating existing stand alone data sources, developing new sensor systems to create new data, developing an integrating decision support tools and analytics to translate data into actionable information and sharing information with partners. the development for the basis is ongoing for the maritime

environment. work for our land borders started in fy 15. to the border situational awareness and providing new data sources, numerous systems are undergoing assessment while providing interim capability. examples include a system in arizona to detect illegal border crossers, a tunnel activity monitoring system in texas, a canada/u.s. sensor sharing pilot, and a system for detecting and tracking small doc aircraft in washington. technology is an essential ingredient of effective border security. smt will continue to collaborate to bring technology to operational use and help and enhance the border security. i thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to testify under this very important subject.

>> thank you. our next witness is rebecca gambler, she is the director of the u.s. government and accountability offices, homeland security and justice team. she leads gao's work on border security, immigration and dhs management. prior to joining gao, she worked at the national -- for democracy and international forum for studies. >> good afternoon, chairman johnson and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to testify at today's hearing to discuss gao's work reviewing dhs efforts to acquire and deploy various technologies and other assets along u.s. borders. dhs has employed a variety of assets in its efforts to secure the southwest border including various land-based surveillance technologies, tactical infrastructure, which includes fencing, roads and lighting, and air and marine craft. gao reported on dhs' management and oversight of these assets and programs including numerous

reports on surveillance technologies under the former security border initiative, and the current arizona border surveillance technology plan. gao has also reported on fencing and other tactical infrastructure with about 652 miles of pedestrian vehicle fencing currently in place along the southwest border. my remarks today will reflect our findings in three areas related to dhs' efforts to secure the border. one, dhs' efforts to implement the technology plan, two, efforts to modernize radio systems and, three, office of air and marines mix and placement of assets. first, cbp has made progress toward deploying programs under the arizona border surveillance technology plan including fixed and mobile surveillance systems, agent portable devices, and ground sensors. and these technologies have aided the border security efforts. however, we have also reported that cbp could do more to strengthen the management of the plan and technology programs and

better assess the contributions of surveillance technologies to apprehensions and seizures along the southwest border. for example, cbp has experienced delays in some of its surveillance technology programs and the plan dates for initial and full operational capability for the integrated fixed towers, for instance, have slipped by several years. we have also previously reviewed cbp's schedules and life cycle cost estimates for the cost programs under the plan and compared them against best practices. overall, the schedules and estimates reflected some but not all best practices. and we found that cbp could take further action to better ensure by more fully applying best practices. improved situational awareness and agent safety. cbp has also begun requiring border patrol to record data with in its database on whether or not an asset like a camera assisted in an apprehension or seizure. these are positive steps but cbp

needs to develop and implement performance measures an analyze data to fully assess the contributions of its technologies to border security. second, with regard to radio systems, earlier this year we reported that cbp and ice had taken action to upgrade their tactical communications infrastructure. for example, cbp and ice completed various modernization programs for their tactical communications such as upgrading outdated equipment and expanding coverage in some areas. however, agents and officers who use the radio systems reported experiencing challenges such as coverage gaps and interoperability issues which affected their operations. we also found that cbp and ice could take further steps to strengthen and record training on upgraded radio systems

provided to officers and agents. third, with regard to air and marine assets, in 2012, we reported that the office of air and marine could better ensure that its mix and placement of assets were effective and efficient by, for example, more clearly linking deployment decisions to mission needs and threats, documenting analyses used for the placement of assets and considering how deployments of border technology affect requirements for air and marine assets. we found that these steps were needed to help cbp better determine the extent to which its allocation decisions were effective in addressing customer needs and threats. in closing, we have made recommendations to dhs in all of these areas and others to help the department in its efforts to manage and implement technologies, infrastructure and other assets to secure the border. dhs agreed with some of these recommendations, and has actions

plans or under way to address some of them. we will continue to monitor dhs' efforts in response to our recommendations. thank you for inviting me to testify and i would be pleased to answer any questions at the appropriate time. >> thank you. our next witness is michael garcia, he is legislative attorney for the congressional research service where he worked since 2003. in his capacity, mr. garcia has focused on issues related to immigration and border security, international law and national security. mr. garcia. >> thank you, chairman johnson, ranking member carper and members of the committee. i'm honored to be testifying before you today regarding the legal authorities and requirements related to the deployment of fencing and other barriers along the u.s. borders. the primary statute governing barrier deployment is section 102 of the illegal immigration reform. section 102 was amended in 2005, 2006, and 2007. these revisions coupled with increased funding for border projects resulted in hundreds of miles of fencing being deployed

along the southwest border. however, it appears additional defense deployment halted after 2011. section 102 a expressly authorized dhs to deploy barriers and roads along the borders to deter illegal crossings. section 102 b provides that fencing shall be installed along not less than 700 miles of the southwest border. but fencing is not required at any particular location when dhs determines that other means are better suited to obtain control. and in section 102 c allows the dhs second to waive any illegal requirement that impedes the expeditious construction of border barriers and roads. in recent years, attention has primarily focused on section 102 b and c, so i'll focus my

comments on those provisions. prior to the most recent amendments in the 1996 act, section 102 b required dhs to construct double layered fencing along five specific stretches of the southwest border. the current version of section 102 b no longer requires fencing to be double layered. and provides dhs with discretion regarding where fencing should be installed. although section 102 b is characterized as requiring 700 miles of fencing, the provision actually states that fencing shall be deployed along not less than 700 miles of the southwest border. it prioritizes the amount of the border and the amount of fencing used by dhs. last year dhs stated that fencing had been deployed along roughly 652 miles of the

southwest border. there may be questions regarding the firmness of the 700 mile language. section 102 b states that notwithstanding its requirements, dhs is not required to construct fencing at any particular location, where it deems fencing inappropriate. this clause could be interpreted to meanwhile dhs must deploy fencing along 700 miles of the border, it is not required it deploy fencing at any discreet point. a broader reading of this clause might permit dhs to construct fencing along less than 700 miles of the southwest border if the agency believes fencing is only appropriate along the lesser mileage. however, there are a number of challenges to such a reading. as an initial matter, the notwithstanding clause does not say that dhs may construct fencing a-long a lesser mileage of the border it says that fencing isn't required at any particular location.

if dhs may construct only the amount of fencing it deems appropriate, it is unclear why section 102 b would state that fencing shall be deployed along not less than 700 miles of the southwest border. the legislative history of section 102 b and several courts description of the provision also seemed to give greater support for understanding the 700 mile requirement as a firm one. dhs officials have seemingly taken differing interpretations of section 102 b over the years. a court's consideration of this issue may depend upon whether the meaning of section 102 b is seen as ambiguous and dhs' construction is deemed reasonable. in any event, there is no statutory deadline for when the required fencing must be completed. and it is also not clear who would have standing to bring a legal challenge against the fencing strategy. turning to section 102 c, this provision grants the dhs

secretary the power to waive legal requirements that may impede the construction of border, roads and barriers. wafer authority has been used to facilitate the construction and the upkeep of border projects. but this authority could not be used to waive constitutional requirements. thus, for example, just compensation needs to be given to priority property owner whose land is condemned for purposes of barrier installation. this concludes my prepared statement. i'll be happy to answer any questions you have. >> thank you, mr. garcia. i'm kind of interpreting your testimony that congress might have passed a law that wasn't crystal clear? i guess i would be shocked. senator booker, i guess you have to leave so i'll turn it over to you. >> i'll be leaving here and preparing remarks for the floor in regards to the train accident we had. i know senator carper was on that train and got off earlier and i'm happy to see that he is here and well and i would like to express my sympathies to the

more than 100 people in the hospital recovering from their injuries. i just want to ask this one question before i have to run. ms. gambler. from the notes that i have customs and border protections spent about $2.4 billion to complete 670 miles of border fence. the vast majority was a single layer fence. designed to keep vehicles from crossing. if congress were to implement the defense that would require more land acquisition, more supplies, more labor to build and a man by border patrol, i'm trying to understand the payoff and the cost benefit analysis in our estimation. according to the gao, undocumented entries to the united states during the time actually fell 69% between 2006 and 2011, which is pretty impressive. but the drug and contraband seizures nearly doubled. and so, are you -- you're an

expert looking at cost and benefits and challenges associated with border fencing and technology. if congress eventually approves another 700 miles of double layer barrier part of the border bill, do you share my concern in understanding the cost benefit analysis. and what in your opinion would it be as the 700 miles is put into place? >> so i think that's a very important question. and it goes to something that gao has reported on both as it relates to fencing but also as it relates to other assets, as well, to include technology, which you mentioned, which is really being able to assess what we're getting out of different investments that we're putting in place along the border. whether it's fencing or technology. and what we've found and reported on is dhs could do a better job of collecting data and develop measures and metrics

to assess what contributions they're getting out of different investments. whether that's fencing or whether or not that's technology or other assets. and so, what we've recommended is that dhs take steps to, you know, better collect the data, better develop performance measures and metrics so that we can be able to answer the question you just asked, which is what are the contributions that we're getting out of these, the different structures and technologies we're putting in place. >> before we throw a whole bunch of money at the problem, try to figure out what is going to get us the best results for the money that we spend given the ultimate array of decisions we have between assets like technology, drones or fencing. >> dhs has defense that would allow them to assess on the technologies front what contributions they're getting out of the technologies they've deployed to seizures and apprehensions, for example.

using the -- for the towers that have been deployed, they're starting to collect that data now, and what they need to do is start using that to actually analyze and assess the performance and progress they're making. >> so before politicians make decisions, you really think there should be a data-driven decision through thorough analysis? is that what you're saying? >> we certainly think it's important for them to assess the performance of the systems and how that's contributing to their efforts to secure the border. both as it relates to fencing technology and other assets they might put in place. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, thank you for your time. >> thanks. we'd like to turn it over to our ranking member, again. we're all very pleased on the committee you got off in time. so if you'd like to say a few words and give us your opening statement. >> thank you. thank you. and i want to thank the folks on our committee, and frankly, a lot of my colleagues and people around the country would express, just personal feelings that those riding that train last night from washington up to new york are feeling and thinking.

i ride a train a lot. and get to know the people who are like the crew on the trains. and i think you ride with a lot of the same people. and never imagine when i got off the train last night that six people from that train would be dead this morning. and we prayed for all of them. and particularly for the -- and also, just a prayer of thanksgiving for the first responders who turned out late at night and the difficult circumstances. a lot of folks were heroes last night and heroines. but a lot of passengers who did extraordinary heroic things. so let's keep them all in our thoughts and prayers. i used to be an amtrak board member. so i've been involved in train accidents as a board member. and sometimes with loss of life and sometimes just a lot of damage. and this is never easy. and especially hard, as you know. but appreciate all the feeling that people have expressed very much. i want to also express to all of

you, a heartfelt thanks for you being here and for what you do with your lives, and trying to make our lives in many instances a lot safer and better quality of life. grateful for that. i'd like to express my thanks for letting us participate in this preparation and putting together, i think, just a really good panel of witnesses. chairman and i and the board is not too many months ago. and we had the opportunity of all walks of life. and one of the questions, what do we need to do more or less of in order to secure the borders? and we heard a lot of things. but one of the phrases we heard over and over again is technology is the key to securing the border. technology is the key to securing the border. i could not agree more.

i could not agree more. and i look forward to hearing from our panel today about the technologies and other tools that conserve as what i call as force multipliers for our agents on the ground. i'm sure my colleagues and our witnesses would agree that we need smart, targeted border security investments. and to me, this means placing a priority on acquiring advanced cameras, sensors, radars so our agents have realtime situational awareness along our borders. for example, been very impressed with vader technology on our drones and surveillance towers. but i've seen along our borders. also means working with the department of defense to reuse equipment no longer needed in theater and places like afghanistan such as the aerostats now we use along the rio grande valley. finally, means making sure the assets we do have are being used effectively. if we have an airplane, helicopter, drone in the sky. those assets with the right kinds of cameras and

surveillance equipment to ensure we're not just flying blind. navy guy for many years, retired navy captain. and i remember many a day, we used to chase nuclear submarines when we weren't in southeast asia all over the world. and the idea of fighting nuclear submarines, using binoculars, and not so effective. frankly, the idea of looking for people in a search and rescue mission using binoculars from a p3 aircraft, not so effective. and when we sent aircraft without the right kind of surveillance technology, we're wasting a lot of fuel, and a lot of people if we're not careful. one of the things i'd like to really hear from our panel today about what technology is working along the border, what's working so we can deploy more of that, find out what works, do more of that, find out what doesn't work and do less of that. i'd also welcome hearing from each of you today. what isn't working so we can reduce our expenditure on those activities. i know dhs has struggled in the past with some technology deployments that we hope to talk about some of those lessons

learned. from what i understand, dhs with the help from our friends at gio has already made many improvements in the acquisition policies. and we look forward to hearing more about that today, as well. we applaud that. and one lesson i've learned over the years, you can't manage what you can't measure. we talked about this a minute ago. that's why it's vital that dhs continue to develop better metrics to measure the progress in securing our borders. and another lesson from the trips i've taken to the mexican border is things do change. things do change. and we've seen that as a move away from california, to arizona, all the way down to the south texas area over the last couple of years. in this last year with the flood of the last two years was a whole lot more young people coming up and looking for a place to just find refuge. that may explain why i think our agencies have to be nimble. not a big one for us being

prescriptive. maybe together working together we can figure that out and be good listeners. we also need to listen to many experts who have told us that the border security can be won only at the border. and those who say cannot just be won at the border. and i don't think it can be won only at the border. we have to take some other steps to address the factors it brings to the borders. to me that means passing comprehensive immigration reform. and also means trying to identify what are the factors causing tens of thousands of people every year, every year to try to get out of honduras, guatemala and salvador. and i said many times, we're contributing to the misery by our addiction to meth amphetamines, crack cocaine and so forth. lack of hope, lack of economic opportunity, president's -- i think, good plan there, and the vice president is sort of deserves our support. the other thing is, i think we

need comprehensive immigration reform. made a good stab at that a couple of years ago. i hope we'll come back and finish the job before long. and so that would, that would pretty much sum up what i want to say. i'll close with this. we care a lot, i think almost everybody on this committee would be described as fiscal conservative. and if you look at the size of our budget deficit, go back about six years, budget deficit peaked out at $1.4 trillion. and it's been coming down since then. it's down by about 2/3. but we still have a big deficit by historical standards. and we need to continue to work on that. three things, i think, we need to do. we need tax reform that lowers

the rates, broadens the base and helps raise money for deficit reduction. we need entitlement reform that serves old people, poor people, frankly saves these programs for our kids. find way to save money in the entitlement programs so they'll be around for our children and grandchildren. >> thank you, senator. you'll enjoy our hearing next week talking about the 30-year deficit and those projections and certainly address those issues you were just raising. as i was speaking to the witnesses, again, and appreciate your thoughtful testimony and all the time you've put into it. if you're going to solve any problem, you really do need the information. that's really the basis of all these hearings is just to lay out that record. lay out the reality. a number of times in testimony we've already talked about having the data. we've had a number of office inspector general reports. we had one on an oam and we'll get into that a little bit later. just had one issued today on the lack of data driving decisions based on prosecutorial discretion. and deferred action on childhood

arrivals. those are serious issues in terms of not having the information. i'd say one of the things frustrating to me, this committee has really delved into the whole issue of immigration reform and border security is just, you know, especially as an accountant, as a guy from manufacturing background. just not having good, solid information and data. recognizing those, it's pretty difficult to obtain that. but we try and do it through testimony, from getting good opinions, chief, i do have to start out a little housekeeping because we were made aware, i think earlier today, that one of our witnesses border agent chris cabrera received notice to appear before a cbp and internal affairs for this thursday. they want to talk to him about his congressional testimony. you know, my lutheran catechism tells me to put the best structure on it. i'm hoping the reason they want to talk to agent cabrera is they're a little concerned about

some of his testimony that might vary with, you know, some of the information that we get from dhs in general. potentially talking about the fact that, you know, he testified to us on the got aways. that there's a certain level of, i guess, informal potential intimidation if they report more than 20 people coming through. the only apprehend ten and all of a sudden the supervisor's there and providing a lot of scrutiny. again, i'm highly concerned about that. we bring people before the committee, swear them in. we swear them in to tell the truth. and i'm -- i do hope that this is an effort to, you know, understand what his testimony was and try to determine whether there are some real distortions in terms of the information, the data we're going to need to solve this problem. i hope i have your commitment and custom border protections management that this is not any kind of intimidation or retribution. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for that observation.

the question. it is, in fact, your impression is correct. we were very concerned about chris's testimony. we're very concerned about the numbers. we want you. we need ourselves to have the data to be as accurate as possible. and chris, we work with him very well. we work with the national border patrol council to the extent that we need to and have to. they're good partners, they have been for us. and we want their testimony to reflect accurately what happens in the field. and he left the suggestion and impression that there was intimidation or misconduct going on in with regards to how the data's collected. that's not my impression, i'm quite sure that the agents and their supervisors and management of the area were chris was discussing are focused on doing the right thing for the right reasons. and so we did, in fact, refer the remarks to the office of internal affairs for getting to the bottom of whether or not there was misconduct in that area. again, it's my impression, that's not what our leadership and our managers do down there. but it helps. >> okay. good. good.

that is very good news. and we'll be watching that. you know, we're talking about all the technologies, the forced multiplier, when we were down on the border. certainly, we hear the aerostats, only up 60% of the time, which means down 40% of the time. same with the uavs. obviously -- and i'll give you a chance to certainly respond to the office of inspector general report. but do we have any information in terms of what percent of individuals were actually detecting? or what percent situation awareness do we have? we have secretary johnson here, i think it was two weeks ago. and he made the blanket statement, i appreciate the honesty that is that, you know, by the end of this administration, we will not have achieved 100% situational awareness. i understand that. what percent are we at right

now? is there any estimate of that? can anybody speak to that? >> i can't be precise as it relates to the situational awareness across the 2,000 miles of the southwest border. we do have a very well understood, it's very well understood what activity levels are, where the hot spots for activities are and how our deployments support that. so as, you know, appropriate for this hearing, the technology is very important. we are -- the data that we collect as it relates to that activity and our observations and the recording of the outcomes of those individual interdictions feeds information where the assets and the agents give us that realtime information. so in a place like downtown nogales, where you visited in downtown brownsville where we do have surveillance technology, a very robust deployment of agents in the downtown environment. so in realtime, you can collect information about activity and the results of the activity. the results, which includes the people arrested people who ran back and what we call got aways. in other locations, we use other methods to try and do that. there's a lot -- there's lots of

space along that 2,000 miles where we don't have that kind of deployment. so we use things like change detection technology to help inform overall. there's also a piece of situational awareness that us having to understand what the capabilities of the criminal network are, how we interact with our fellow law enforcement agencies, our international partners to understand what's happening on the other side of the border, and putting those pieces together along with the observations of people who live along the border that tell us, this is out of the ordinary, this is not. if you start to put all of those things together, it gives you an idea of what's happening across the entire border. >> okay. but, again, we're always looking for some kind of metric. and certainly laws we've passed call for a metric, you know, call for a goal of 100% situational awareness, 90% of operational control. so the question i have is as long as a lot of laws have been passed that way or that's certainly the idea behind some of these laws. are we not calculating that? are we not trying to track that metric now in anticipation of having potentially comply with

the requirement for 100% situational awareness? >> so we look at a suite of data that says, these are the arrests, we look at things like recidivism, there are other elements we're trying to bring in, the secretary is focused on, in the unit of effort of tying the data together. we've struggled with the idea of combining situational awareness. i think it's one of those phrases for a title that we seem to all understand. but when you get down to it, how do you measure something with a different connotation for a different environment? >> so would the position of department of homeland security be, then, they would just really reject or certainly resist having piece of legislation where you got that metric 100% situational awareness? >> i think we would all enjoy having a defined set of circumstances that says if you have these four criterion met, you do have situational awareness. we think it's broader. it's obviously if you have technology, a piece of machinery that surveils the border in realtime 24/7, that's an element of situational awareness.

z there are other pieces to that. it becomes difficult to decide exactly where you're at and what what the actual definition is. but -- >> so while we're on this topic, before i turn it over to the ranking member. anybody else want to comment on this? ms. gambler? >> we've, as i've mentioned, reported on the need for cbp to put in place, you know, measures to assess progress made in securing the border. and we've, you know, reported, as well, you were asking questions about sort of estimating flow and things like that. our understanding and certainly the chief can speak to this perhaps better than i can, but those are -- those are estimates. when you're talking about things like that. the border patrol does record apprehensions. but the other data points that go into estimating flow turn backs and got aways as we

discuss are estimated by the border patrol. >> thank you. senator, carper? >> thank you, mr. chairman. the time line that i am -- i have all the time in the world. so i'm going to yield to my time for a while and maybe i could pick up in a little bit. thanks. >> thank you, senator carper. following up on the chairman's questions, did any of you have a concise definition for situational awareness? okay. that's good enough. i would just say, i think before we can even talk about situational awareness and how important situational awareness is, i don't know what the hell we're talking about, you know. and so the next question is, is situation awareness a prerequisite for having a secure border? chief? >> i believe if we can come to terms on the definition for situational awareness, then you can constructively then go from

there, recognizing what the data is and say whether you have situational awareness or not, and based on the activity levels, capability that cbp and others bring, then you can leap from there or jump from there or work out from there to that secure border definition. >> all right. so, moving forward here, i think we all want to have a secure border. and, look, if we want to get hung up on terminology, we can get hung up on terminology. how many people are getting through and how many people are being apprehended? and how secure is it? how safe is it? and are we spending the money in ways that make sense? whether it's on drones or radar or ground sensors or fences? and so the next question i have, and most of these are going to be to you, chief. but mr. murkowski, you feel free to jump in if you feel and assess the two. are drones used on the northern border?

>> yes, sir, they are used on the northern border. >> in concert with the canadians? >> no, they are used in conjunction with the border patrol, sir. >> it's not a joint effort? you guys? >> it is not. >> how about radar in the northern border? >> we do pull in all faa radar feeds dod feeds. >> how about radar under 5,000 feet on a northern border? >> the coverage is limited. >> okay. >> what about ground sensors? >> yes. on the northern border. and those feeds are directly shared across international -- >> okay. that's good. how many miles would you say on a northern border ground sensors are utilized? >> i could be precise to the

record with some data -- >> that'd be fine. >> each of the sectors. >> when we're talking about a technology like drones and ground sensors in particular, less on radar, but when ground sensors and drones in particular, is there -- is there some reduction in manpower when they're utilized? or is that not the case? >> in making us more efficient? >> well, what i'm saying, do you need as many people underground or get by and still have a safe border? >> correct. both the sensors and the aircraft allow for us to do more with fewer. >> with fewer. okay. that's -- that's good to know. can you tell me other than sharing the ground sensor information. you know, canada's a pretty good ally of ours. is there anything else you do besides border crossings in a joint way? >> yes, under several frameworks by each leadership in the department at higher levels, we work with canada in every area as it relates to border security. >> there's private land, public land, there's national parks, indian reservations. typically, we're on the border everywhere, both private and public land. there's a recognition from landowner, and within 25 miles,

you know, as the job demands -- >> yeah. >> we enter private land. >> that's better than i got for information last week. i appreciate that. when you -- i want to talk about partnerships for a second. i think the border patrol did a poor job as far as building partnerships and this was eight or nine years ago. you've improved with highway patrol, local police folks. with ranchers, with farmers, hopefully with other agencies, too. i'm talking about federal agencies.

how do you feel those partnerships are working? and is there anything we can do to make those partnerships work better? >> we -- i believe that we've recognized that's part of how we're going to be successful in the environments that we work. having partnerships, leveraging each other's authority, exchanging information so that people are recognizing where threats are. that's always going to be part of the future. we've adopted that as a way forward. we interact quite a bit with leadership and law enforcement, and the stone garden program that congress gave us several years back after the department was created is a very useful

tool for us and is very well thought of by state and local. >> could you give me your assessment of border security in the indian reservation, for example. i don't want to single those out. with the reservation compared to others, areas on the northern border, would you say it's equivalent, better, worse? >> i'm not aware of any deficiencies we have specifically. >> how about with the park? glacier national park? >> same. we have an ongoing working relationship to be present and understand their concerns as well as being present on the border and patrolling. >> so the need for additional tools and i don't want to put words in your mouth. need for additional tools, you've got it with operation stone garden, with the park service relationships, memorandums, whatever? >> correct, we do. >> well, i just wanted to say, thank you for your work. all of you. most of the questions were to ron because i like him, you know. but the truth is, i appreciate all your work and you've got

people behind you that work very, very hard. and i appreciate them, too. the key is, we have limited money here, at least i think that's across the board. i'm not sure it's across the board. we have to make sure it's spent correctly and appropriately. and i know we might want a knee jerk reaction to things when they happen. but the truth is, if we listen to you folks, i think we make better decisions. thank you for your service. >> senator carper? >> thanks. thanks, mr. chairman. sometimes -- let me just ask, how many of you have testified on this subject before before either a house or senate committee subcommittee? raise your hand. okay. mr. garcia, where you been? doing your day job? >> testifying on other things.

>> okay. good enough. if you've been before this committee, probably want to ask you what works. what i'm going to do is flip that question and ask each of you to give us an idea or two about some things that don't work. and we really shouldn't do that. what are some things you think that don't work? especially if we had all the money in the world, getting in debt, a lot more. what are some things we ought not do? you don't think they work? they're not worth the money? mr. hollis? >> good question, sir. >> i'm full of them. that's my best one today, so. >> i'm struggling with that one. in terms of -- because most of the stuff is, i think, that does not work is stuff that we

actually stop doing. so one of the things we went through in our own office was to analyze across all of our offices which ones were most effective, most efficient and reorganize our structure based on that. so what we actually look at that pretty regularly year-over-year to see what's not working and then to either adjust our organization and our assets to rid ourselves of those things. we're in the process of downsizing aircraft. we're getting rid of about 40, 50 aircraft. reorganizing our offices along the north and the south. so we have our agents in the right places and getting -- >> hold it right there. i want you to take a couple of minutes and think about that question. think about some things that don't work that we shouldn't be doing. go ahead. mr. murkowski? >> yes, sir, thank you for that question. i think there are a lot of lessons we learn about things we shouldn't do. for example, we shouldn't treat technology or any other capital asset as an end. it's a means to an end. and we often get attracted by the bright shiny thing. and we don't think about why or how it will help us do our jobs. sometimes it's difficult because we don't always have metrics. we don't have history. we're doing things that are new to us. we have to understand how to do things that are new to us and

collect data and iterate on that. technology's a means to an end, it's not an end in to itself. we can't impose technologies on people who use it. we have to involve them. and they have to invite us to bring technologies. that's a classic mistake. we can't aspire to immature technologies before they're ready for us really to start to use them. and we do that very often. so those are all sort of acquisition lessons learned that i would say that we've done in the past that we need to remember not to do in the future. >> those are good ones. those are good ones.

>> thank you. >> hold on just one sec. >> my phone just went off. my phone went off and it says rahm emanuel who used to be the president's chief of staff, but he's now the mayor of chicago. i don't think it's him calling. but whoever has his old job over there is probably calling. we'll figure out who that is. >> i agree with my colleagues. assistant commissioner this is a challenging question. and i think we have learned. >> excuse me. i've got a phone call for the chief of staff's boss. i'm going to ask you -- excuse me for a second, i'll come back and try to reclaim my time. i apologize, i'm still going to ask that question. excuse me. >> understood. >> shouldn't take long. >> let's talk about fencing. you know, when we were preparing

for this meet, we got a chart up here showing the different types of fencing. but one of the charts i wanted to produce was -- i wanted to lay out the border, and i wanted to, you know, specify. here are the different type of fencing along the lines, and i found out i can't show that because it's law enforcement sensitive. i'll first ask the chief, why would the fencing and the quality of the fence and type of fencing along the border be law enforcement sensitive. i mean, that's a secret that isn't exactly a secret. >> i really don't understand that, as well. i think that the documents that we sent over that we were trading back and forth that we were trying to approve late in preparing for today's testimony were marked. i'm not sure the origination of those markings. i agree with you, if you live in a community that has the benefit of fencing as a -- >> kind of know where it is. >> that people nowhere it is. >> if you're a drug smuggler, you know where that is. got that mapped out. >> as you start to aggregate

data like that or images, you start to show a picture across the southwest border and it's easier to pick out some of the vulnerabilities. that may be the origination of the markings. but we will certainly provide what we can. >> which is, of course, why i wanted. i wanted to see where we have our strength and is weaknesses. talk to me. maybe trying to think who would be best here. how effective can fencing be? and what has been the real problem in constructing it? we have environmental laws, eminent domain, lawsuits. we've passed laws that exempt ourselves from those. but what's been the real reality? because, you know, we have built close to 700 miles of fencing. but you can tell by the different types of fencing, there's some that works pretty good. and some that, you know, obviously might stop a truck. but certainly going to stop a human being. so just -- who is the best just

to kind of talk about the history of, you know, multiple laws we passed to build fencing. and then we relax them, set them up for discretion. they're not crystal clear, we don't, i mean, do we really need, do we have to build 700? there's no time horizon on it. what's happened? we'll start with mr. garcia and then -- >> mr. chairman, if i understand, the first question you had was about possible impediments, legal impediments to legal fence construction. >> when congress expressed barrier deployment in 1996, although there was barrier deployment before that, it provided a waiver, dhs or i guess at that time, the immigration naturalization service could waive two laws. nepa which concerns environmental assessment and the endangered species act. those two waivers, that waiver authority in many observers' mind was insufficient. the i.n.s. was required to deploy essentially complete a triple layered fencing project in san diego. and over the course of nine

years, that project wasn't completed because of impediments caused by other environmental laws. congress responded to that pursuant to the real i.d. act by providing dhs with broad waiver authority to waive all legal requirements that may impede the expeditious construction of barriers and roads. not a specified place like san diego but anywhere along the u.s. border. >> did it work? >> that -- that waiver authority was exercised in five instances in, i believe, five in between 2005 and 2008 in that certainly assisted border patrol in expeditiously constructing hundreds of miles of fence along the southwest border.

there were legal challenges brought to a halt. certain border projects. but courts would dismiss those challenges. i will note it is not absolute. besides the constitutional limitations, you cannot waive the tuesday. another thing is that it refers specifically to the construction of barriers and roads. there is certainly some question as to whether it would apply to tactical infrastructure that is not a barrier or a road. like sensors or cameras. dhs when it has exercised waiver authority to border projects, it has often mentioned things like radio towers and cameras in addition to the fence. but whether waiver authority could be used exclusively for a project to install towers or sensors along a particular stretch of the border, dhs has never done that, and that would raise a question, is that a barrier?

>> okay. chief, why don't you finish out and i'll turn it back over to the ranking member? >> so i think we've used fencing. and it's been part of border deployments for my entire career. in the images that you're showing here in the top left, that was designed, procured and developed by mostly by border patrol agents. a lot of the national guard deployments we've used over the years along the southwest border to build that fencing. effective for a short-term, you know, surge operations when you're adding other things that technology, et cetera. it did us very well. the fencing that was brought to us by the changes in the act and the mandate to do 700 miles or more of the other images that you show there, and then the vehicle barrier also represented there is strategically placed in locations where it's very difficult to get to the border afoot. and so necessary to have a -- it's not necessary to have a pedestrian fence in places where

it's -- the infrastructure doesn't support people walking toward the border. and so all of them have contributed to higher levels of security. i think on the other side of the equation, it's a lot more expensive than we expected when we started. and it was much more difficult. i was in texas as the chief of the rio grande valley in 2007-2010. and so when i arrived on duty there, we helped validate and set a requirement for fencing. as i recall, about 75 miles. most of that fencing was built. and it has made a difference. but it wasn't without lots of -- excuse me? most of it is in place, yes. most of it is in place. oh, it absolutely has made a

difference. yes, it has. but it wasn't without lots of challenges. difficult with hydraulogy. and we're still in court about condemnation, et cetera. that's part of the history. that's part of the lessons learned as we went through that whole project. >> thank you, senator carper. >> thanks so much. i had to leave the room for a moment. right in the middle of asking a question. i was asking a good question. rather than talking about what's working, i asked to talk about what's not working so we can do less of that. and he's still thinking about it. i had to slip out of the room. so you want to pick up where we left off? >> so, as i was saying, i was agreeing with both of my colleagues.

some of the lessons we've learned with trying to fit technology in without the proper kind of awareness with all of the capabilities or lack of capabilities. one of the lessons we've learned is as we move into this. >> give us some examples of that. >> we have this process, capability gap analysis. border patrol agent, well known in this environment. it allows us to go to the field and do surveys and walk the ground and understand what threats are faced at a station level.

right, so the agents on the ground who are challenged day-to-day. and patrolling the border. where are the biggest problems and what kinds of technologies that they have or think are available will help them solve those problems. we can do that station by station. rolled up in a sector, and rolled up in headquarters. we're in the process of baselining the data. we've got about 3/4 of the workforce and the station level data coming to us. and we'll use that to help inform the plans that we've already made with otia. we are in the inventory, the things that work now being installed in places like arizona will give us a hint of where to

go next. what might be coming available that we can help do research on the dhs side. >> what country does your family come from? >> vietnam? >> i knew it. what area? >> the south. >> have you seen some instances where folks have overcome that challenge? is there anything to learn from that?