you know, my flack jacket, ripped my -- i had an entrenching tool in the back, a shovel, and it cut the handle off of that and threw me to the ground and my leg, a piece of shrapnel hit my leg. >> watch our five-week series with vietnam war veterans starting on sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. a house subcommittee held a hearing on u.s. southern borden security. it came following reports of a caravan of central american migrants traveling through mexico and headed toward the u.s. southern border. president trump issued a memorandum requesting the deployment of national guard troops to assist federal border patrol agents. witnesses at the hearing included the head of the union representing border patrol agents and director of the texas department of public safety. this is about an hour.

subcommittee on national security will come to order. without objection the presiding member of the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. over the course of the last two-and-a-half weeks we've heard news accounts of a wave of foreign nationals headed for the u.s. southern border. we are here to discuss the kbnding arrival of what was initially called an immigrant caravan, which remains a challenge of the u.s. border security. the san diego base group, people without borders, has taken credit for organizing the effort. they claim to provide humanitarian aid to migrants and refugees, but what they're doing now is undermining the rule of law. for ten years now this group has escorted foreign nationals on an annual trek from central america, through mexico, encouraging many to continue to the united states to take advantage of asylum laws. this year they drew their biggest crowd yet, more than 1200 people. in some ways there are

similarities to what we experienced in 2014 when waves of unaccompanied minors and young mothers with children streamed across the border. unlike his predecessor, president trump called out the mexican government's failure to step up and do their part to accommodate these refugees. for far too long mexico has been derelict in its duty. for far too long mexico has been content to let these caravans pass on through and become our problem. not anymore. coincidentally, a few days after this group decided to begin its annual march, dhs released its monthly apprehension statistics which showed an alarming resurgence of illegal border crossers. what we saw in response was the consistency of conviction of president trump's administration, of course, who campaigned on building a wall, and backs the brave men and women of border patrol working hard. it took courage.

as commander in chief the president has every right to take meaningful measures to protect our way of life, maintain the integrity of our borders and safeguard our immigration system. we know the national guard cannot serve in this capacity indefinitely. we need to take a look at what our existing capabilities and laws are and what can be done to not only enhance border security but reduce the magnet of illegal immigration going forward. the caravan had the unintended consequence of helping the trump administration identify operational and legal vulnerabilities and provided us with an opportunity to conduct much-needed oversight of some key immigration loophole also. it reminds us of how porous our borders still are with people and drugs being smuggled in daily. we also see how by directing finite resources to illicit activity in one direction we may be leaving a gaping hole for cartels and gangs to pass through in another. there are promising actions that can be taken to get a handle who this. the trump administration should follow the president's first

immigration executive order and properly interpret the wilbur force act. in addition, to combat the abuse of asylum laws, both the department of homeland security and the department of justice should send asylum officers directly to the border for a rocket docket to immediately hold a rapid-fire field hearing and conclude that folks trying to abuse the asylum laws are, in fact, ineligible and then allowing them to be placed in expedited deportation. what is more, both article 2 of the constitution and the delegated authority given to the president by the congress too keep anyone who is not already entered and even override refugee and asylum policies when he determines it is against our interest, it is in the law now. when you have criminals, gangsters, drug crisis and the political nature of the mass illegal immigration, this clearly fits that description. finally, congress as part of any effort to tighten immigration statutes must limit at least the power of the lower courts to

block expedited deportation or denial of entry except when there is a prima facie case of a plaintiff being a u.s. citizen. we have a lot of work yet to do and i'm glad to introduce our distinguished panel of experts here to help shed light on this important issue. mr. brandon judd is here to speak on behalf of the approximately 15,000 border patrol agents in his capacity as president of the national border patrol council. colonel steven mccraw currently serves as director to the texas department of public safety, which oversees 13 state criminal justice and public safety divisions. we also have the honorable art arthur, resident fellow with the center for immigration studies and former immigration judge. lastly, we welcome mr. michael bream from the truman center, a national security expert and iraq war veteran. i would like to add that we did invite the u.s. border patrol to join us here today and they chose not to send a witness to testify on this important

matter. again, i would like to thank all of the witnesses who decided to join us today and look forward to their testimony. finally, i just want to make sure we will be maintaining order in the hearing room. so i thank you and i yield to my ranking member, the gentleman from massachusetts, for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also would like to thank and welcome our witnesses today. thank you all for helping this committee with its work. as evidenced by the bipartisan omni bus appropriation bill passed last month, there are members on both sides of the aisle who share a commitment to providing our border security enforcement personnel with the resources necessary to perform their critical missions on behalf of the american people. this agreement, which i supported, i voted for, provides a total of $14 billion for customs and border protection, including $4.4 billion for cdp, customs and border patrol and security operations.

and $3.7 billion for u.s. border patrol training, development, assets and other activities. it also makes funding available for the hiring of 351 new border patrol agents and law enforcement officers. while the omni bus agreement was the result of hard-fought negotiation and it is not a perfect bill, i believe it does represent a meaningful step towards enhancing our border security. however, it is imperative that the federal government utilizes these and other new funding sources provided by the agreement in a wise fashion. in the interest of national security, policies designed to secure our borders against the threat of terrorism, criminal networks and other ill list ent activities cannot be based on misinformation or derived from arbitrary presidential tweets. rather, the strength of our border framework is dependent on policies developed through bipartisan consideration and grounded entirely in fact.

to this end, they must also be undertaken in a manner that avoids demonization and affords maximum respect to the fundamental principle also of america as a nation of immigrants and also adheres to the 1951 geneva convention relating to the status of refugees. in view of all of these considerations, it is important to review president trump's recent decision to order deployment of up to 4,000 national guard personnel to the u.s./mexican border. clearly this decision is not unprecedented. both president george w. bush and president obama previously invoked so-called title 32 authority to temporarily deploy thousands of national guard units to the southwest border to provide technical, logistical and administrative support to the u.s. border patrol. it is noteworthy while the u.s. border patrol for apprehensions of illegal border crossings

exceeded 11 million apprehensios in 2006, u.s. and custom and border protection reports in 2017 the agency recorded, quote, the lowest level of illegal cross border migration on record as measured by apprehensions an encounters at u.s. ports of entry. the probation 310,000 arrests for illegal border crossings recorded for 2017 represents the lowest annual apprehension figure since 1971, 46 years ago. in articulating his plan to employ national guard units, the president has stated, quote, we are looking from 2000 to 4,000 and we'll probably keep them or a large portion of them until such time as we get the wall, close quote. given that congress has not authorized funding for the entirety of the president's

desired border wall and absent further clarification of the president's tweet, the deployment of our national guard units to the southwest border appears to be indefinite in duration at this point. it also in duration at this point, it also remains largely undefined in terms of scope and cost. according to the independent government accountability office, the collective costs of the two previous national guard border operations under president bush and president obama exceeded $1.35 billion. it's important, i think, for congress to learn which priorities or programs the military will need to reduce in order to reprogram the necessary funding to pay for this border operation. in order for this committee to examine the merits of the president's action, today ranking member cummings and i join ranking members from the house homeland security, armed services and judiciary committees in requesting a series of documents from the department of defense and the department of homeland security

pertaining to the rationale behind the announcement of deploying national guard troops to the border as well as the secretary activities, durations and costs associated with this operation. this includes any memoranda of understanding the administration has negotiated with relevant states and the national guard bureau. along these lines it would have been very helpful for us to hear from the department of defense and the department of homeland security witnesses at today's hearing as we continue to conduct oversight our our border security policies and seek to identify common sense steps that we can take to better secure our borders in a balanced and sustainable way. thank you, mr. chairman, i look forward to discussing these witnesses with our issues and i yield back the balance of our time. >> gentleman yields back. >> i'm pleased to introduce our witnesses we have mr. brandon

judd president of the national border control council, colonel stephen mccraw, the honorable art arthur resident nell low in law for the policy on immigration studies and mr. michael breen president and ceo of the truman center. there is an empty chair for the uninn whited witness miss carla provost should she choose to attend the hearing. pursuant to committee rules all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify so if you could all please stand. and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? please be seated. all witnesses answered in the affirmative. in order to allow time for discussion please limit your testimony to five minutes. your entire written statement will be made part of the record. as a reminder the clock in front of you shows the remaining time during your opening statement. the light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and red

when your time is up. please remember to press the button to turn your microphone on before speaking and with that we will recognize mr. judd for five minutes. >> chairman desantis, ranking member lynch and distinguished members of the subcommittee, i would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i want to discuss with you the issues of border security and the magnets that draw people across our border illegally, this includes but is not limited to the catch and release program, manpower and the use of agents, the catch and release policy a term that was coined by border patrol agents many years ago, it refers to persons arrested for crossing the border illegally and subsequently released into the united states on their own recognizance and prior to having their proceedings adjudicated by an immigration judge. under this program most are released with the promise to appear before a judge at a later date that is to be determined. due to an extensive backlog of cases the date is usually at

least two years from the time of release, but it might as well be 10, 15 or 20 years because the vast majority of these individuals never appear before a judge as ordered. instead they disappear into the shadows of society. on january 25th, 2017, president donald trump signed the border security and immigration improvement executive order. its intent was to implement new policies designed to stem illegal immigration. in support dhs secretary john kelly issued implementation directions via memoranda to all corresponding department heads stating the catch and release policy shall end immediately. notwithstanding the clear guidance catch and release policies have not ended. in november of 2017 the field office directors for both san antonio and el paso, texas i.c.e. field offices sent e-mail messages to border patrol leadership stating in part i have directed my staff to not accept files or custody of

family member units that are not processed as notices to appear that are not frc eligible. that is field relocation center. my position may change subsequent to discussions with hq, but for now ero snt and el paso position is that we will not process cases like male head of household unless we accept custody as the transfer of cases is not automatic. by processing illegal border crossers with wantas., we consciously conditioned the catch and release program and sent a clear message to criminal cartels that we are not serious about following through with the president's or secretary's orders. criminal cartels continue to exploit our policy, specifically catch and release. they force large groups of people to cross the border in dangerous places in an effort to create gaps in our coverage by creating gaps criminal cartels are able to cross higher value contraband such as opioids,

criminal aliens, persons from special interest countries and other narcotics without detection, apprehension or seizure. by continuing policies like catch and release we are putting innocent people like women and children into the hands of dangerous criminal santa barbara err prices. the single biggest challenge we face to securing our border is manpower as we are currently 2,000 agents below our congressionally mandated floor of 21,370 agents. there are currently three challenges that we face, retention, recruitment and the use of agents. the national border patrol council restates one that will significantly improve our retention crisis. until we address these issues we will not be able to secure the border. a long with catch and release and manpower the deployment of our limited resources is an

important piece of the border security problem. a little more than 700 agents are assigned to the station and when annual leave, sick leave and days off duty are calculated there are approximately 400 agents that show up to work on any given day. of those 400 agents on duty only around 50 are deployed to the border. that's unacceptable. this is well below par for a station that controls approximately 60 miles of the border and is the busiest station in the country. the federal government's decision to devote only 12% of the workforce to perform the duties they are hired to perform is lost on me but for the sake of border security this is entirely unjustifiable. if you are angry about this you should be. protecting our borders is paramount to ensuring homeland

security, economic prosperity and national sovereignty. it is my hope that the members of this committee recognize this and exercise their oversight responsibility to hold border patrol management accountable. i look forward to answer any of your questions. >> colonel, you're up. >> chairman, distinguished members, steve mccraw. you have my written testimony so i will not go into anything that discussed in there but four things i would like to mention, first, obviously the texas/mexico border is unsecured. because of that it is the consequence of that is is it is a public safety and national security threat not just to texas but to every community in the united states. the ranking member you noted some of your things in your comments in that everyone is concerned about the impact of criminal organizations or communities. we all recognize we are concerned about fentanyl, methamphetamine. if you have a drug problem you have a cartel problem, you have an unsecured border problem.

if you have an ms-13 problem in new york you have a border problem. clearly it's the most significant vulnerability that we face from a national security and public safety standpoint. from a texas standpoint we recognize that it's a sovereign responsibility view the federal government to secure the border but when it doesn't happen it impacts our communities. governor abbott and the state legislature in texas is not going to sit around and do nothing and what we have done is they have advocated billions of dollars to provide direct support to the u.s. border patrol. marina sets, tactical marine unit we put in place, i have over 1,000 troopers engaged in border security activities. we have 13 aircraft including nine helicopters and four airplanes that are dedicated full time to border security operations, 13 tactical boats, 42 texas rangers established to

address public corruption but also to work on occasion prior we had to work assault on federal officers but they weren't being handled at the federal level, they are now thanks to the new u.s. attorney in the soern district. those are the types of things that are important to texans and as texas goes so goes the nation. we recognize that also that not only is it the sovereign responsibility of the federal government. it can be done. this is not rocket science. mr. judd mentioned a few things that clearly would enhance or secure the border without question. some of those things is people, technology, infrastructure and the equipment that they need and resources that they need and there is no question that they could do it if they had that, but because they don't have it the department of public safety, the state of texas, governor abbott, they are dedicating resources and time and energy to be able to complement what they're doing in the border patrol.

we do appreciate the texas military forces and texas national guard in texas. they do a great job and in fact we have had them involved in border security operations from the beginning and we will continue to do it and recently they have been able to plus up. they bring with them not just the uh 72s but also other resources we can use in terms of observation, listening posts. i can did every to mr. judd in how important those things are to be able to deny cartel's access to those key issues. i will stop right now and move on. >> thank you, chairman. >> thank you. >> chair now recognizes mr. arthur for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch and members of the subcommittee, thank you for gnawed gnawed. >> make sure your mic is on. >> i should know that, shouldn't i? >> a caravan organized by immigrants rights group in the middle of march 2018 in top chula had grown to more than 1,000 people mostly who had do

you know nationals. this was the eight year such caravan had been assembled but the most notable because of the large number of participants. this year's caravan illustrates a little noticed issue along the southwest border and that is a sharp increase in the number of ail lean apprehensions and nad miss i believe so reversing a downward trend that had go unin november 2016. from 66,712 in october 2016 the number of alien entering illegally or seeking entry without proper documents along the southwest border had dropped to 15,780 by april 2017. the numbers, however, began to slowly increase between the spring and early winter of 2017 before declining into the mid 30,000s. in march 2018 with congress having gated amnesty for daca applicants and others those numbers skyrocketed to 50,308 add hended aliens. this increase and the phenomenon

of the caravan in particular brought into focus crucial loopholes and flaws in u.s. immigration law. the first is credible fear. in 1996 congress amended the immigration law to expedite the removal of aliens coming without visas or entering illegally. these amendments included a provision to allow aliens fleeing harm to avoid expedited removal by asserting a credible fear of persecution allowing them to apply for has limb. in fy 2019 we completed cases. as news spread that aliens apply were being released from custody that number increased to 33,283. at its height in fy 2016 there were 81,864 credible fear cases, these are people arrested at the border, claimed credible fear to get into the united states. the majority of aliens up to 90% who apply are found to be credible fear.

there are many reasons for this including a lack of clear guidance in adjudicating asylum claims, the evidentiary burdens to make such a claim. the fact is most of the aliens in the caravan should they come to the united states and claim credible fear would likely be released to await an asylum hearing that may be years in the future if they appear at all. this is not the only flaw in our immigration laws that renders our borders insecure. interpretations of the trafficking victims protection reauthorization act of 2018 have resulted in the release from removal of tens of thousands of minors from countries other than mexico or otm including many or most of all who were not trafficked to begin with. this provided incentives to trust those lives to smugglers and overtake the journey to the united states. a 20-year-old settlement agreement in flores versus reno has created a resumption that alien minors should be released

into the interior of the united states. this provides greater incentives for legal entry and smugglers and cartels. finally a 2008 expansion of immigration has provided a third incentive for alien minors to enter the united states illegally and parents to trust their children to smugglers. the fact is most of the oti var cans will be released into the united states. the administration has taken steps to stem the recent flow of illegal aliens including ending catch and release sending national guard troops to the border and establishing a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry prosecutions. each of these efforts will fail to secure the border as long as the loopholes and flaws exist. i want to thank each of you for your time and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. mr. bream, five minutes.

>> thank you. ranking member lynch, distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to help. this departments a foreign policy, drug and immigration policy problem, legal problems, humanitarian problem, law enforcement problem and much else besides. it is not at this time definitively not a military problem. i want to preface my testimony by saying how much i respect the service and sacrifice of border patrol agents, texas department of safety and law enforcement officers. my own uniform service was in the military not law enforcement but i'm a proud february member of a three-generation law enforcement family. with respect to the border patrol my dad was serving as a new hampshire state patrolman. so we show our military men and women a great deal of appreciation in this country but not frequently enough with law enforcement and their families. thank you everything for everything that you do and all that you represent. ensuring that our law

enforcement agencies have the resources they need must be a national priority. a secure border is essential. we've been on the right track towards those goals. we've tripled the border patrol's budget since 2001 even as apprehensions from dropped from over 1.2 million in 2001 to just over 300,000 in 2017. a large portion who were asylum seekers to actively sought out border patrol agents rather than attempt to go avoid them. much more important work to be done but these numbers point to a success story for the nation and reflect important political and economic changes in the hemisphere. what these numbers do not point to and what we do not face is a true crisis where emergency on the border. we face challenges but those challenges are best addressed by strengthening the institutions to support safe and order lly immigration not by using the i will tear. president trump frequently speaks for the need for a great

wall across 5,000 miles of the southern border. he claims this wall would be paid for by the government of mexico and then sought funding by congress. now president trump has declared his intention to deploy up to 4,000 national guardman to the border and keep them there or a large porg of them there until such time as we build the wall. there may be marginal benefit to the deployment but there are a great many causes for serious concern. it does not appear to be the result of a deliberative planning or decision-making process. it is likely to negatively impact readiness for the national guard and active duty forces. it does precious little to improve security. time does not permit into he to lay out all the reasons this is so but essentially it comes down to readiness and cost, two issues which are extremely interrelated. it's still unclear where the funds will come from, but costs are likely to be in the hundreds of millions at a minimum and if

that funding it repurposed from within the department of defense congress should ask hard questions on the impact of other defense priorities especially readiness. there is a direct readiness cost to the national guard since by definition guardsman who are standing tower duty, cleaning brush, are not training with their combat teams for their primary mission which is combat. that impacts our national security as a whole because as an operational reserve the guard is an integrate part of our military team. if we faced an actual emergency on the border those costs and risks would perhaps be worth incurring but consider the threat that prompted this hearing. a caravan of central american migrants that presented into national security threat in the first place and has largely dissipated only a fraction of the 1200 travelers planning to continue their journey where they intend to present themselves at a port of entry and seek asylum. in short the situation in our southern border is in many ways better than it's been but the national guard is an

increasingly i object grat part of our military and our military faces a more challenging in decades. afghanistan, syria and iraq, east africa, west africa and yemen, nato and our mission in kosovo which the guard entirely owns, critical deterrence missions in persian gulf and korean peninsula where that border is more dangerous than it's been at any point since the korean war. our military is faces challenges just as the services are digging out of a serious gap left by 15 years of war. so this is not the time to put troops and dollars away from their primary mission to fight and win the nations wars especially in the absence of a genuine threat. there is much we could and should do to improve the situation on our southern border. but deploying the national guard in this manner right now is not one of those things. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. chair now recognizes himself for five minutes.

colonel mccraw, when they had the border surge in 2014 was that something that was good or bad for the drug cartels? >> it's always good for the cartels if they can overwhelm border patrol's resources and that's what happened in 2014, it overwhelmed the resources. the threat is more significant than i think that some have let on to. we are talking about mexican cartels that are powerful and ruthless and dominate the entire lucrative human and drug smuggling and engage in trafficking people and drug trafficking as well. criminal aliens, when we have these struggling communities recruit our children all of these things result in a serious public safety threat. like i said before not just texas, what happens on the texas is there sh mexico border happens throughout the nation. clearly it was a problem and we saw that. less border patrol agents were there and involved in detention

activities and trying in an overwhelmed situation trying to deal with unaccompanied children and family units and could not put enough people at line. texas decided the leadership and state legislature decided to spend enough resources to connect and send troopers around 24 and 7 around the state maintain surge operations for three and a half years until we can permanently assign troopers down to that area. from a texas standpoint this he have' been paying the bill thus far. anything you can do to support border patrol we are all for. if it's national guard, fine, but the long-term solution is infest in border patrol. the patrol function the federal government has never been performed. they don't have the intensive bonuses, they don't have the salary or things that recruiting -- they can readily recruit and compete with some of the other services at the federal level. patrol in a post 9/11

environment is extremely important. it's a deterrent capability. unless you invest in it you don't have the type of capability you have. border patrol can do it. this he don't need texas to help them if they're given the proper resources to do it. if it's national guard right now, we are all for it. anything you can because we look at it every day matters, every day a community is impacted in texas, every day something goes on that's criminal that's transnational crime that we have to deal with in texas. anything we can do and the federal government can do we are all for. >> mr. judd, in terms of the cartels and bringing -- because i think we're seeing in our country a huge problem with fentanyl and some of these opioids, these are street drugs, they are being brought in a lot of it is across the border, a i lot of it originates in china. where is the majority of that coming in in terms of are these controlled access points that

they are sneaking past the guards or are they parts of the border that are unsecured. >> no, most everything that's coming across is coming between the ports of entry because it's easy. if you go through a controlled environment you've got all kinds of people, you've got the k-9 handlers, you have to get past all of that. what it's easy for the smugglers to do is it's easy for them to send people across the border illegally which they force them to do, force us to take our resources out of the field to deal with that, create the gaps and then they cross their products behind in the gaps that they created. you have to remember of those 50,000 apprehensions that we had in march only 13,000 was at the ports of entry, 38,000 was between the ports of entry. >> mr. arthur, in terms of asylum, how does it work? i mean, if somebody is living in a poor country where there's crime, can they just come here and say asylum or do they have to qualify for certain types of -- maybe they were persecuted

on the basis of race or religion or something like that. can you give us how is it supposed to work and how is it actually working. >> to be granted asylum in the united states you have to show either past persecution or fear of persecution on the account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. four are easily defined the first one membership in a particular social group is rather vague, vague in the law and vague in its interpretation. attorney general sessions has certified a case to himself in which he will clarify what exactly the parameters are for granting asylum on the bases of being the victim of a criminal activity such as by graings in a foreign done tree. >> i think most of us believe that there is a role for people who are being persecuted, the united states does want to be a refuge for folks in that situation. but if you're coming in because you want a better job opportunities are here, using

some thing, i mean, isn't that a run around just the normal legal immigration process where they should be applying to come here if they are not actually in any of those buckets that you are talking about? >> unfortunately and unfortunately it's actually worse than that because the fact is the pad claims take away from the good claims. they take away from the time that the judges have to grant asylum to individuals who are actually in fear of harm in their home countries. once granted asylum by an immigration judge those individuals could then petition to bring their families out of that dangerous situation but when the system gets clogged up with fraudulent claims or nonmeritorious claims the system breaks down and that's what we're seeing right now in our immigration courts. >> i'm out of time so i'm going to recognize ranking member for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> firstly, i'd like to have entered into the record a letter from amnesty international regarding this hearing. >> without objection. >> thank you. as i noted earlier, the omnibus

appropriation bill we just did allocated $14 billion for customs and bodder protection, that included a lot for security operations and i believe hiring i think 351 additional border patrol agents, however, that bill did not anticipate moving 4,000 national guard to the border, that's a separate budget that's got to come off dod's account. last week secretary of defense mattis directed the pentagon comptroller to, quote, identify available funding to pay for the 4,000 national guard troops to be moved to the border. with he still don't have an estimate of how much the operation will cost but we do know it will divert resources from other military priorities. chairman mack thorn bury, also a texas native, had this to say, he said if you take away money

you can't do some of the things -- you take money from the defense budget you can't do some of those things that you are trying to do like add pilots or repair ships or those other sort of things. so mr. breen, first of all, thank you for your service to your country. we appreciate it. what do you think about pulling money from i think core defense and combat training activities and diverting 2,000 to 4,000 of our national guard men and women to the border? what do you think about the efficacy of that move? >> congressman, that's a dangerous game to start playing and i think history indicates that all the way back to task force smith in the first korean war. the cost can be very high when you get yourself into a fight. i agree with a great deal of what colonel mcgraw had to say in the sense that we do need to

invest in these capabilities but i think there's a great danger when policymakers reach for the military as a band-aid to solve problems in other areas of government and the military can only do so much things, it's been overstretched. the secretary of defense who knows a few things about being in a fight again is down the hall saying the number one priority is lethality. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says his readiness is his number one priority, he has no number two priority and he has identified critical readiness needs in terms of the force's ability to go toe to toe with foe's like russia and other militaries. we have become a little too accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a superior force but we have been tied down to doing counterterrorism mean while the world's militaries have been training and equipping specifically to fight us. so we have to catch up to that and, again, going back into

history test force smith was five years after the end of world war ii. you take the most capable land force the world had ever seen that wanted to beat the nazis and japanese in world war ii five years later puts a force in the field against a second rate north korean army and is routed because the investments weren't continual wously made in that combat capability. it impacts the entire guard. it sounds like it's only 4,000 guardsman, but the guard needs to deploy and fight as a brigade combat team. when you start removing elements of that team for other tasks it degrades the entire team's ability to train and the national guard has a modernization and training plan called national guard 4.0 that explicitly calls for that brigade teams to be kept together to this undermines those priorities. >> thank you. by the way, thank you all for your service to our country.

thank you all. we have had a chance members of this committee to go down wash we went down to honduras, went down to guatemala city, el salvador to look at the human trafficking operations going on there that are actually inducing people to come up to the border. we also have had an active role in what's going on in the tri-border area where we've got hezbollah on the ground so there are major concerns there. my question is really about the efficiency and efficacy of our funding. is it better to try to divert money to national guard or -- look, i voted for this $14 billion for border patrol, you know, enhanced border security. is that a better way to address the challenge that we have or should we sort of try to make it up as we go along using our national guard folks to do a job they necessarily weren't

really -- they didn't sign up for, i guess? >> well, the investment in the border patrol has to be there, but right now you have an attrition rate that exceeds the hiring raity. so we are not retaining our border patrol agents. we do have to have a stopgap. as far as our national guard, they are being put in situations that is like combat situations. they are in lp and op situations, they are sitting in observation posts which they would be required to do in the military in the event that a war was to take place. as a uniformed officer i have worked right next to my uniformed national guard counterparts i can tell you that they feel that the operations they're doing -- >> i know my name is running short. all i'm saying is that secretary mattis had other stuff about those folks to be doing rather than sitting on the border and i'm just worried about those other priorities that are being ignored. but thank you. i appreciate it. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee for

five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. when i was growing up my grandparents in scott county, tennessee, one of the poorest counties in the u.s., they had ten minutes and an outhouse and not much more. my dad hitch hiked into knoxville $5 in his pocket to go to the university and all ten of those children end up doing real well but they all grew up in what would be considered bitter poverty today and started with nothing. so i have spoken many times at the naturalization ceremonies in knoxville to express my respect and admiration for people who come to this country with nothing except a desire to work and who have made good listens for themselves. but the american people are the kindest most generous people in the world and we have allowed for more immigration than any other country over the last 50 years or so than any other country, no other country has come close, but when i google

the question of percentage of world population that lives on $10 a day or less the first thing that pops up is from some issue, global issues.org, it says at least 80% of humanity live on less than $10 a day. more than already been almost half the world, over $23 billion live on less than $2.50 a day and they have similar articles like that. we all have tremendous sympathy for all these people who are living in such bitter poverty around the world, but when you talk about 3 billion people living with almost nothing you can understand that we have no telling how many people who would come here tomorrow if they possibly could. so it seems to me that we have to have some sort of legal orderly system of immigration and it has to be enforced because if we didn't, our whole

infrastructure, our hospitals, our jails, our sewers, our schools, our roads, our whole economy we couldn't handle such a rapid influx as we might have over the next three or four years if we just simply opened our borders or didn't enforce our immigration laws. so when i -- and i've heard -- i'm now in my 30th year in the congress. every year since i've been here i've heard this figure 11 million immigrants. i believe it has to be at least two or three times that many that are here living here illegally because i'm not near a border, but every place in the country is overrun it seems to me with illegal immigrants. i just wonder it's not being mean or cruel or harsh to say that we have to have some of these immigration laws and they have to be enforced. we have to do it, it seems to me, unless we want to almost

destroy this country economically. mr. judd, what do you think would happen if we simply -- if we did away with the border patrol and basically didn't -- just had no borders, open borders? >> well, just from my experience of people that cross the border illegally now i think that we would have mass influxes of people coming across the border, but that's just from my experience. i would like to say that i wish that my colleague from management were here to testify as well because they could specifically tell you what we would -- you know, why we're allocating resources where we're allocating them and if we were allocating them properly maybe we wouldn't even need the national guard, but we will never know that because we didn't do it. >> well, it seems to me that we've got to have stronger enforcement of our immigration laws for many, many reasons and i think almost all of us

probably everybody at this table believes in legal immigration and continuing to allow many, many people to immigrate here legally, but we just have a problem that we are forced to do something. colonel, do you want to see anything or mr. arthur? >> i will gladly pitch in a can you please comments. first, we had a pretty good relationship with u.s. border patrol, i think that's important that we state that, and the leadership has worked very well with us along the border. there is a seamless operation, we know what unified command is about, we understand in terms that are important of integrating in terms of air, marine and land operations, special operations groups, all of those things are happening and some things that we can do is use some of our special agents to target the smuggling infrastructure in some of those areas. i want to give a clear indication to you and members that we do work very well with our federal partners and we are very proud to work with them,

the u.s. border patrol, the brave men and women that all risk their lives daily to protect texas and the rest of this nation so i want to get that on the record. in terms of our concern is this, simply put, if the boarder is not secured then you're opening it up to increased drugs, criminal aliens, transnational gangs, some of the things you're already seeing because the boarder is not secure. theres no question it has an impact on public safety in texas. anybody will tell you that. texas sheriffs and border sheriffs will tell you that. this is a nonpartisan issue. this is a national security and public safety threat. this is nothing about politics. it just simply s in terms of where the funding comes from, way above my way grade. how it happens, how border patrol gets the resources they need to secure between the ports of entry, that's certainly above my pay grade, i'm sure you can figure it out if you wanted to, and, believe me, i can assure you from my discussions with members and i have appropriations hearing next week in texas is they want to find out in terms of where we are

staffing at a federal level so we can back off from a saint standpoint. right now the governor has made it clear we are not going to back off an inch. we are not going to give one inch to the cartels to support them. >> i certainly agree with you but my time is up. thank you very much. >> gentleman's time has expired. chairman recognizes the gentleman from california for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for the witnesses who showed up for showing up. i really appreciate that. i believe it is quite evident that the recent deployment of national guard troops to the southern border is the result of carefully considered fact-based decisions. on april 1st president trump manufactured a crisis on twitter and justified the deployment of national troops after watching fox news describe a caravan of central american migrants who entered the u.s. through the so-called catch and release. as with a lot of his tweets there's plenty of misinformation to unpack.

first, he appears to be claiming it is getting more dangerous due to a caravan of largely honduran asylum seekers fleeing violence mostly who are women and children, even babies. mr. breen, is this also your understanding? >> yeah, my understanding is that the caravan is essentially asylum seekers fleeing an extremely violent northern triengling of central america. >> do you believe that this caravan poses a national security or military threat? >> i have absolutely no reason to believe that. no. >> i know i'm asking to restate some of your points but it's for a purpose. president trump also seemed to imply that the caravans were coming in part because of daca, the deferred action for childhood arrivals program among other conditions only individuals who have lived here in the u.s. since 2007 would be eligible. mr. breen, with that in mind would it be possible for any new arrival from a caravan to be

eligible for daca. >> by definition, no, it would not. >> the decision to send national guard troops to the border is baffling from a policy perspective. mr. breen, is construct ago 2,000 mile concrete border wall the most efficient or effective way to improve border security. >> i do not believe so, no. basically every expert who looked at this, you can construct a physical fortification at great cost that will take a great period of time. you will have to use eminent domain to do that, one through private property. major challenges there. in the abscess of the patrol all all you will have is an expensive wall people get over. the cost guard has encountered drugs at sea have been increasing. there are a lot of other places you can put the $20 billion or whatever it's going to cost from increasing -- added capacity for immigration courts, better resources for border control,

resources the coast card and on we go. no, i don't think the wall is an effective solution. >> also mattis signed a memo that stated that the national guard will not perform law enforcement activities or interact with migrants. is that right and what would the national guard's role consist of and how effective would they be? >> i think that's correct. that is definitely the right thing to do. it's worth noting this is title 32 situation not a title 10 situation so secretary mattis is not in a position as straining as it may sound to directly issue guidance to the guard. that falls to the governors, but i definitely think that is the wisers course of action. what ends up happening of course is that in theory the national guard will do things like man towers and do other tasks so the border patrol agents are free to go out but as mr. judd has already stated border patrol has already got in some situations 75 of its man strength not patrolling already. so it's a little hard to see in

a management situation like that how you're not going to have a lot of guys standing around. >> so i don't have much time. so one of the things i want to point out and ask because it was justified that the deployment of national guard troops based on catch and release and daca. does sending national guard troops to the border change any policy that you know of catch and release or dak? >> no, not at all. >> so my point is that it seems that this policy was decided at a whim to send national guard down to the border. i'm not saying it won't be necessary but i'd like to have something that's actually fact based, something that is thought out that's done with coordination and understands that there is a real crisis going on in the border and if your justification is the drug cartels state it, don't make up another fact that gives red meat to your base. that's what this president did is using something that's not

correlated with what he's calling a crisis because there is no crisis because of these asylum seekers, right? so -- and it doesn't change policy. at all. all you're doing is sending more troops to the border that are going to probably not produce the result of keeping away people who would be catch and release or daca recipients. so i just appreciate the time. in closing i'd like to enter a level from civil rights groups in california asking governor brown to reject the xenophobia driving the deployment of the national guard to our border. >> without objection. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. mccraw, i understand that your department is responsible in texas for maintaining the statewide sex offender registry, is that correct? okay. this is a little off topic, i understand, but it's a great can

earn to me the threat that's been posed by convicted sex offenders who have entered this country illegally and under the previous administration many of those individuals were released from i.c.e. custody without even local law enforcement being notified and without ensuring that they were placed on the national sex offender registry. i realize a lot has been done within i.c.e. over the last couple years and the law enforcement notification system progress is being made, i understand that, i deeply appreciate that, but i'm like wise very much concerned that we still have a long ways to go with this. so it's my understanding, for example, that when i.c.e. enforcement and removal operations is scheduled to release an illegal alien who is required supposedly to register on the sex offender list that i.c.e. sends notification

through the department of justice, the exchange portal. is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> okay. so when you receive this information what kind of information is provided? what do you get from i.c.e.? for example, are you getting criminal histories, country of origin, fingerprints, aliases? >> we're getting all of the information that we need to be able to follow state law and follow up on the federal requirements so we can get them registered at this point in time. with the i.c.e. ero we've done some operations with them to capture sex offenders that were criminal aliens here in texas that have been registered and have been deported. >> are you getting fingerprints? >> yes, sir. i have no reason to know otherwise. if there's anything contra to that i will get back to you but as i understand it right now we're getting all that we need from i.c.e. ero on the situation

like that. >> if you would get back with me on what you do receive. i would like that. >> yes, sir. >> so at this point in the process is it then your department or i.c.e. that has the responsibility to ensure that local law enforcement knows about these individuals? >> we certainly do. we go through the process. once they get registered in the texas registry because they live in texas at that point we notify local agencies at that point in time. >> so i.c.e. hands the baton to you and it's your responsibility? >> yes, sir. >> texas is doing a good job of notifying law enforcement locally. it's my understanding a lot of states are dropping the ball on that. are you aware of that? >> i'm not aware of what they're doing in other states. i know that the governor and legislature won't stand for anything else less than getting it done correctly. >> it's my understanding that local law enforcement is unable and certainly citizens like wise but local law enforcement is

unable to access the dojsorna exchange portal. >> i'm not aware of that. i know that they can access the texas sex offender registry. i know they have access to that. i can't tell you from a federal standpoint. >> that's where it becomes your responsibility to make sure they get it because they are not able to as i understand it i want to make sure. so how can we better fix this whole process, improve the notification, the information sharing process and this type of thing when it comes to sex offenders? >> again, you are looking at different states have done different things and some of those things are laws and some things have taken a more proactive approach to that concern. in texas the legislature and governor have been proactive and concerned about sex trafficking whether it's international sex trafficking or domestic sex trafficking by gangs. they've been proactive in that area. >> i want to thank you for your work with this and i wanted to -- like i say, i know this is

a little off topic, but it's still very much related to the overall topic because we're dealing with this stuff on a regular basis and i appreciate your expertise and what you do. i just want to make it known i'm with ilg to work and look forward to working with you and your department, any of you who are interested in helping to find ways to close the gaps and ensure the safety of the american public in this regard and i appreciate your work this that regard. >> sex trafficking is a problem. it clearly is. we will get back to you if we hav have. >> the hearing record will remain open for two weeks for any member to submit a written opening statement for questions for the record. if there is no further business without objection the subcommittee on national security stands adjourned.

>> earlier this week the center for american progress ideas conference. >> lawmakers on the house oversight and government reform committee received a progress report on the 2020 census earlier today from the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. you can see that tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> this weekend c-span cities tour takes you to selma, alabama. with the help of our spectrum cable partners we will cross the

edmond pettus bridge arriving at a town known for its role in the civil war and civil rights movement. safety at 5:30 p.m. on book tv we will visitity home martin luther king jr. used as his headquarters. it's featured in the book "the house by the side of the road." >> there was a photographer here to worked for life magazine who was embedded in the house and he wanted to capture dr. king's emotions as we watched on television president johnson committing to signing the voting rights act. this is the chair that dr. king was sitting in that night watching that television. president johnson addressed the nation. >> and we will meet the first african-american fire chief in the city, chief henry allen, talking about his book "marching through the flame." on sunday at 1:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv, we will

look at the voting rights movement that started in the 1930s and visit several locations around the town that were integral to the movement. and then a visit to the edmund pettus bridge looking at the role the bridge played in selma before and after the battle for civil rights. >> anyone who depose over this bridge they see this name and what is evoked is a sense of the past and the present. they come together. so you have a modern bridge stamped with the name of a key voice for white supremacy here in the south. >> watch c-span city's tour of selma, alabama, saturday at 5:30 eastern on book tv and sunday at 1:30 p.m. on american history tv on c-span 3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore americ america. >> and now a discussion on net neutrality and what's called the digital divide. the annual telecommunications policy conference here in washington was hosted by the free state foundation. b