the threat to jordan is, i think, as much as it is to the united states. >> all right, your other border is iraq. are you concerned about america withdrawing their troops from iraq under the present timetable? .

>> i believe in the iraqi people. i believe there is a new phase in their life that will have an effect on iraq's stability and the role that america has to play. i think that we have a good story happen here. -- happening here. >> i think that is very encouraging for all of us to hear because from a -- from this side of the water, we think that is happening. there is a concern that there would be a fall back afterwards , after the americans leave.

>> i was in congress for six hours today and nobody asked me about iraq. [applause] [laughter] >> this year marks the anniversary of the united states and jordanian diplomatic ties. anniversaries are useful time to look back. how would you assess the jordanian/u.s. relationship as it stands now, as it was 10 years ago or five years ago? >> again, the relationship between our two countries was under king hussein's. it started very strongly. today, it is as strong if not stronger than it has ever been. we are partners in bringing

peace and stability to the middle east. we are partners in harm's way in other parts of the world. i think that the confidence in the relationship is to make. -- is unique. i think this is something that my father would be very proud of. i think that we have a very good story to tell. it is one that should be for others in our part of the world. >> that is good to hear. in the 60 years, this is close to your 10th anniversary. looking back, the accomplishment that you are most proud of, what is it, looking forward, that you want to accomplish in jordan? >> the accomplishment that both

escaped my father escapes me so far. that is resolving the most important issue which is israeli/palestinian relations. we have a lot of work ahead of us. that is the ultimate goal. i think that the challenges that face my country and the rest of the middle east is that 50% of the middle east is under the age of 18. we have the largest youth corps in history. young men and women are looking for opportunities and looking for jobs in the middle east. if we do not solve the political problems of the region, that is a time bomb that is where it -- waiting to go off. luckily, jordan is a small country. we have a vibrant, young generation which i think is a plus. this is needed to create opportunities for young people

and their future. the future of jordan is based on building and strengthening the middle class. this will only move jordan forward when the middle class is large and vibrant and capable of taking jordan in the right direction. that is difficult when there is a lot of instability in our area. when there is peace, the economic dividends for all of us are huge. we need that peace if we are going to take care of and this growing generation that is looking for a chance for a good life. i think that if my work over the past 10 years has done anything, i said that we would

make people comfortable. i think that as a promise -- something we should aspire to it. >> do the other countries in the gulf that you meet with, do they agree with your concern and what you would like to accomplish? >> peace and stability, definitely. we all suffer. i think that is the same the world over. again, i think the younger generation really understands the empowerment of the middle- class. the tool for that comes down to education. my wife has been such an advocate of giving young boys and girls an opportunity to

move our country forward. i think this is the secret of being able to afford. other countries are picking up on that. >> we really want to thank you for speaking out the way that you have. you have been a voice of reason and from this side of the water, we wish that other countries would do and say the kinds of things that you say. your effort to bring common prosperity to the entire region, like your dad, has been tremendous for it is greatly appreciated. after the kind of day that you have had, we are thrilled that you came to spend time with us. >> i do not know chicago that well. this is my third or fourth time here. chicago reminds me of when i was

a teenager in boston. it is a vibrant city. it is a beautiful city. at the people are very warm. i am always delighted to be here. >> this is the best city in the united states. [laughter] [applause] >> in a moment, we had to george washington university in washington d.c. for a speech of the bill -- by the author of " reading lolita."

she is introduced by the foreman cnn correspondent. fascinating and more important than in iran. our keynoter today is best known as the author of the national bestseller "reading lolita in tehran." it's a compassionate but harrowing portrait of the islamic revolution in iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. the book spent more than 115 weeks on the "new york times" bestseller list. not bad. it's been translated into 32 languages and it has won several literary awards. excuse me. including the 2004 nonfiction book of the year award from book sense. the frederick w.ness book award. and several others. reading lolita in iran has

earned critical praise in tehran and literary distinction as it has built a enthusiastic readership. they have been captivated by the story and the characters framed in this alluring and confounding place. iran. the book is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers, that truly transformative powers of fiction and a world of tyranny. she's a visiting professor and the executive director of cultural conversations at the foreign policy institute. of johns hopkins school of international students here in washington, d.c. where she's the professor of ethics and history. she teaches the relation between culture and politics and held a fellowship at the university. she's taught at the university of tehran. a free islamic university.

before her return to the united states in 1997. she's earned respect. and international recognition for advocating on behalf of intellectuals, youth, and especially young women. in 1981 she was expelled from the university of tehran for refusing to wear the mandatory islamic veil. and she did not return to teaching until 1991. she has written for the "times" the "wall street journal," our cover story the veiled threat of the iranian's revolution woman problem published in the new republic has been reprinted in several languages. she's currently working on a book entitled "republic of the imagination" which is about the power of liberation to empower the minds of people. she lives here in washington, d.c.

at the conclusion of her keynote i will join her for a few moments and have an opportunity to explore what she said with her and to open it up to you for your questions from that mic in the middle of the room. so please, as she speaks, and as we speak, if you'd prepare your brief questions, we will get to you as well. so now it is my great pleasure to welcome to the george washington university and to all of you azar nafisi. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. it's such a great pleasure to be here today. especially when all those wonderful institutions that are constantly reminding us how important the truth is. the academia george washington university and the board of governors and all these people on the panel.

and i do think that truth is, in fact, the main issue. the main topic at that we will be talking about today. and because of that, when i was thinking about how just a year ago -- it was just before the june uprising or rebellions in 2009, if you thought of iran, the images that came out of iran were not the images that were later taking over the internet and finally the media over here. the images that was given to us through his cartoons. the image of that amazing girl nadal, who has become the symbol of iran and iranian youth. and definitely you would not have -- nobody would have thought when they thought of iran of a group of young girls sitting in a room overlooking the snow capped mountains of tehran and reading lolita.

when you think of each one of these images you would not think of iran. iran was defined at that time by wmds, by terror. and the first image that came to your mind -- because his image was all over the media here. from larry king to anderson cooper to charlie rose. everywhere you looked we had our wonderful president, mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad with a shirk on his faisst as if he had broken the neighbor's window and gotten away with it. and by golly he had gotten away with it. he reminded me of a george clooney or brad pitt this fascination people had with mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad. the questions like how many kids do you have? do you love new york? how many kids are in your jails? how many are being raped as we speak? you know, those questions, of course.

and it reminded me -- when i thought of that view -- because, you see, the whole idea is that you need to look at a nation, at an individual, at any -- at any -- at reality through diverse eyes. through different perspectives in order to come as close as you can to one -- to the whole -- to the whole image. and in order to understand a country like iran, in order to understand a country like united states, you need to understand it. not just through the eyes of the governments. even when the governments -- even when the politicians are democratic. far worse when you live in a totalitarian society whose first act is to take away the group of voices. to reduce all voices. to just one image.

and so the point here -- and what i celebrate now -- and in a meeting like this is that finally those voices and those images that had been forced underground for so many years have burst and blossomed. on the internet and on television screens. and when we talk of iran, we know more talk one aspect of iran but iran as a country that is mysterious. and one of the most important debates and will be the answer to many of the very important problems that we are facing today. so whenever i think of mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad's perspective, i remember of an anecdote -- i mention it in my book but many people have later

also mentioned it. it becomes sort of the metaphor for me about this whole idea of truth. and although it sounds very abstract, how important it is in our lives, not just personal but also political and cultural. and when we are here talking about iranian journalists and bloggers and how we can connect to them, we understand how essential their role is in not just changing the iranian society and changing iran's role in the region and in the world but changing our perspectives about ourselves. because the way we look at others is a reflection of the way we look at ourselves. those people we think as our allies and our enemies defines who we are. and where we stand in the world today. and what we expect of the world today. well, the image that comes to my mind is the image of this guy

who was the censor for iran in 1994. he was blind. he was nearly blind. so he would be sitting -- one famous director told me that he would be sitting there and somebody would be sitting beside him. and he would tell him things like now the girl is approaching the boy, you know, cut. you know, so he couldn't see. but he could say how people should be acting. and after 1994, his job was changed. and he became the head of the new television channel in iran. the main censor for the new television channel in iran, channel 4. and his successor who was not blind -- i mean, not physically but metaphorically definitely blind. he used the same method that this censor used.

he would have people give their scripts to him in tapes, tape-recorders, and he would listen to the scripts. they did not have to enact it dramatically. can you imagine to be a script writer and not present your script dramatically. he would listen to them and decide how people should act. and this metaphor of the blind censor for film and television for me became a metaphor for all those totalitarian mindsets who, in fact, afraid of the diversity of voices, of the diversity of opinions, of the diversity of ideas -- they tried to impose their own image of reality upon -- in the case of the islamic republic of iran. upon a whole, you know, nation. and so when the islamic republic came -- took power and the blind

censor a philosopher of kings came with it. the first targets that they found -- the very first targets were those who have symbolized this diversity. which was women, minorities, and those who worked in what we call culture. the academia, mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad, recently claimed -- recently stated would regret. and that the iranian academia, since the beginning of last century, had remained -- had been secular and liberal. and, unfortunately, the islamic republic has been unable to do anything about it. so their first targets were, in fact, women who unlike what has been said had been fighting for their rights since mid-1800s. and that one of the first things that a totalitarian regime does -- in order to legitimatize

what it is. in order to legitimatize its confiscates history. they want to impose their fundamentalist views upon a society. the first thing that they do is confiscate history. the first thing they want to do, they confiscate and redefine what it means, for example, to be an american. or what it means to have a constitution. that is the first thing that they do. because history needs to justify what we do. what we were in the past will show us what we are now. and what we will be in the future. so they reduced that history of an ancient country. iran goes back to 3,000 years of history. it wasn't even islamic.

islam came to iran in seventh century. but after the invasion of iran, that islam mixed and mingled with the past of iran. every country that is muslim is muslim in its own way. in the same way that every country that is christian is christian in its own way. you have so many definitions. and yet all of those components of islam from shia to sunni to the mystical -- one of the most peaceful philosophies and ideologies that came against orthodox islam. and had its origins in iran, and mysticism -- all of these were lumped together. and, you know, and all of them were reduced to state, an official version of religion.

because you noticed that, you know, this country is a christian majority. and yet we have so many different denominations where we talk about america being christian, are we talking about sarah palin's christianity? are we talking about obama's christianity? are we talking about reverend wright's christianity? are we talking about reverend falwell's christianity? there are so many ways of interpreting religion. but once religion becomes the state -- let's say from tomorrow, we say we're a christian nation and ms. palin's christianity is what we will all do, then religion itself is confiscated. and yet when you said that, people both in power in iran and those apologists for them here would call you western.

you know, to say that religion should be diverse was an insult to islam. now, iranian women, iranian men, iranian clerics from the beginning of the last century -- from late 19th century had been fighting against an absolutist monarchy and against an absolutist religion. and they were the first in the region -- iran was the first in the region to have a constitutional revolution. the same forces that you see in the streets of tehran today are the great, great, great children -- great grandchildren and grandchildren of those forces who came out into the streets of tehran and other places in iran 100 years ago. and created the constitutional revolution, which was the first revolution to create modern and

open institutions. and the iranian women who are called western because they say that they need to have a choice -- they have been fighting for their rights for over 100 years. their rights was not something that a shah could give them. so that an ayatollah could take away. they had been -- they had been fighting. they had been beaten. they had been exiled. morgan schuster in 1912 wrote about iran. he lived in iran. and he wrote about iran. how iranian -- i talk about it in my second book in "things i have been silent about." iranian women in the course of a few years have made leaps of centuries. and they have -- they are far ahead of their sisters in the west. so what i'm trying to say in this very short time is that what your facing here is not a regime that is defending

religion. that is defending tradition. that is defending culture. that all totalitarian systems come in the name of half-truths. and all totalitarian system takes something from the society, some aspect of society and then extend it to the society as a whole. and when we talk about -- and, you know, one of the things -- this is a good time because when we talk about iran, we also have to learn about america. right? this is a dialog. and in dialog, it's not ever a one-way street. really what amazed me was that over the 18 years that i lived in the islamic republic, i had some of the most amazing experiences in terms of the flourishing and the need and the thirst and the hunger to connect to the world.

and to connect through the best the world had to offer, it's ideas, it's philosophies, it's novels, it's poetry, its music. we had some of the most -- you know, i remember once i gave a talk. there was almost a riot. you know, people -- when they came to watch the movies by the avant-garde by a russian filmmaker, it seemed as if they were going to a concert by michael jackson. you know, so the whole idea was that there was this thirst for culture. and yet i come here -- and, you know, and also, for example, about the issue of the veil. there was far more freedom among ourselves to debate the issue. and i want to mention this here because it's very important to understand that the issue of the veil is not about religion. it is not about whether the veil is good or bad.

when i refused to wear the veil, it was because i thought that no state, no authority has the right to tell its citizens whether to worship god or not and in what way to worship god. that it was dependent upon the citizens to decide that for themselves. and my grandmother, who never took off her veil, had the same idea as i did. and she would cry and tell us that this is not the real islam because they do not flog people. and they do not put young women in jail. and give them virginity tests. they do not insult god's children in this way. if they are true muslims. so i want you to understand that this society is very traumatized because not only its history, not only its culture. not only its reality. but also in the name of its

religion something has been taken away from it. that for the past 30 years it is trying to retrieve. so the whole idea then was when i came here. and in a society where i'm free to write, when i'm free to talk, when i'm free to criticize, i realize that the same reduced images, the same mutilated images that existed there are now dominating here. and when you talk to people about, you know, the right of choice, about iranian women, they look at you oh, but you're western. oh, it's their culture. and some people from the right and some people from the right -- from the left -- the people on the right say it's their culture. so let's attack them. they're terrible people. people on the left -- it's their culture. let the natives do whatever they want to do. now, the whole point is that what did they attribute to our culture?

when the islamic republic came to power, iran had some of the most progressive laws on women. we had two women ministers. one minister for women's affairs. my own mother was one of the first women who went to the iranian parliament in 1963. switzerland didn't get its right to vote for women until 1974. we had women in the industry. we had women pilots. we had women judges. the nobel laureate was the first circuit judge because they said women are too weak to be able to women are too weak to be able to judge.@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @r

>> they reduced the age of marriage from 18 to 94 females after women fighting for almost 20 years, they finally raised to 13, but the judge can give his consent for the father to marry a girl under the age of 13. still the judge can give its consent for the father to marry a girl under the age of 13. how critical for a culture who would put a man in jail if they have sex with a 13-year-old girl to tell me that this is my culture. or something that had never existed in the history of iran, which is stoning people to death for prostitution. what they call prostitution and adultery. if that is my culture, then slavery is the culture of this country. and not abraham lincoln.

and frederick douglass and flanary o'connor and william faulkner and mark twain. if this is my culture, then inquisition, fascism and communism is the culture of europe. fascism and communism came from the heart of civilized europe. they didn't come from the muslim world. they didn't come from the east. that is their culture. not dante, st. thomas aquinas, jane austen, shakespeare and others. every culture has something to be ashamed of. there are no innocents in this world. not a single innocent nation. but what makes a culture great is its ability to see the points

that are terrible about itself, shame, genuine shame. not the kind of shames that politicians -- nowadays they don't even apologize for the shameful things they do. not the kind of things that the politicians do, oh, we are so ashamed. oh, we feel your pain. no, not that kind. real shame, which leads you to change. real shame which created the abolitionist movement in this country. when i left this country in the 1970s, obama and mr. lieberman -- none of them maybe could have gone into many institutions in this country still. hillary clinton as president, hillary clinton -- women like gloria steinam and betty friedman were made browbeating as women at home. it's the fact that within the past 30 years, in the past 100

and something years from there it has come to here. so that we now not only have a barack obama who is the president but a barack hussein obama who will remind many husseins in this country that they do not have to become terrorists. that they can become, in fact, presidents. and if barack hussein obama who chooses to become christian and keep the name hussein so now maybe a hillary or a bill will become jewish or bahari or maybe a hussein or ali will become christian or jewish or atheists for heaven's sake. i mean, i just want to actually go through the conclusion about the bloggers because i think the most important thing. but what i was trying to show was that if you are talking about truth, whether it's about

iran or china or darfur, you cannot go to those people who fabricate the truth in order to gain power. for truth you have to go to history. you have to go to culture. you have to remember that this iran sees its identity in its greatest poets that iranians know further see or by heart even when they're illiterate. that's 750 years ago. a poet whose book is in every iranian house said -- talked about hypocritical clerics who drink wine in private. and flog people in public. you have an agnostic astrollger

every time you pass my grave you douse a glass of wine to remember my life. wine in mystical iran poetry is a symbol of communion with god. these culture we call muslim, they are sensual and erotic and colorful. life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is not an american thing. the woman in afghanistan who has been shot to death, the woman in iran who is being raped in jails, the woman in saudi arabia who is being flogged for the way she looks. the woman in darfur who is being -- whose children are killed in front of her and is being raped, they also want to be happy ...

>> is that truth is always, always, you don't need to be political. and i want you to know the reason that the movement in iran will be successful is because it is not merely political. i know that is wrong to say this in washington, d.c., but that is why washington has been getting iran so wrong for so long. because there's, like south

africa, and like eastern europe, is a movement that is fighting for something far more important than politics. it is an existential movement. for 30 years, iranian women have been fighting against these laws, through educators, the 1 million signature campaign, and there is a book out now in english, where it is the history of 1 million signatures campaign that the iranian women created so that they -- against the repressive laws. they chose, the first line of light iranians are important for us, is iran is not going where the regime is going. if you want to fight a totalitarian system, you cannot be totalitarian yourself. military attacks, insults to the

regime, just call for its overthrow, this is not what the aim of this movement is. the aim of this movement, it has learned its lesson, is not just a mere change in regime, but a change in mind. which is far more difficult. and a change in mindset means that the ends does not justify every single mean that you can use. that the means you use will become the sum total of the end your and the iranian, the reason it will teach us a great deal about ourselves, about the region and about the world is that it has chosen to use democratic means in order to change a nondemocratic system. they have the guns. they have the jails. what do we have? that is the point.

for iranian women use the wondering signature campaign to educate women both within the country and without. and they showed to women across the board that whether you're an orthodox muslim woman, or whether you are an agnostic modern, you know, very open woman, these laws are against you. the laws that do not give you custody of the child, the laws that marry you while your father's wish at such an age, the laws that do not allow you to become judges. these laws are against all of us, and in the streets of tehran in june, and later on, you saw women. you saw they had to wear the veil. but you will see the differences. you saw young and old, male and

females, asking for freedom, asking for their openness. this is the strategy, to educate and to default against the guns. because if the struggle is political, you know how in politics is always compromised. it's always compromise, but you need to have other areas in the society where you can use other methods. this is what a democracy is. you have politics. europe literature. at humanities. we -- the writers, the journalists, the artists, we can become the conscience of society. and what we do then is to use the truth as a weapon. that is what is happening right now in iran. and the bloggers in iran, the

first panel can talk much more than i can about this, but notice that if they flog women for showing their hair, if they put bloggers in jail and tortured them, if journalists are jailed for just simply telling the truth or showing a cartoon, that shows how vulnerable the regime is, how afraid they are. because women, the bloggers weapons of mass destruction is what they write and is a bit of hair that the show, you know, and so i am very much on time, you know, i'm looking at my watch all the time. although i know it's lovely to talk about democracy when you have microphone. okay, so what i want to end within is the fact that we need to take this movement in iran

very seriously, and we need to take it seriously, not just for the sake. do not feel sorry for iranian people. they have taken responsibility for their lives, and they have refused to be victims. so what you need to do is to support their voices, and to add your voice to them, and to communicate to them via radio liberty need to create a conversation with the iranian people. they are now in jail for reading and chronicles, education, people were trying to prevent a revolution because they were reading, for heavens sake. how many of my students know that? they are taking the best that the west has. your best weapon is not your military. your best weapon is the culture. and they are taking that culture, they are putting on their websites and they are reminding us in america that

today in this terrible crisis the crisis is not financial. it is a crisis of vision and it is a crisis of the united nations, and iran is here to remind you that the root against the blind, here in america or their in iran, is through a conversation that is based on imagination and on thought. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you very much. it was fascinating. a great privilege and pleasure to have you here. on campus, and your metaphor of the blind censor is killing, really. but i'd like to ask you this question because much of the world, shortly here in the west, we have so much about the part of iran. we hear about ahmadinejad.

we hear about the nuclear program. we don't hear much about what you refer to as a trauma tide society. what do you think is the cultural dynamic at this moment in iran? and as you formulate your entry, i will invite those of you who may have questions to move to the microphones the weekend get our response here in a few bits we have before move on to the next item. >> you know, we do have to, i'll say that we have to thank the islam republic for so many things. to show me just the divine details of life, like the sun in my hair is very important that one of the things that the revolution debt, which was very important, was it forced us, not -- that became the culture. for example, when they talk about women the way that women should be, and the way that

muslim women are, we would have to ask ourselves if this was true. we would have to go to history to find out the truth. as we found out the truth, we changed. the truth. and as we found out the truth, we changed. and the same was true of the world. we were deprived of connection to the world so we had, many of my muslim students who were in top positions at the university, they would come to the class full of prejudices. why are we reading withering heights? it's all about adultery. they would leave our classes full of curiosity, wanting to know the world. >> you mention bloggers. you mentioned the role of the voice of america, and various other broadcasts that have come in, in search of the truth, how does an iranian citizen today obtaining the truth about the

world? >> part of it now is through the internet. that is how they do. of course, there are -- there is always access it. one of the amazing things in iran as in many took out 10 societies is that many, the guardians of revolution who defended this revolution at the beginning, through contact, with the world and with what is happening, changed. and so there are always rogue elements within the regime, within the ministry of guidance that open the road that lets you publish a rogue book which then becomes censored. but mainly now i think it is through the internet. during my time we had a one-sided relationship with satellite dishes where we got our information year and, of course, bbc and all the others

also provide information. >> let's go to your questions. >> dr. nafisi i was just listening to your comments here about faith. i'm just went if you think that iran can successfully democratize itself and reclaim that cultural identity? and remained and islamic republic. >> well, i think the title islamic republic is a contradiction in terms. it's like the german republic, the communist. the republic supposedly is based on a democracy, where they would be many ideas. i don't think that it can remain and islam republic, and at the same time have that. first of all, religion used as an ideology does not represent the whole of the iranian people. we have muslims with many different ideas.

we have jews, we have christian, we have others. and all their interests should be represented properly. many of the former revolutionaries, now are talking about the secular open society. >> does that have traction as they talk about a secular open society? >> it does have a great deal of attention that the other panels will talk about it, but that is what iran is so exciting because you know they are really finding what democracy is, you know. and destroying the myth about democracy is simply western thing. there were debates when i lived in iran, and i left iran and 97, there was a magazine where they brought in first all these

debates. >> can you talk a bit about the psychological aspects of the nuclear program? why iran brandishes this program beyond whether it wants weapons or not, and particularly what ahmadinejad is so obsessed with the nuclear program. >> well, i think you'd be able to answer that much better. this is barber, and just much more information than i do on this topic. i don't know. i think -- first of all, i think that mr. ahmadinejad, whatever he is doing is not out of strength but out of frustration them both domestically and internationally. and he takes these things as hostage, that if iran, like with the american tourists that they now have. you take on says agitate people hostage.

and they think they can intimidate the west once they have the nuclear weapon. by, you know, sort of move to their side, or do as they want to. i think it is a very dangerous game they are playing, and it definitely does not even have support inside iran. but really, you should talk about that. >> she has, actually. >> i mean here. >> yes. i would actually like to follow-up on that though because there is a lot of projection, and this will be our last question because i think we need to move onto the next part of the program. there's a lot of fear and get onto the iranian nuclear program. what role does that play, in your view, and this sort of national pride and national psychology of the country? >> well, you know, actually answer that with a question, this question that i asked a

friend of mine who is a wonderful person. she is a lawyer in iran that and i told her about it. she said why do you people live over there think that people like us wake up in the morning and their first worry is we need to have a nuclear weapon? she says i'm worried about much of not having a job. i'm worried about the future of even the house that i live in. the pollution is already killing us over here. so what she was saying is that that is not uppermost in the minds of most of us. and the second thing with national pride, i think every country, i mean, americans sometimes very crude talk about national pride, you know. so every country has their own national pride. but why do you think that iranians would be more proud of having nuclear weapons then being represented as a civilized country whose representative is not mr. ahmadinejad? why do you think they will feel

less ashamed of having someone who comes here and denies holocaust and says we have no gays and we have the best system in the world, and whatever he says, embarrassing every mode. that does not embarrass us, but having, not having nuclear weapons embarrass us? iranian's national pride is this amazing history. it is their poet, it's there philosophers. your national pride is mark twain and frederick douglass. our national pride is other. i don't accept >> monday, on washington journal, when diana olick home foreclosures in the west. the head of the league of voters thought about midterm elections and we will chat with the editor in chief of human events.

plus, the day's news and your phone calls, live, beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern. and then, live to oklahoma city for a remembrance ceremony marking 15 years since the bombing of the murrah building. that will be live beginning just before 10 a year in eastern europe to stand. >> an update now on the economic stress index. this is about 35 minutes. found out. host: we are talking with martin crutsinger. mike joins us. how did this map come about? marty indicated you went to school to learn how to do this. guest: we were trying to figure

out a way to show where the stress was being felt the worst around the nation. we wanted to look at the different points along a downward spiral. first you lose your job, then you cannot make your mortgage, then your file for bankruptcy. we thought these three variables would be a nice measure for getting a sense of the economic pain all around the country, and especially at eight state and county level -- a state and county the level. host: what surprised you most? guest: the variations. what was the most startling was looking at the changes from

october, 2008, and how the pain of the recession up until then, from december, 2007, until october, 2008, was limited to a handful of states going through the housing crisis, like california, florida, and nevada. after that, but you really see the colors on the map darken and change. you can see that stress is spreading to the interior, hitting a manufacturing communities through the industrial midwest, spreading north along the pacific coast up into organic -- into oregon. and spreading from the east coast, spreading westward into the industrial midwest, until a hit this protective zone, that

goes down from montana, wyoming, nebraska, kansas, and texas that have not felt the pain from the recession as other parts have appeare. host: this is one sample that was indicated in "the wall street journal". if you go to kings county, california, the unemployment rate is 18.2%. in san bernadino valley, it is 14.4%. in nevada, it's 16.5%. the foreclosure rate is 7.5%. guest: it is a poster county for economic stress. they were a bedroom community, they still are for metro las

vegas. you saw home construction with people commuting to las vegas. with the housing bubble bursting, they felt the pain. host: moving to the north east. heron county, ohio. unemployment at 18.1%. further down into a central ohio, unemployment rate is below 10%. guest: right. that is probably one of the few counties in ohio where it is below 10%. ohio has felt the pain from manufacturing jobs, as well as some of those in neighboring states, such as indiana and michigan. host: the map looks at the financial stress across the

country. tell us aware of -- what it is like where you live. this map that has every county across the country, looking at the bankruptcy rate, the unemployment rate, and the foreclosure rate. there was in the 1980's, the missouri index -- the misery indiex. ex. guest: it started before ronald reagan. it was created in 1970's, a period where we had stagflation. we have high inflation, but the economy was going to successive recessions and unemployment remains high. you added the high inflation and high unemployment and you've got a misery index. the unemployment now is not as high as 1982. unemployment hit a peak of 10.8%.

our peak is 10.1% it so far. inflation has been much more contained this time around. the misery index, the readings will not be the same. will not be the same. if you d -- that is definitely going to be a factor. >> marty is with us here in our studios and mark schneider is joining us from orlando florida. one more point and then we will get to your calls. in the northern part of the state, almost 22%. >> yes, you will find that california is not the state that is experiencing the most economic pain. that actually belongs to nevada. what you're finding in california is that california counties dominate the list of counties that are experiencing

economic pain. a lot of these counties are inland counties. a lot of that had to do with the housing crisis. catherin that have unemployment rates approaching 20%. those were bedroom communities that were built for people commuting from san jose. the counties in california do dominate the list of the most stressed counties in the nation. host: john is joining us from roskam, florida, on the republican line. caller: how do we give out of this mess if you do not find the

private sector? now they want to fund financial reform? and no one knows about business in this is administration. i am waiting for them to have a press conference without a teleprompter. congress only has a 10% approval rating. i hear we are bankrupt. what can we do? it is a big mess if you do not get the private sector involved. the government will expand, but that is no way to get out of this mess. he will help foreign countries long before he helps us. he sent $10 billion down to brazil to make george soros richer. in 10 years, we will be in the 68% tax bracket. we do not have any money. how can we keep buying, paying, and spending if you do not get

the private sector into it? . .

but the encouraging part was the fact that about 120,000 of those new jobs were in the private sector. and that's the most in three years. so it's a small number, compared to what we need to raise job losses of 8.4 million over this recession, but at least it's a start. and the administration is hoping that it's more money in the stimulus bill gets out through the pipeline and starts projects, that that will help support it. and that confidence among small businesses will grow as they see that jobs are coming back, and we'll see employment start to come back. host: mark, looking at this map will it be updated as each

numbers come in? guest: yes, it's updated as we get the numbers in. there's usually about a six-week lag between the month we're writing about and when we get the data and do the analysis. but the great thing about the three variables we're using, the une employment rate, the foreclosure rate, and the bankruptcy rate is that we can get the data on the county level on a monthly basis. so we can get a month-by-month picture by how the economic pain is changing or evolving across the country. host: and if viewers want to go to this map, where can they go? guest: they can google associated press economic stress index. and they should be able to find it that way. host: our next call, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i've been thinking about the

unemployment situation for some time, and i'm wondering if the united states could not mimic what we did in irpe after -- europe after world war ii by creating our own marshall plan. specifically, is it possible to take areas of our cities that almost look like bombed-out parts of europe, parts of cleveland, parts of chicago, detroit, trenton, and level them and then rebuild them as far as rebuilding factories, schools, hospitals, apartments, and then make deals with companies to fill these factories with job-producing eerpt prizes? -- enterprises? guest: well, there are portions of that stimulus package that i was talking about do that do have segments for

infrastructure spending. i guess private economists would say that it's still very critical that we get the private sector generating jobs again. that you need that because that's where the job creation is in this country. and that for a sustainable recovery, that's what you need the most. that's where a lot of attention in the stimulus bill and the efforts that are being made, the federal reserve keeping interest rates at record low levels. all of those things are kind of, to try to prime the pump, to get to build confidence in the private sector to start hiring again. host: let me go to earn ohio where the unemployment rate is above the national average at 13.6%, but the foreclosure rate is less than 2% and the bankruptcy also less than 2%. and just moving up north, again, 14.5% unemployment. the foreclosure and bankruptcy

rate hovering around 2%. and then if you go to crawford county, pennsylvania, which is in the western part of the state, unemployment at 11%, foreclosure and bankruptcy is 0.25%. guest: right, i think what you're seeing there is basically they had a relatively stable housing market and it appears to be that those were areas where the loss of manufacturing jobs probably hit them the hardest. and i'm guessing that they probably had a stable housing market, there wasn't as much housing built on speculation or they didn't suffer say the subprime mortgage crisis or bad loans were not made in as great a number as, say, states like florida or california. and as a result, you're not going to see, say, the same

high numbers of foreclosure rates in those counties, say, as you are in the states where the housing bubble was the biggest. and, you know, what the stress map really does show you is that the economic stress kind of came in waves. and the first wave seems to be related to the housing crisis. and so you saw it in florida, california, nevada, and then after, say, october of 2008, roughly, you see it becoming really hitting manufacturing communities, where the demand has dropped off. and so you're seeing a lot of layoffs in these communities. and so i think that's what you're probably seeing in ohio and western pennsylvania. and you're seeing pretty high unemployment rates, but you're really not seeing the foreclosure rates that you see, say, in the sun belt states.

host: like clark county, nevada, the unemployment rate is about 14%. the foreclosure rate, 7.3% and the bankruptcy just over 3%. steve from missouri. good morning. caller: i won't ramible because i want to kind of connect two different thoughts but they are connected. i'd like to mention that i agree with your caller, he's from louisiana. where you get c-span where you can get real independent view of issues of my -- my comment is, and the caller, the young lady from florida immediately afterwards who mentioned that it seemed to be a lot in the media and certain political areas want to characterize key party -- tea party people as racist when really the evidence is all to the contrary. and how that leads into the

economic story the it's been 18 months now and the, the general public rl not seeing shovel ready jobs. they see continual extension of unemployment benefits but they don't really see any public works projects going on. yes, there has been encouraging news about the new jobs, but also on the other side in the first quarter of this year foreclosures are running at a higher rate than they did last year. so there is not a concerted effort to present like c-span does and a few other news sources a picture of what's going on. i don't think our founding fathers could have envisioned the survival of our republic without a truly independent and

free press. i think they would be shocked to see so much, such a high percentage of the mainstream media who have aligned themselves with one particular political party. and this just hasn't happened just in the last 18 months or two years. this has been a long progression over time. host: did you have a final point? or a question? caller: no. i just want to thank you for your -- i'm sorry if i rambled. host: no. i just want to move on. i appreciate it. next is a county from new york. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling about the economic points being made. and i know for sure one thing, even though i don't know a lot about economics, you can't spend a whole lot more money than you don't have and the government has been doing it for a long time. but this is really on steroids.

when you have the government taking over 50% of the public sector, that's a really bad thing because they don't run things very well. and as far as that stimulus bill, as far as i'm concerned, that was nothing but a big slush fund. all their pork barrel projects that they've had on hold for many, many years, then they have that omnibus bill, whatever -- i'm not sure what that was about. but the gentleman sitting there is right, that if you don't budget, these things aren't budgetted for, this administration is so out of control with spending, that's the only thing they know how to do. and that stimulus bill was supposed to help our unemployment rate never ever to go past 8%. it's a slush fund to pay back the unions. this is so out of control. and i agree with the gentleman right before me. i was at my first tea party, and most of the people there,

they were concerned about the economy, about the deficit. we are in trillions of dollars. and like i told the gentleman, i was interstrude by a local news channel, i was actually on television for about 20 seconds, and i said i'm here for my children and grandchildren. they're the ones who are going to pay. they're having this -- they have a credit card and they're well passed their limit and they're spending like drunkle sailors. host: what are you hearing? guest: the caller certainly corrected, the deficits have reached levels that are just pretty amazing for what we would have thought before this recession. that we had a 1.4 trillion deficit for the budget year that ended september 30th. the administration is projecting that this deficit will be $1.6 trillion this year. and it's going to stay at very

high levels for a considerable time. what the administration argues is that if -- that if they were not doing all of this spending, that the deficits would be even worse because the economy would be so much worse. that it was critical that this is the worst recession since the great depression, and that the concern was that if there wasn't a massive government effort to address it, that it would be as bad as the great depression. which would be, instead of unemployment at 10%, we would be talking about unemployment at 25%, one out of four people out of work in the great depression. so their argument was that the spending had to be done to keep the economy from collapsing even further, and that as the economy starts coming back, as jobs start coming back, they will put in place a program to get the deficits under control.

they have -- president obama has appointed a commission that's going to produce a report in december. host: after the mid-term election. guest: exactly. because it's likely that any choices will be painful, because, you know, whether you raise taxes, whether you cut spending, whatever combination of those that you try to do to get the deaf sits firmly on a sustainable basis will be -- will cause political pain. host: we're talking about the economy. our guest is a senior writer for the associated press and mark is joining us on the phone from orlando and the ap financial stress index, which is available on line looking at what the economy is like, the foreclosure rate, bankruptcy and unemployment in your community, in your county. pam joining us from new york. good morning, democrat's line.

caller: good morning. here in washington county, the last time i looked at a newspaper we had one column and a half of jobs. and we happen to be gearing up for the season. we are a resort community all around this area for lake george, new york. and the only things that are available are line cooks and dish washers. so it's pretty sad up here. i would say one thing. i think there's a story to be had for any investigative journalist. i have been watching the foreclosure thing and scratching my head saying why aren't these banks modifying? why aren't they modifying? and i think that there is coming along a wave of commercial foreclosures. now, if they can sell a house at auction and those auctions are typically for cash only and they get $75,000 in cash for a

house worth $125,000, then they are filling their coffers again, perhaps getting ready for the wave of commercial bankruptcies that are coming along. guest: i think that's interesting. the caller brought up the issue of i guess loan modifications or what we have noticed in the past two months is that in some of the hardest hit foreclosure states such as california and nevada there's been kind of a slowing down in the pace of foreclosures, and some of the people who live there are creditting laws that the legislatures passed recently that give home owners a little more breathing room to work out i guess a modification of their loans with the banks. so it seems to be having those type of laws seem to be having some affect as far as slowing down the pace of foreclosures.

i guess the real question is whether those loans are modified or whether it's just kind of delaying the actual foreclosure process. host: and jim from iowa, next, independent line with mike on the phone in orlando and marty here in washington. good morning. caller: good morning. if you calculated unemployment the way they did until the early 80s, the way they calculated, our actual unemployment is over 22%. foreclosures we had was subprime are perhaps not even as significant as the foreclosures we will have in the next couple years as prime loans and teaser rates turn over. most of the loan modifications are redefaulting. we have a zombie bank system which has been allowed to perptwut itself by wave waiving

the fass by rules so they're able to have myth logical vamus on the properties they have assets. our children won't pay this debt. we will default by inflating the currency. the children will pay by having a lower standard of living. you don't get rich by having more debt. host: marty. guest: well, the caller certainly is right as far as i think he's referring to the fact that the 9.7% national unemployment rate that we had in march, that is, if you add the people who are looking, working part time, and other people that, the so-called under employed, that rate is at a record high of 16.9% or it is very high. the number of people that have been out of work for more than six months is at 6.5 million, and that is a record level.

the federal reserve chairman referenced this point, if large number of people who have been out of work for six months or more is of great concern going forward. in testimony in congress this week he talked about the fact that the longer you're out of work, the dange is that you lose job skill and makes it harder to get back into it. so there is no getting around it. we've had a very bad recession that we're still having to deal with. host: you indicated that as you go down the center part of the country from the dakotas to texas, a lot of white counties which refer to low stress index including, one example, stanten county, kansas, 3.5%, its foreclosure and bankruptcy rate is nedgible. guest: there's this swath that

descends from north dakota all the way down through south dakota, nebraska, kansas, oklahoma and texas that largely were -- felt the recession i guess the least of any area of the country. and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they are agricultural states and counties, and energy states and counties. and for a while at least, that protected them from the worst of the recession. but you're sort of finding now that wyoming has seen a little bit of an increase in stress because the energy prices aren't what they were say a year ago. but, still, compared to the rest of the country, these states and these counties really are doing much better than anywhere else. host: next is mark from port

stnch lucie, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i appreciate your taking the call. i've been listening to a lot of the calls today and my opinion anyway is most people are just worried about the political end of it. the this divide that we have in this country, i heard a man from hills borrow talk about all of the spending and all the debt and all that stuff. but he forgot to mention that it started under that private enterprise administration of dick cheney and george bush. so there's enough blame. and i think we need states people. i'm a little slanted in florida with housing being in such a bad shape, and it just affects so many things. and i would like to see the amount of money sent up to wall street be put into the housing crisis. when you start affecting plumbers and elect rigses and everybody else, contractors, roofers, furniture store

owners, everybody, it's such a large segment of our economy that i don't think it's getting quite the -- we're not going in the right direction with it. just helping foreclosures isn't going to solve the problem. and i wish i was smart enough to understand what could. host: some news. tim geithner, the treasury secretary indicated the unemployment rate is going to stay around 10%. but he also said that the economy is growing faster than the administration initially expected. guest: what you've had is that most economists believe that probably the recession ended in the last summer. june or july. and westbound economic growth since then we had economic growth since then. a lot of that was a swing in inventories. but the economists lately have

been revising up their forecast for the first half of this year to around 3% or so, which is a bit higher than people had expected. but still, you're going to need sustained growth for considerable periods of time to make a dent in this unemployment rate. host: robert from tampa saying he disagrees but on the issue of inflation. saying we haven't seen the consequence of inflation just yet. guest: there is that concern. the fed's balance sheet has soared as they put in place the number of exceptional programs to try to deal with this downturn. and the fed has kept its key federal funds rate at a record low of 0 to 0.25% for over a year now. so there is -- that worry is out there among some people. it's been eeks pressed even in the fed -- expressed in the fed

itself that we could be creating the next bubble with these very low rates just as we created a housing bubble some people believe with the low rates that the fed used to deal with the 2001 downturn. on the other side, there are people who say there is no inflation there. that this country, that the recession has been so severe that if anything what we're looking at is still a threat of deflation which we haven't seen in this country since the great depression. so the two sides of that argument are out there. host: zpwarey from virginia. republican line. good morning. caller: thank you. i'd like to say while i do approve of what obama is trying to do with this stimulus money, i don't approve of the way he's trying to do it. you take these stimulus funds being spent for these highway interchanges projects, i talked to chairman lahood i believe it was december or january anyway,

on january 29 on cnn at 6:30 in the morning they had a project in nebraska where it was a railroad overpass, and nobody on either side of the tracks wanted it or felt they needed it. everybody just kind of enjoyed waiting for the train to go by when they got stuck at intersections. nobody had ever lost their lives there. there had never been an accident. it only gave two girls a flag jobs. and the reason -- and i told mr. lahood that there's a lot of chickenry going on. and he said he couldn't imagine that. host: mike, do you want to respond to that point? guest: well, you know, i guess highway construction brings jobs. and that's what's needed. even in a place like nebraska that is weathered the economic downturn scaparettively well.

-- caparettively well. host: we'll go to max yin next. good morning. guest: i'm retired, so i don't have the unemployment issue. however, i would like to relate your counties, i would like a map correlation with the tax rate. i grew up and had a lot of relatives in new jersey. i've been watching governor crist discuss the highest tax state. you were talking about the need for private enterprise, and i look at the taxes in the health care bill that will affect individuals and small business who was the generator of new jobs. and i wonder if you can correlate your map of the highest state and state taxes in states and the impact of the expiration of the bush tax cuts and what will happen in those very dark colored counties.

host: thanks for call. let me point out too, the cover story is on energy but inside is a piece by barnes and governor crist ant the issue of raising taxes. and what he says are insane. but the stress index numbers, mark, is there correlation? guest: there's no correlation between taxation and economic stress, because the two of the i guess most stressed states, california and florida, have completely different approaches to taxation. so i don't think you can really draw any kind of relationship between taxation and economic stress. host: as you put this who project together, what surprised you the most in trying to research the u.s. economy and where we have been and maybe more importantly where we're heading? guest: well, i think mike described the aric of this very well. what we saw waws that -- was

that you had a housing bubble that popped. and the states where you had a big boom where the ones that got hit first. he talked about the october 2008. well, that was when the financial crisis hit with severity. and with the collapse of lehman brothers, the stock market plunging, and credit just freezing up at that time. and so, then you saw the pain starting to spread throughout the country and then the recession getting so much worse and through the rest of that year and then into the spring of last year. so that i guess what it has been interesting to track is just how that recession that started really in housing with the housing bubble spread to the financial sector and when the financial sector came under stress that that really then took the recession too a whole new level across the country.

and you're seeing that. and our stress map is showing that, because the number came down a little bit. but it only came down from reaching -- in february from reaching a record high in january. and what that shows is that that stress level has spread out over the country. host: marty, economics writer for the associated press. and mark, you earned a masters in trying to figure out how this works. guest: right. what's great is you can read a spreadsheet. but when you see it visually, it's just startling. you know, the data just kind of jumps off when you're able to see it visually on a map and see where the economic pain is and where the i guess the geography of the stress is. host: thank you both,

gentlemen, for your time. and again, it's the tes. >> the subcommittee will come to order. this morning we will be focusing on the southwest border and the challenges that the department of homeland security continues to face in that part of the

country. our southwestern border region possesses a rich history, shared culture over the centuries and landed on surpassed natural beauty. it is not a faraway land please but an inextricable part of homeland. with millions of hard-working families and vital and diverse economy. cross border trade is an important part of the picture. 80% of mexico's exports and half of its imports are with united states and 10% of the country's overall trade is mexico. however the trade statistics exclude drugs. over 90% of the cocaine entering the country is estimated to pass through mexico which is the country's largest supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines. the u.s. appetite for drugs as nurtured powerful and corrupt cartels with tens of billions of dollars in criminal proceeds. these international criminal organizations routinely violate

our borders to traffic drugs and weapons and money and to smuggle undocumented aliens. but it's the violence of the cartel's and the disruption that now dominate the news. over 18,000 people including 79 americans have died in mexico since president culbert own confronted the cartel's. the fertility, the world and disregard for by standards including women and children and the impunity with which of the cartels have operated is appalling. the question we raised in the prior hearings when we go today is are we making progress against the cartels, making our borders harder to export -- exploit, and reducing the risk of violence will spread. >> i believe there is not much point in debating with the cartel violence spilled over into the united states were close relationship with mexico means we cannot ignore the

violence regardless of when and whether it crosses the land physically. the death in march of three persons associated with the u.s. consulate intensified assaults against border patrol agents including the murder of two. the kidnapping and murder of u.s. residence in texas and the recent homicide arizona rancher all remind us of the threats of marco violence. the truth is the cartels are engaged in criminal activities every day in the cities and communities on both sides of the border and not just along the border. we need to focus on meaningful ways to deal with cartels and their violence on the border and beyond. this hearing falls on the first anniversary of the administration announcements of its southwest border initiative. secretary napolitano noted during a recent visit to mexico that cbp and i.c.e.'s enhanced

efforts have resulted in record caesars of drugs, firearms and smuggled cash. she also cite the unprecedented cooperation with mexico on the information sharing during training. cross border communications and trade. today from our witnesses we want an assessment of how successful the dhs efforts are and can become and we will pose such questions as how would you agree efforts to prosecute drug and trafficking cases in mexico given that mexico has its own immigration issues. well of our cooperation help improve u.s. security against a temps by non-mexicans to enter the u.s. through mexico. does the fiscal year 2011 budget in april cbp and ilyse to sustain a long-term effort to counter the cartel's. how effective for the joint efforts of the federal, state and local agencies including backing them up when they are seriously out mant or outgunned?

we also want to understand how investment we have made to date are complicating life for the cartels. these include the secure border initiatives. the border enforcement security task force, the deployment of air and marine aspects, tunnell detection and the stylish and a four per operating locations are checkpoints. our subcommittee is pleased to welcome this morning commissioner of u.s. customs and border protection and assistant john morton the director of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement to bring us up-to-date on the status of this issue in light of expanded stuffing equipment and other resources that the congress has provided to enable the agencies to work with federal state and local partners as well as with the government of mexico to overhaul the cartels. the secretary appeared on this topic with the commissioner's first time for the subcommittee. we welcome.

we expect your unit law enforcement and personal experience is given a realistic perspective what can be accomplished on the border. we look forward to hearing from you from both of you today. we will insert your complete statement and the hearing record so we would ask you to summarize your presentation and a five minute oral presentation to be we will begin with commissioner bersen followed by mr. morton the first one to this debate could turn to the distinguished ranking member. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for this hearing because there is no more important topic for american security than the southwest border. commissioner bersen has as the tremendous this marks your first appearance before the subcommittee to be given your extensive experience working in southern california and your

service in this administration's border czar over the past year look forward to hearing your views on the border security. and back to the assistant secretary morton. we meet again. i appreciate you being here and look forward to your strong views on the border enforcement as well. as the chairman noted, it has been over, just over a year since this administration launched its southwest border security initiative, an effort that has surged resources to further enhance our border security and support the courageous actions of the mexican government against the cartels. while this initiative has resulted in some noteworthy seizures of drugs and modest interdiction of weapons, the murder rate continues to soar.

the purity of marijuana and methamphetamine remains stubbornly high and mexico appears years away from sufficiently reforming its customs and immigration services as well as sustaining resilient local law enforcement. in fact, the cartels appear in gold and as ever demonstrated by the continued escalation of violence and the recent assertion of a well-known mexican drug lord to the media that, quote, mexico's's war on the drug trade is futile even if the cartel bosses are caught or killed, and of the quote. so during. according to several published reports, mounting drug violence in mexico has killed more than 19,500 people since president

tone for launched his effort against the cartels in 2006. furthermore, the pace of homicides continue to escalate. most notably in juarez as the transit where the average number of murders per month approaches 200. more than six murders a day on average in one city on the border in mexico. but just as this drug war seems to be reaching a tipping point, my fear is though our political resolve to adequately sustain this fight is on the verge of slipping the president's fiscal even touch it not only curbs' cbp's operational resources and reduces funding for border security technology and infrastructure it also severely cuts the coast guard and its drug interdiction capabilities

to the point where the amount of cocaine seized will decline by an estimated 11.3%. explain that. such reductions to operations will undoubtedly in power the cartel's and put more pressure on the border. in the midst of this drug war, when our border under siege how can we possibly support a budget that is knowingly letting our guard down and allowing more drugs, more illegals and contraband to flow across the border into the country? how can we justify this? and apart from the dhs wall fiscally but in budget request, there are other hon pressing her questions. how can we accept the administration's recent

pronouncements of the troubled spi net program when we have yet to receive the legislative required expenditure plan for that program for the next fiscal year, for fiscal ten, the current fiscal year? and why does the administration repeatedly assert that, quote, violence is not spilling over when one, our own just department amidst the cartels that would reach all across this country and to every city and now almost every village durham that cartel organizations all across this land not just on the border. this also gets the border patrol continuing to increase and indigent was murdered in cold blood last year.

another with its face caved in a few days ago, a well-known arizona rancher murdered last month on his own property, u.s. consulate personnel murdered. another consulate balm the past weekend and as "the washington post" reported on april 4th the cartel's contract killers are operating with near impunity on both sides of the border but including the u.s.. contract killers hired by a foreign cartel murdering americans. what are you going to do about that? and beyond the efforts of the past year and escalated violence

what are the next steps that need to be taken against this threat? if there's one thing i'm certain of and my experience as a state prosecutor for 11 years, the d.a. and my years here in this body it is that drugs was a grave and unrelenting effort to the safety and security of the united states. therefore we must do all we can to secure the border, for to these cartels and put a stop to their savage criminality and their murderous ways so the challenge presented to the dhs is clear. my question which is the same as the border violence last november is whether or not we are up to the challenge and when i pose this question i am now

wondering whether we have the proper resources in place to simply disrupt this organized cross border crime. i'm wondering just as i did last november whether we have the will to actually break its back. now i realize that is a tough chore and i'm quite certain that it is a worthy fight and surely this country has the capability to protect our border from organized criminal ventures spreading its tentacles across every inch of america. this is a serious problem securing our border is not a mere luxury, it is a worthy fight we must win.

as of today mr. chairman i'm not only interested in assessing the progress in this fight with the cartel's, i'm interested in learning what more we can do to combat this clear and present threat to the united states and its citizens. thank you bet. >> thank you. all right we will now begin with the commissioner. >> good morning chairman price, ranking member rogers, members of the subcommittee and staff i appreciate this opportunity to provide an update on our efforts to combat the threat of violence along the southwest border and to discuss my vision for the southern border has customs and border protections new commissioner. the committee has been extremely supportive of the cbp over the

years in meeting our difficult mission and we are grateful for your support and continued guidance. the significant investments you have made in cdp helps protect the country from a variety of threats in putting those generated by organized criminal organizations operating trends nationally in mexico. before serving as the cbp commissioner of worked many years as a prosecutor on the border and in other positions with dhs and the department of justice. during this time i worked closely with what both u.s. law enforcement colleagues at all levels, state, local, county, federal and tribal as well as with our counterparts in mexico. the level of cooperation that we see today between the united states and mexico under president felipe colin none is

unprecedented and provides a historic opportunity. president tauter run's willingness to address the growing problems in the drug cartels is nothing short of her a quick. it presents a unique opportunity to expand the deepen coordinated law enforcement operations between the countries. we recognize this is a journey that will not be accomplished overnight but the important point is that it is a journey which the first steps have been taken. having worked and lived most of my life in border communities i recognize the concerns of our citizens regarding drug-related violence that has taken place on both sides of the border. it has been and continues as a deeply serious threat. most recently the tragic murder of robert, an arizona rancher and a leader in his community is an outrage and a tragedy.

it points to the continuing problem. secretary napolitano has committed significant resources to bring this pillar or killers to justice. immediately after the shooting the cbp provided air and marine assets and trackers to find signs of the suspects. furthermore, cbp dispatched additional mobile surveillance systems, supplemented air surveillance and transferred and employed 64 additional border patrol agents into the area. while individual incidents of violence are not a new phenomenon along the border, we are determined to prevent the kind of widespread violence that continues to take place every day in northern mexico crossing over the border into the united states in the form in which it appears in mexico. in march of 2009 secretary napolitano announced the comprehensive southwest border

strategy aimed at preventing spillover violence and helping the government of mexico crackdown on drug cartels in that country. over the past year, cdp has supported that initiative by adopting the doctrine of responsibility acknowledging the drugs coming north as part and parcel of a cycle of violence that involves both cash and weapons going south. the deal with these issues national security issues for both countries cbp has increased cooperation with mexico to coordinate border inspections of law enforcement operations. we've enhanced our information sharing and continue to build intelligence cooperation. we've deflect joint strategic approaches to our common problems. and we've continued to increase capacity building at 473.

just last month cbp opened the operations intelligence coordination center in tucson arizona. this new facility serves as a centralized location for gathering and disseminating a real-time data. actionable information to help increase security along the southwest border and to put information into the hands of our agents on the ground. since last november when active commissioner jason testify before this subcommittee cdp has continued its enhanced efforts on an album operation to prevent weapons and currency and fuel drug-related violence that occurs in mexico. as a part of this strategy we've expanded our license plate reader program, the lpr program. we invested non-interest of technology and deployed additional border patrol agents on the scene to the wheels of deployed mobile response teams,

canine teams and other resources to increase the post search operations looking at what is leaving our country as we concentrate on what is coming into our country. these outbound efforts have been successful. they are an important step in the right direction. since the southwest border initiative was launched last year cbp has seized more than $30 million in the southbound cash along the southwest border. it together with our cooperative efforts with i.c.e. the numbers are greater and growing. let me to conclude in a moment to address the huge strategy. in addition to keeping america's borders safe and secure cbp recognizes we must promote economic competitiveness throughout north america. security and trade and promise go hand in hand. security comes first.

but we can be economically competitive as we enhance our security. we will adopt strategies and simultaneously improve security and expedite legitimate trade and travel. smarter targeting and risk segmentation allow law enforcement authorities mike cbp to focus their energy on the relatively small amount legitimate cargo that poses a threat to the public safety as well as to our economic prosperity. we can have an enhanced security while reducing the cost of inconvenience. the legitimate goods and local travelers. cbp has made some turn this strides in this area by implementing a traveler programs such as the fast program the free and secure trade program and the secure electronic program on the southern border. these programs complement the

glenchur program at airports and the nexus program on our northern border. the expedite entry for low risk travelers and cargo while allowing our officers to focus on more high-risk individuals and shipments. working with the public private and international partners we believe we can continue to have greater security and greater prosperity to. finally let me speak to you again for this opportunity to appear here my first as many as the cdp's new commissioner. i'm honored to be built to share with you the good work the men and women of the cdp do each day to safeguard the nation's security. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. mr. norton. >> mr. chairman, mr. rogers, members of the committee, thanks once again for inviting me to appear before you to testify on this subject. let me also take a moment to welcome my new colleague,

commissioner bersen to his post. he is great insight and experience when it comes to the border into mexico and i look forward to working with him as we train i.c.e. and cbp on making the border and much more secure and safe place. since i last testified before you on this subject, we have as both the chairman and mr. rogers noted witnessed several acts of violence against u.s. citizens and in particular we have seen the outrageous killing of three individuals associated with u.s. commerce what in juarez and the cow were the murder of the rancher in on the mexican northern border. first let me say on behalf of all ec i expand heartfelt sympathies to lesley ann reed is, her husband, arthur as well as jorge and to the family.

while i can't get into the specifics of the open and on the investigations into these cases, i can assure you one thing, both i.c.e. and cbp acted very swiftly and aggressively in response to both sets of killings. we are working with partners in mexico and the united states as we speak to try to solve these murders and bring the killers to justice. in the case i.c.e. is the lead agency assisting county sheriff's office with the investigation assigned special agents full-time to the case and we've devoted full resources of the office in mexico to this and we've offered a reward to bring the killers to justice. my message today to use simple. i.c.e. shares the concern that many have over the presence of organized crime in mexico and along the border. we are committed to vigilance

and sustained attack on the criminal networks that seek to smuggle drugs, guns, money and people to and from mexico. this commitment is more than rhetorical. thanks to the increased appropriations we've received from the subcommittee over the past two years there has never been in the history of our agency more i.c.e. agents and deportation officers devoted to the selfless border and the results are promising. let me start with the staff. approximately one-quarter of the special agents are devoted to the fight offices in the four border states. the same is true of the detention and removal officers. a quarter of our entire staff. we have now ten of our 17 border enforcement security task forces on the southwest border. two in california, three in mexico -- excuse to come to in

mexico, three in arizona and three in texas. we have the letter informed in mexico city itself. by the end of the year we will have 40 i.c.e. agents in mexico both mexico city and in border cities along the border. again the largest presence we've ever had in any country in the history. we have six special assistance united states attorney's devoted to prosecuting border cases in border u.s. attorney's office is and i am personally committed to significantly increasing the number and we are in the process of working with the deputy attorney general to do just that. to give you a flavor of the results over the past year, we have seen in the houston office a 64% increase in the drug seizures from san diego, 23 present increase in the drug seizures, 30% increase in currencies teachers and in phoenix a 50 per cent increase in criminal convictions and overall 11% increase in

administrative arrest of criminal offenders along the southwest border. as welcome as the successes are we intend to do more. the drug-trafficking cartels remain a very serious threat to both mexico and the united states fueling unacceptably high levels of violence in juarezxxr

and transit zones but the mexican side and u.s. side hostile place is for the criminal networks. third, we're going to increase efforts with mexican law enforcement to investigate cases, share intelligence and been proved professionalism training and i want to focus on the concrete here, real cases, real criminals, real jeal time. fourth, we need to develop better intelligence sharing among all of the federal and local law in force the agencies involved and finally i want to harness the full power of the local law enforcement partners on intelligence offices in the town the week to attend southwest border. all of these are described in more detail in my submitted written remarks but they just reflect the absolute commitment we have to try to get this

right. since my last testimony here we also stepped up specific efforts in and around juarez and el paso. this involves taking such extraordinary steps as stopping all removals of criminals and not the criminals to juarez. we are expanding the illegal drug program in which we prosecute with the mexicans individuals in mexico for the offenses that occur in the united states and we are working with the mexican equivalent. let me close by saying we -- we are seeing results from the efforts. i can assure everyone here we are mindful of the seriousness of the problem. we spend an enormous of of time trying to think about getting it right, doing things differently, being more innovative. it is a very serious challenge. alan and i have talked about a lot. we are both sober individuals. we are not crittenden in any way

this isn't a challenge that confronts the nation. we have a long, long history and federal law enforcement and i think it's great to be an important combination of the power and federal government, cooperation with state and local law enforcement and a much better and improved relationship that will lead to success at the end. thank you >> thanks to both of you for your testimony. you mentioned the cooperative efforts underway with the mexican government to get he elaborated on their results that's produced what to expect from it, what you hope we can accomplish in that regard because we all know that that cooperation is absolutely essential.

mr. secretary, secretary napolitano well with her counterparts in the state and defense met with their mexican counterparts in february and march and signed agreements on intelligence sharing, border and air security cooperation and we would be interested in your take on the significance of those agreements and what difference they will make in your work and what kind of results you would anticipate. but let me be a little more specific. i would like first commissioner bersen to ask you about the efforts on the mexican side to greatly beef up military and law enforcement presence in the northern part of the country. when the president, president calderon took over in 2006 to the mexican military in charge of security and policing for juarez and other northern

mexican areas and it was reported at the time the local police were demoralized, corruption problems, they were overwhelmed by the cartel's. now there's been a replacement of those military forces or replaced in number of them with federal police who've now arrived as of april 8th. what can you tell about that? what can we conclude from that? is that good news in the sense that signaling enhanced capacity from the police? what mix of forces are we looking at and what would be your assessment of the way on the mexican side these forces have been deployed? >> mr. chairman, of all of the remarkable changes that have taken place in mexico and the bilateral relationship with regard to confront an organized crime, one of the most extraordinary was the

recognition and public acceptance by president calderon that much of mexico's law enforcement and judiciary if not all of it was subject to corruption and that corruption in the tentacles and influence of organized crime have tainted will enforcement and the judiciary tall levels of mexican society. since that time, since 2006, they have begun under president culbert run's leadership the transformation of law enforcement into a reliable instrument of public policy focusing for the most part on federal police and federal enforcement authorities. ssp, the secretary of public safety in the engineer of [inaudible] i think it is a very positive step and one that will

overtime began to produce dividends. secretary napolitano as well as secretary morton and myself have been to the headquarters in mexico city which just and a corporate and technological sense is impressive indicates the commitment that's been made fiscally to build a federal law enforcement presence. the plan is to move towards 20,000 federal police and what we've seen recently in juarez was the decision that recognized while the military because the lack of local law enforcement would continue to have a role to play in dealing with organized crime that infected the long term solution was to substitute the military presence with a law enforcement presence and that is beginning to happen in juarez which the primary enforcement duties are being transitioned to

psychiatry garcia with the military remaining but in a protective stance, and i believe that is the way it will show significant improvement in the near term as well as over the longer term. >> your assessment is that this number 18 mark of increased capacity, greatly improved capacity on the part of the police and secondly that that is the optimum long-term pattern the military would remain in that supportive role but would not be the primary force. what return to the controlled substance pilot project that is an agreement between the mexican attorney general, i.c.e. and cdp that enables them, the mexicans to prosecute drug smuggling cases for whatever reasons those cases are declined by the u.s. attorney's office. there's a similar program for

aliens smuggler prosecution on the oasis program. so assistant secretary bersin, you refer to the first to convictions from this new drug prosecution program. you don't make a reference to the prosecution's for alien smuggling. but can you tell about the impact under way or that you anticipate from the to cooperative programs? is there reason to believe the mexican authorities are able and willing to accelerate prosecution's? what kind of specific reports can you give us? >> i can tell you that the initial results are very promising here in less than a year we've gone from having no pilot programs addressing drug prosecutions on the mexican side to the to and we are in active

discussions with the federal prosecutor's office about expanding it. the basic idea is simply this, but we have a number of drug offenses that occur on our side of the border particularly points of entry that for a variety of reasons i.c.e. is able to investigate with assistance from cdp but are not accepted for prosecution and that mexican federal law provides a fairly significant penalty for that conduct and reaches that conduct assuming mexicans were involved and the mexican standards of proof are different and allow prosecution in certain instances where we can't do it so it makes a lot of sense and so far so good and we've done the same thing with smuggling offenses for quite some time off through oasis and i am cautiously optimistic we are going to stop the

considering the pilots and move to a broad based prosecution program hand-in-hand with mexicans for low-level offenses involving mexicans on their side and as we've seen the a starting to convict people and send them to jail. >> thank you, mr. rogers. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> by every account, public and private, the threat on the border is increasing. the violence is increasing. the audacity of the criminal cartels is growing by the minute according to the department of justice most recent national drug threat assessments released in february of this year the cartels are not only, quote, the

single greatest trafficking threat to the united states, they also have operations in every region of the u.s. and are expanding into the more rural and suburban areas according to cnn reports. and the cartel's according to that report has partnered with u.s. street gangs and prison gangs for drug distribution to such the extent that, quote, mexican drug trafficking organizations control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution in the united states as well as much of the marijuana distribution. do you agree with that? >> yes, sir. >> the report also says that a greater levels of heroin,

marijuana and methamphetamine are blowing across the border than ever before. and project availability of such drugs to increase. have i understated the threat that is on the border? >> i think not, mr. rogers. >> then how can you justify coming here to this congress and asking us to decrease the amount of money and personnel and border patrol faced with this ever growing threat to the security, how can you justify that? >> congressman, with regard to the fiscal year 2011 request that the love of the border patrol agents we've seen remarkable committee and that growth will continue to increase

while we saw a slight decrease from 09 to 2010, 20,000 to wondered 94, the cbp officers including and 20,019 border patrol agents we will maintain a level of 20,163 over 20 ladens in fact with regard to the border patrol budget calls for maintenance the unprecedented levels that this committee has been instrumental in providing us on this border. >> you're still cutting air and marine operations. and coast guard. >> the cuts in the introduction agents but not in the assets, yes it's from 891 to 839 under the budget that is --

>> when you finished the first iteration of the budget request you would have cut 1100 border patrol agents. some of us read 1100 coast guard's personnel and then when you heard the noise appear against that kind of cut you came back with a budget request that restored some of that personnel but you're still cutting the air and marine operations and other aspects. i just wonder how in the dickens you can justify that given the threat we are facing by all accounts including your own. >> mr. martin, you've been silent for a while. what do you say? >> i.c.e.'s budget has the increase and the budget for this

year annualizes the enhancement we receive in fy 2010 and i'm quite confident the president's budget is going to sustain us of the highest levels ever and we all of a modest increase. >> you know, mr. chairman, the old-fashioned idea of the border patrol and i see is supposed to do is to protect us against the traditional threat along the border. illegal aliens particularly. but the problem on the border has evolved into huge changes and huge danger and that is criminality, drugs and contraband and that sort of thing which is a law enforcement problem and i've been long critical of the administration

the previous one and this one for not recognizing that the border is more of a criminal problem than it is now anything else yet we do not have enough of the nation's law enforcement manpower on the border. i'm talking st john, dea and those agencies that buy drugs and criminality and this thing is getting out of hand and i wonder what either of you see that we could be giving that we've not thought about or not planned for yet. are we doing all that we can do? >> congressman, there are always improvements that can be made in terms of the strategy and resource in taking place over the last decade in the the last five years i think what we do is continue to get better and improved the mix and alignment of other resources that have

been provided. 21,000 border patrol agents prepares favorably to what existed when i first met you 15 years ago by a factor of almost six. we've seen dramatic increases in the lead to develop the capacity of these wonderful men and women who served as journeymen who have the opportunity to become journeymen border patrol agents. we need to build on the intelligence sharing and build on technology that is available and coordinate with were sister and agencies like i.c.e. in a more effective way. all of this is a work in progress so i wouldn't for a moment suggest the work is done with the challenges that are supreme, they are. but in fact we stand better resources than we have been and we need to develop and see that

the resources that have been given our deployed most effectively and aligned with technical equipment capacities that are frankly unparalleled for would exist in the past. >> on the point of the border facing the level of criminality that needs to be reflected in the changed strategy and approach. i think that is one of the sort of great promises i.c.e. holds. as you alluded to the often thought of in the context of enforcement but at the same time we of the second largest agency with nearly 7,000 special agents. we sold jobs to investigate crime and we need to harness both of those powers in a focused way on the border to address the problems that have

arisen and in terms of what can we do better one of the things you mentioned earlier on the report from the department of justice that pointed up the relationship between the cartel's and gang members and district level distribution we did something differently this year and it was the first time we've ever done it and we need to do more of it and that is i.c.e. does a lot of transnational gang removal. we've typically done in terms of looking at ns 13, look at this gang. our day here on lawfully, let's remove the members from the community from the general public safety perspective. for the first time we took the report you were talking about and said this time let's focus on those gangs that also have a direct connection to the cartels and the distribution of narcotics, and we did a nationwide and we ended up with nearly 800 people and that is the kind of thing where we to match the civil power with criminal power in a coordinated way so that we are not as

removing gang members we are removing the gang members furthering the efforts of specific cartels and we are going to do more of it. >> my time is about expired. can i ask one quick question and it relates to the gangs, the contract killers the cartels are now engaged in and contract with the dollar apparently responsible for thousands of murders on both sides of the border. what can you talk about what we are doing time in trying to break the cycle timing of the gang of killers? >> i'm not familiar with a level of contract killings at that particular report refers to. i will say this and i prefer to see more about it in private rather than public. the relationship between i.c.e.

and dea is the closest it's ever been in our country's history and i don't want to suggest it's perfect. we can always work to make it better but there is a lot going on in that regard i think is promising. we need to do the same with fbi, i.c.e.'s rolph am i border patrol security has been good but not particularly strategics 20 to welcome that some more in that area. >> the "washington post" of april 4th carried the story about the heavily tattooed gang long operating across the border in el paso to the drugs, stealing cars and in juarez the organization according to this report now specializes contract killing for the alves drug cartel and according to the u.s. law enforcement it may have been involved in as many as half of the 200600 murders in the city in the past year alone and that

is just one town, one city. can you follow-up on that and give us a report? >> would be happy to. >> thank you. >> thank you. let me thank you for being here with us today and what you for all of us to the country keeping us safe. commissioner and mr. secretary, as you know i represent one of the largest districts in the nation. i of 785 miles along the border. i have 17 border stations and points of entry and crossings and three border patrol sectors and i want to take this opportunity to invite both of you to come to the district. i have had the secretary of interior come by and visit beautiful, a good number but national parks run on the border , the best bass fishing in north america as well as the

beautiful area that has 43,000 people visited for civil year and i have 1.7 million people visit and thank god we've never had any serious incidents there. we do have a very beautiful relationship in those communities working with the border patrol as well as park rangers and working together in housing and i wanted to follow-up and i have been told we were safer when we communicate with the other side and have lines of communication. ññññññññññññññññ

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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] in most instances if there is going to be any prolonged attention therg transfered the -- they are transfered to immigration authority. on the question on minors there is quite a detailed set of procedures that they come to us but only very briefly because we in barbara turner them over to

child protective services in most instances. >> thank you, mr. chairman. can i ask your help please in providing me some information that my office has been trying to get from y'all for some time. it is very simple and straightforward. we're looking for the numbers of individuals that have been apprehended. sector, by sector, by sector. obviously the problems, the most severe problems on the southern border. the number of individuals apprehended and prosecuted by sector over the last several fiscal years. could you provide that to me at the end of the week? it is real simple. >> i would will happy to provide the data.

we do have prosecution's particularly with regard to streamline. the only hesitation is we'll get it to you as expeditiously as we can. >> thank you. thank you. i really appreciate it. all of us in this committee have a keen interest in making sure the border is secure, those of us from texas in particular. this is near and dear to us. my good friend rodriguez, we were elected together in 1986. we worked tot successful with henry who was elected to the texas house in 1986 to implement operation streamline. law enforcement officers are using their good judgment and good hearts to prosecute everybody who crosses with the obvious exception of women and

children are handled a little differently. the officers using their good judgments and good hearts. i wonder if you could reaffirm your support and our efforts to get it expanded. you want to see it expanded? >> yes, as a former prosecutor i understand the consequence of delivery as you understand no series of crime -- prosecuted at 100% rate. >> sure. >> but the importance in the effect has a very important place the the consequence of delivery and the deterrence of immigration and other violation. >> you have seen the dramatic declines in crime rate in the del rio sector. it is just a terrific program. i think we -- the country recognize in real sense, there

is an undeclared war on the southern border. mexico is as violent today, northern mexico, as it was 100 years ago. i'm going to go back and look at the level of violence 100 years ago during the northern revolution and compare it to today. yming we'll discover the level of violence is even more severe than 100 years ago when per shing was hend to the southern border. it is sfimented that the mexican army has 130,000 troops but the cartel have about 100,000 foot soldiers so in a very real sense, the level of violence and the spillover and the shootings across the border, helicopter crossings, just the chaos and the violence that we see in

northern mexico certainly meets webster's dictionry defines a state of war as a state of hostility conflict or antagonism between opposing forces for a particular end and i think what we're seing in mexico today qualifies as a state of war that we need to -- as mr. carter says there is a lot of talk and we don't see enough action. i appreciate your commitment to expanding appreciation streamline. it is vitally important. a law enforcement operation. we need to stay focused on that. the role that the national guard played. the bush administration was one of support. support of the border patrol and that's important. they are very successful where they were deployed. i appreciate the dedicate of your officers, the work that you're doing. i understand the frustrations and the challenges that you

face. i would like you to if you could look into the -- what mr. carter has identified in the laredo sector. shooting at law enforcement officers and our law enforcement orders are unable to return fire. they are under orders not to return fire. that doesn't make any sense. they can certainly shoot in self-defense. i hope that you can correct that situation >> we will get back to you with the incidents that have occurred over the last three years and the facts to each of them because i think the protection of our border patrol agents on the front line is very much uppermost in my mind. in the fact also -- i wanted to ask, mr. chairman, i appreciate the time. the federal border patrol, from

the federal g.a. nombings august, there were three individuals encountered by the border proehl who were identified as persons linked to terrorism. who were they and to what trirs organizations were they ink doctor terrorists organizations were they linked? >> thank you. i come from a non-mexican border state, the state of new jersey. but there is a flow of activity that is felt in new jersey in terms of gang violence and drugs of course. in many of my hometown meetings

the subject of illegal immigration comes up, especially this originating across the mexican border. the issue of a fence, some people say just build a fence all the way across the border. i notice in the budget we now have a -- in the testimony $646 miles to go up to 655 miles of fencing. do you consider that amount to be sufficient should the entire border be should a fence be put up through the whole border? would that be the best use of u.s. taxpayer dollars to stop the flow of illegal activity across the border? >> the building of more than 600 miles of fencing in the original directions of the congress as secretary nap tollo indicated

when she took over -- nap altano indicated when she took autopsy a year ago, mandates some several miles that are continued to be, that commitment has been met. the secretary also indicated that she will continue to be advised by professionals on the border. border patrol officers. field officers, air and -- as well as others who live and work on the border about whether or not additional infrastructure. >> excuse me. i have a limited amount of time. i want to follow up on your answer. today and in the fiscal year 2011 budget review of your agency, the amount of fencing that you want to build is being

funded? >> to this date, yes, sir. >> ok. next, there is a general sense. this is a softball, one right over the middle for you gentlemen to address but there is some chatter out there from various sources saying the border between mexico and the u.s. is porous, it is practically open. there are criminal gangs just flowing unimpeded into the united states. drugs are coming in willy-nilly. of course your written testimony belies that but for the record, this is being televised, are those statements true, illegal immigrants coming in? terrorists practically able to walk in without any problem? >> those statements aren't true.

as your question suggests. >> true that all of these things are happening easily without any impediments? >> no, i think the commissioner and berson and i would note for everyone here and i think most of the individuals on the panel have seen it as well. while the challenge remains very significant, and i don't pretend that it is not a very real and significant challenge, the resources and enforcement dedicated to our southwest border has never been better and it never is -- the change is profound in the 16, 17 years i've been in the enforcement business. >> is it enough? i appreciate the fact that there are more resources than ever. the threats are real and you're addressing them with greater and greater success. is your budget enough? should we give you more money to do more things? >> you know, that is a question

that the administration officials always have to dance a little bit on and so i'll say that i'm always happy to do everything i can with the good money that the appropriations committee gives me. >> are we gaining ground or losing ground in these areas? >> i think we're gaining ground but again, i don't want to be heard as saying that i think we have by any means solved the problem or that some of the points mr. carter has made -- i think the greater point is that we are in a long-term struggle with organized criminals and they are trying to stay a step ahead of us. they are willing to go to lengths that we haven't seen in a past, a level of violence and brutality that we haven't seen in the past and your job is to stay yet a step ahead of them. >> and your budget has the resources to flect that you feel this year?

>> i feel -- >> the time is expired. we will have a quick second round but let me turn to mr. molihan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. berson. there was an bs world news tonight report -- abc world news tonight report that suggests that time, drugs across the u.s. boarders in trucks. i don't know if you familiar with that report or not. let me read the destructry paragraph. most of the drug shipments smuggled into the united states by the mexican cartels are hiden in drugs that drive across u.s. checkpoints in plain sight with little law enforcement. only about 5% of the trucks coming from the country from mexico are inspected according to u.s. officials out of three

million loaded container trailers going across the border last year. juan is quoted in this piece as saying "it is just -- he dealt with these trafficking issues in in president bush's white house. he was the deputy national security director under president bush and he is quoted as saying "it is just too costly and too slow given volume of trucks to actually try to stop and inspect each and every truck." he goes on and says any attempt to inspect all trucks across the border would have a hugely negative impact in terms of commercial traffic and trade between the united states and mexico. is this an accurate depiction of

-- >> i'm not familiar with that particular article. the article, as you described it adequately, or accurately, in all respects characterizes -- >> i'm sorry. are you saying it does or doesn't? >> it does not because in fact, there are sophisticated methods by which we make the judgment about which of the truck or vehicles coming across the border need to be inspected, subjected to the kind of x-ray equipment that is unprecedented because of the contributions and resources provided by this committee. there was a higher percent, 5% that was inspected. sometimes it is done on a random basis but there is a sophisticated targeting system based on information that is

available and thed a vants information that we require of trucks coming to the border and the use of intelligence systems that we have so that in fact it is much more organized, much more systematic and much more effective than that article suggests there. >> sounds like you're dealing with a tough problem. are there three million trucks that come across the border inbound to the united states every year? >> i know we have 60,000 containers that come across every day that c.v.p. handles. i will get you to specific number of trucks breaking out of that. >> it sounds like a huge number of troubles coming across the border and a small percentage. your response to that is 5% might not be the right number but it might be relatively small but we deal with that by sophisticated selection process.

>> there are a variety of programs that help us distinguish between those cargos about which we know something. >> would you submit a discussion of this? you're no not going to have time to response on my time. it is a really important question. how do we deal with that. if it is true, my goodness, what a transportation vehicle for drugs across the country. this article goes on to say they have hubs across the nation in references to atlanta as doing it. for the record, would you please lab rate on this answer and get some accurate statistics and how you are dealing with it and submit them to my office? >> yes. >> mr. chairman? >> thank you, very much. we are trying to honor mr. bersin's schedule for an airline that is not going wait but we do have time and i think we have

some further questions so we will proceed with a brief second round here, if this is all right with you gentlemen. i'll begin by referencing mr. rogers' comments about the -- these gangs that have begun to specialize in assassinations. the aztecas i think was the case he quoted, responsible for something like 2,660 juarez measures in 2009. that is a highly -- murders in 2009. that is a highly alarming figure. in that context, i would like to ask you about the press reports that followed the march 16 killings of u.s. consulates in there and their families. the d.e.a. led a multi-agency gang sweep to apprehend

dangerous azteca members after that. soon after that, there came out a warning that said the aztecas had been gaven green light to conduct retaliatory killingsor u.s. enforcement officers. what can you tell us about that? sounds like an ominous escalation. it looks like a type of direct confrontation that could mark a new level of engagement with mexican gangs. >> i would prefer to answer that question off the record with you but what i can say more generally on that is that we have -- we're working very closely with d.e.a. and f.b.i. to identify the killers in that case and to focus the full

weight and resources of the federal government on the aztecas. we get a lot of information through the investigation. so far we have not seen that that particular information that you refer to, in fact, reflects actual intentions. >> rob? of course we would welcome the information you have in whatever setting you need to use. this was a public pronouncement, though. a green light on retaliatory killings. that's why i bring it up in this setting. very, very ominous escalation of this. all right. let me turn to the southwest --

the border enforcement security task force team. you have referenced those a number of times today. i want to ask you more specifically another about what value-added they represent and what kind of reviews you have of their performance and why this isn't more explicitly reflected in the budget request for 2011. we provided $100 million last spring to respond. i.c.e. received $55 million of this, largely for these best teams as well as more border temperatures officers and expansive invest ca tori resources. what kind of difference are these units making? what is their value added? what do you anticipate? we know that he the 2011 budget

request -- like best, there is no specific funding for expansion of this effort and so just raises the question as a flat budget adequate for what appears to be a problems that not going away and we hope initially that is making some head way. >> a few things, mr. chairman, i think our excuse me. can you clarify that? there are -- >> all right. there is some best team expansion but not on the southwest border? >> >> not on the southwest border. more generally -- a modest

increase would in fact focus there is how much importance we give to these task forces. very quickly, the whole task force concept was for -- in response to the lie vens in laredo in 2005. -- violence in laredo in 2005. that worked so well that we immediately adopted the basic concept elsewhere and it has grown very rapidly. we use them for all sorts of things from criminal investigation to surge operations that we do with c.v.p., our biggest partner on the task forces. we have begun to work very lofle with the marshals. we have turned over a number of wanted murderers. we go out and find them and return them to mexico.

what do we need to do a better job on? we now have -- were a congress to appropriate a 2011 budget, we would move to 20, i have directed that we create an office here at headquarters to better coordinate what we're doing to make is that your the task forces are working this tandem in their respective atmospheres and that we have -- spheres. so that you the committee can evaluate the value-added that we think they are and why we think they have been so successful. they have worked really well in the sea port context. we're thinking about having our very first one at a major international airport. it just has worked well bringing not all of our federal law enforcement partners but our local law enforcement partners, one little trick for us we may want to talk about is our ability to reimburse some of our

state and local law enforcement partners is quite limited. c.v.p. has a much broader authority and we can reimburse some overtime, some equipment purchases but it is quite narrow. it is not really a question of money but just authority for it and i think that would greatly help. >> have you, in fact, requested? >> we have not. no. and we need to talk to you about it. it is really just getting the legalities down in interprets of our authorities. i don't think it is a heavy lift. i think it is something we need to come and brief you about. >> how many on the southwest board snerp >> 10. >> the last time you were here, we talked about the advisability of creating a joint interagency task force for the whole

southwest border. where all of the agencies that might be involved in some fashion would be haurd under one roof. -- headquartered under one roof. to coordinate the defense of that border much the same as the task force in florida manages the creen anti-drug war very, very -- the caribbean anti-drug war very, very successfully. are you giving that some thought? >> a lot of thought. i think most people would agree with your general assessment that it has worked quite well. that something akin to that makes a lot of sense along the southwest border. we have talked about the subject at great length and the question is do we model something like that for the southwest border at a place like epic which is right

now south of d.o.j. centric. i sense quite a presence or do we have an outright structure that is independent along the border? i don't think few people would argue with your premise as to whether something like that would be quite useful along the border. i think it does. well, we talked about this last year. have you moved at all since then? >> well, i mean, yes. we have talked about it a lot in the interdiction committee that both mr. ber singh will sit on and -- bersin and i sit on. there are many moving parts. obviously, to do this right, you have to get a lot of different federal agencies to come together under one roof and to

coordinate. c.v.p. and i.c.e. are in the same department. we are moving a lot of our intelligence operations closer and closer together. i think the momentum, though, is very much in favor to have general concept that you -- of the general concept that you outlined it is just a matter of time. >> we're facing problems on that border as we taubt about this morning and they are enormous and growing and very dangerous to the security of the whole country, both us and mexico. it seems to me that we need a single place where all of the agencies, military and civilian, are headquartered, much like in florida on the anti-drug war in the caribbean so that you can call instantly on any asset of any of these agencies that may >> may not be needed and get an instant response and where you coordinate both te justice department activities as well as

d.h.s. and the military agencies and when can we expect a decision about doing this? >> i can't promise you any time table on a decision because it obviously involves many more problems than me. what i can tell you is i actually spoke to michelle length heart who is the administrator on d.e.a. on this exact conversation on the way back from the trip to mexico and we agreed that i would go down and we are waiting for commissioner bersin to come onboard and take a hard look at epic and what we're doing there and we need to have that kind of assessment and the conversation among the key players and alan is here and he is one of the key players. >> could we get an update on your progress, say, within 30 days. is that a reasonable time or should it be longer or shorter?

>> we can certainly give you an update on where the discussions are but i think realistically because this is as you recognize there would be a major structural transformation that was -- it strikes me that 90-120 days would give you more substance than not. >> what would be -- what could we expect in 90 days? >> i think what we could report back to you is where the federal agencies across d.h.s. and d.o.j. in terms of the willingness to entertain in serious details, not in reor the hall flourish of the notion of the unified command or joint command or variety of other command mechanic niches that are available. >> i would hope that we could

informerly request of the gentleman a report on how we're doing this 90 days. would that be a reasonable request? >> that's fine from the two of us. >> let's just agree at this point that we will make that informal request and look forward to -- >> well, that would be a big step forward. i think the time has come for a headquarters and operation like this to manage that whole aspect of the southwest border. quickly, switching gears, last time, i guess it was, you were hear, mr. morton, secretary morton, we talked about the flow of drugs across the border this way and fobal money and guns and

stuff--and possibly the money and guns and stuff going the other way. what can you tell us about -- about those subjects? >> first off, do we have an estimate, a rough estimate of the amount of money that the drugs sales in this country are netting? the cartels in mexico? >> yeah, there are broad ranges of anywhere from $18 billion to north of $30 billion. >> per year? >> per year. >> that's money going from the u.s. to the cartels across the southwest border? >> yes, and then on in certain insignificances to places like columbia and other countries. >> how can they amount of money, say $30 billion, how can that amount of money cross that border without us knowing about it? just the bulk of that is something, is it not? >> it is.

if you were to ask me where is the area where we need to devote more time and attention to developing intelligence, it is in this exact area. that the wild c.v.p. and i.c.e., we typically do these together. a lot of this is based on i.c.e. lead, are at an all-time high. the truth of the matter is we are not seizing but a fraction of those estimates, if that is right. >> how much money have we seized going south? >> this is a particular good year. typically between two ealses are north of $200 million. we had some shipping containers going between mexico and

columbia that we found in the space of 10 days that was packaged inside -- >> you have recovered roughly $200 billion out of 30 billion? >> yes. and d.e.a. seized a similar amount but it is by no means the majority to have money. we're not -- majority of the money. we are not seizing most that is going south. commissioner bersin, do you have any info you can share on this? >> while most of the money goes down in bulk cash, not all of it is bulk cash but rather transfered through banking channels and through trading and we need as mr. morton suggests we need a lot more intelligence

about the way in which money is laundered and we need to be able to identify with much more precision what the proportion is in cash and frankly we need to get a better range. simply $18 million up to $30 billion. >> it seems like this is a very fertile field getting at the problem and that is tracking the cash that is flowing across that boarder in rivers. quickly -- >> if i could just add one thing on that. there are many things that we are doing to address that exact point. we are working with the d.e.a., i.c.e., c.v.p. and the mexicans to study what we are studying right now the flow of money from the united states to mexico and we're also working with the world customs organization to try to broaden our efforts and we're doing these for the first time international bulk cash

smuggling surges where we get last year we had over 80 countries pick a week and we hit every airport and crossing and we just go looking for trouble and it has been quite successful. we want to do more of those under the umbrella of the w.a.c.o. and we have found a lot of cash. this is all large criminal organizations that need to move money back and forth. they do it through bulk cash smuggling. >> if this committee sometime back, there was a lot of noise made about weapons. of the cartels coming from the u.s. across that border. have you determined how much weaponry is going north to south? >> i have not. and as i have alluded to earlier, we have very limited authority in the firearms area.

typically we look to a.t.f. for the estimates and analysis of what is coming and going across the border because they have the tracing authority. >> mr. commissioner, do you have anything? >> not to add to this. >> i can tell you this. according to v.v.p., no weapons have been seized -- c.v.p., no weapons have been seized by rail of -- from mexico to the u.s. only two, one submachine gun, 15 shotguns, 28 handguns. considering the weaponry that the cartels have in mexico, these are pop guns that we're talking about here. there is hardly any weaponry that has been seized going south across that border. is that generally true?

>> i know that our seizures are roughly in the neighborhood o.f.h.e.o. about 1,500 a year. -- >> are roughly about 1,500 a year. most of the seizures occur in mexico and obviously could have come from a variety of sources including the southern border of mexico and elsewhere. >> i mean out-bound weapons at points of entry. >> i would have to defer to the commissioner. >> we did receive in response to inquireys in our last hearing, specific information about weapons seized at out-bound points of entry. what we don't have is a fuller account of the assessment of weapons seized in the country in mexico and the country of origin of those weapons. >> that was an area continued

inquire in terms of the population of weapons. in fiscal year 2009 109 firearms were seized by c.v.p. and thus far, to this point, in this fiscal year, 72 firearms have been seized at out bound checks. >> those were the numbers that i quoted to you. but the question that chairman was talking about of the origin of weapons that have been found in mexico, what can you tell us about those? >> that's where a.t.f. comes in with the tracing. >> that's the information we still need to get from a.t.f.? >> i.c.e. does not have f.f.l. authority turned law. >> we will pursue that because we need to fill out the picture more fully. all right. moving right along, mr. rodriguez. >> thank you very much. let me just say in that specific area i know we put in $17

million to do that which is not sufficient in all honesty. in the reports i got when i was in mexico was that a good number, they felt came from the u.s. but they were not sure but they did know a lot of the guns did come from the wars that we have had in central america and elsewhere, especially some of the big arms but we do need additional data. i also feel what the congressman, minority leader talked about in terms of following the money. we haven't done a good job there. i know there is some stuff out there in the caribbean and there are some other people doing some things but please let us know in terms of what else we might be able to do there because if it is $30 billion in that amount has remained stag nation's capital and we have done a lot more capture of a lot more drugs, assuming that our appetite for drugs in this country has remained the same

that we make some inroads. if our appetite has increased we're not there yet. yes, ma'am lust add that i had the opportunity to visit 13 of my 20 counties. one of them was fort hancock. there is a genuine -- of all of my counties that's where there is a genuine fear there that is occurring in a concern in terms of what's happening on the other side. i met with the sheriff's staff on this side and the border patrol. they are doing a tremendous job. all the numbers are dropping in my three sectors and they are doing good work. haven't heard too many complaints or too many concerns except in that specific area and that fear is from other communities not wanting to send their kids to play ball there to

other things like that. i know that part of it is just that what is -- what they hear in terms of what is occurring across the border and what's happening in terms of the ones that are coming across. there are increases locally. they got about 1,100 seizures of the local authorities there. and having said that, i wanted to reemphasize how important it is for us to continue to work with our sheriffs and the county officials and the cities and i mentioned the city presidio. i think they have one deputy working there. they can't afford any more. the stonen project that the chairman has been -- stone garden floonlt the chairman has been helpful on has been successful. it has been helpful so whatever

we can do to beef up on local authorities and somehow look at the language and also look at the school districts because i know i have a couple of school districts where there has been talk about people coming over and the kids dropping out and whether there is a dialogue talking about picking up some of those kids to do the drugs now from the cartels. i don't have the evidence but we have had a lot of talk in some areas on the border where it might be happening in brownsville. whatever we might do in terms of those political subdivision and those school districts and counties, continue to do it, i appreciate it. the $60 million that we put in there. did that wipe out that sector? it is in the bument? i will be asking the chairman to see if we can up those number on the northern and southern

borders and so i wanted to, you know, stop with that and see sooing how else we might be able to -- seeing how else we might be able to work with those communities . along that border there, you get lost, they are still unable to communicate among themselves having the inprabble communication capability is essential and every year we put a little bit, a little bit. in some areas we're almost there and other areas we're not quite there yet where the local sheriff and police can dialogue not only with e.m.s. but also border patrol and other people. that's important. thank you very much. >> why don't we ask mr. molihan to close us out, if that is all right because our time is drawing to a close. >> thank you. gentlemen, drug enforcement agents are requesting $40

million to dramatically expand el paso intelligence center. that is part of the justification for that is the anticipation that i.c.e. is going to be using that. following up on the ranking minority members -- member's questions does i.c.e. intend to choose epic as its primary intelligence center for southwest border needs? >> i was unaware that that request based in any formal way on a decision by i.c.e. because that decision hasn't been reached. what i have agreed to do is to take a hard look at the resources we do have at epic. i do think we need to have much more coordinated intelligence. >> when are you going to make

these decisions because these funding decisions are going to be made very quickly. that is a large amount of money. >> the question is does i.c.e. support using epic? that is question that needs to be answered for us to respond to these requests from these law enforcement agencies. >> that is an ongoing discussion and will be part of what we get back in 90 days. >> 90 days is a long time. we're making those funding decisions much more quickly than 90 days. >> one thing i need to do is look at d.e.a.'s request for $40 million to the extent that it refers to i.c.e., that is news to me and then talk to michelle about it but i'm not prepared at this time to say that we have decided that, in fact, epic is the place to be. it is obviously one of the prime contenders. >> what would be the alternative

to using epic for that purpose? >> one of the other center or the creation of a new center along the southwest border. >> which -- who would stand the -- newest center up? >> could be the department of homeland security. c.v.p. and i.c.e. are principle players along that border. we are already moving many of our operations. we do them in the same place. there are other abilities and of course the military is a key player. to start with has a very strong military structure. >> would you include my office, please, in the updates? >> absolutely. >> we're making these decisions realtime. is the reason that -- i don't have very much time here. may i yield after i'm finished?

please? because if i can get one question in i'm going to feel lucky. one more question in. that is a paltry number of weapons to seize going out of the country. is that because you're not checking, you're not screening for traffic going out of the country? why wouldn't you catch more? 18 weapons going across the board into mexico? >> 109 in sorry to be so quick and cut you off. i don't want to do that. i understand that 90% of the firearms found in mexico come from the united states. did you agree or disagree with that? >> i disagree with that.

that is a statement that has been subject to and brdly public lissized but does reflect the reality. the most that can be said is that 90 povet weapons that have been traced originate in the united states. >> and a statistic of what percentage is being used in mexico come from the united states? >> as mr. morton indicates that is information more readily available from a.t.f. >> i'm sure both of our committees have made this request. we need to -- >> it sounds to me like we're not doing enough of screening. we screen a lot coming north. not having enough time to follow up the question. thank you, mr. chairman.

>> you have a quick request for the record? >> really quickly. i know the state department had been looking in terms of the money expenditures going into mexico doing something, as was discussed here about some collaborative effort together in some area that includes the state department and our efforts with mexico. a little bit over $1 billion and hopefully we can move the day log further into some reality -- dialogue further into some reality and address all of those issues not with security but in terms of the judge and all that other stuff. >> thank you. >> rather briefly, mr. chairman. chairman mollahan, of course, will be important if we do an organization on the southwest border because he appropriates

the funds for the justice department. and i hear him saying that 90 days, if we delay the decision 90 days, it is going to be too late for the action of these subcommittees to write into the budget next year's money. >> if i may say respectfully, i think that what we're talking about is such a remarkable institutional transformation that in fact that would not be a matter for this budget year in any case. while i glea the issue on epic is improving its service to i.c.e. and other and c.v.p. as border agencies, we made a huge investment and i don't think we are in the position to make a radical departure. i take your point that we should be in position to report in 90 days where the status of the

discussion is and if it is going further then in fact it has real budgetry implications. >> just be advised. the subcommittees may override you whether you like t or not. >> i understand. >> or whether you're prepared for it or not. >> i would not make a radical change in the period of time that we have to consider this. >> with the severity of the problem on the border, a radical change may be in order. in any case, the request stands for the 90 day report as full as you can make it as the state of your present thinking and interagency discussions. with that, we really have run out of time and we will adjourn the hearing but thanks to both of you for your good work and for your testimony today. >> thank you.

>> the vetting process has begun

for a new supreme court justice. use the new c-span video library to find background information on possible nominees. and other names reported by the media on the short list. search it. watch it. clip it and share it. every program since 1987. the c-span video library, cable's latest gift to america. >> coming up, "q & q with stanley crouch. "washington journal," the housing climate, the climate bill pending in congress and the future of conservatism. later, live coverage of marking the 15th anniversary to have oklahoma city bombing.

this week on q & a, our guest is stanley crouch, author and columnist for the "new york daily news." >> stanley crouch, we have not talked in a while. what have you been up to? >> just trying to adjust to the blogs and the websites that are supposedly bringing in to the experience of print. i think that's garbage. but for the time being, it's taking up a lot of space in the world of writing. >> you still do a column. >> it is still being printed.

i write for some websites and for the "daily beast." it lives up to its name. >> what do you think of the blogs? >> i think they are garbage. what they really turned out to be is -- if we were unfortunate enough to have a recording of what people talked about when they had ham radio, when that was the trend, those conversations would be as interesting as much of what you see on blogs. people do not know what they are talking about most of the time. americans always have a lot of time to waste, and the internet is proof of the fact of how much time we have to waste, because

the sheer intensity that people bring to it, it is kind of like if people have the misfortune to read the mail that i get, they would conclude one thing -- literacy is supremely important because if people could not express themselves in words, they would harm themselves or harm someone else. >> going back to your columns december 28 of last year, right after christmas. the invinceability vie talent of life below the board meetings and the congressional sellouts remain in place. our humanity is up to any challenge. >> that is what i believe. it's the nature of american democracy, it will win out in the long run. it takes a long time,

though. one of the reasons people became so frustrated in the united states is they misunderstand totalitarian philosophy. they'd think because the chinese are -- now we're going to do this. when you run everything, you can say that. but when you have people to make decisions, it takes a long time to get enough of them to agree to do something or to better policy that is already in place. >> you also said -- after we go down much further, we will rise again because quality will prove to be more important to business success than profit alone. as our banking system and our corporations we are now sinking under the belief that

incompetence is acceptable as long as it pulls along an enormous wagon. and then you ahead happy holidays. >> we are at a position where the chinese, i think, are actually the great hope for the united states, because i think they will put some much pressure on us in terms of international competition that we will have to address the importance of actually having a first-class public education, we will have to develop the minds of our population, because as i have said many times and will continue to say, a nation's population is its greatest natural resource. and i think that america has, over the last 30 or 40 years, has accepted a level of ongoing incompetence because it costs a lot of money.