you on homeland security, homeland defense, and other pape -- public safety issues. the proceedings of this committee are open to the press and all meeting attendees. as a consideration, please take a moment to ensure that your cellphone and all electronic devices are silenced. split intoting is two panels for the purpose of discussion of two very important issues. the first, the united states custom and border protection strategies and operations, to secure our borders. and the resiliency of our citizens and communities in the wake of disaster. our first panel will first focus on the department of homeland security is efforts to secure the border. let me begin by saying that each day over 58,000 customers and

border protection officials, including border patrol agents, place their lives on the line to secure nearly 7,000 miles of the united states land border with mexico and canada. and 95,000 miles of coastline. these men and women not only provide for our safety and security, but they also work to protect our jobs, our economy, and our livelihood. with the 10th anniversary of september 11 rapidly approaching, we are focusing on how far we have come since the tragic day. we are no doubt safer than what we work, but we are certainly not free from threats. i many have fought constantly to enter our borders with the sole

purpose of attacking us. nearly 1300 illegal entrants are caught at official ports of entry. or 600 persons have been denied entry and over 11,000 pounds of goods have been seized. more than 80 fraudulent documents at approximately $400,000 in counterfeit currency. the men and women of cvp are the first line of -- against thieves and threats. despite the dedication of border control and other cvp personnel, my own state of arizona is concerned with the security of our national border and the impact of illegal border crossing and smuggling on our communities, economy, and

overall safety. we have seen with our own eyes some of the violence across the border move north into arizona, such as with the death of border patrol agent brian terry. i love our law-abiding neighbors in mexico and countries further south. i want the u.s. to be as secure as is reasonable from harm that can come from international lawbreakers and criminals that pose a constant and serious threat to the well-being of our nation. the president recently agreed to extend the commitment of the national guard troops along our border, but more has to be done to protect our communities. if i look forward to discussing

this with our first panelist, deputy commissioner david aguilar of the united states custom and border protection. on our second panel this afternoon, we are focused on community resiliency. and how quick communities and individuals can recover after disaster strikes. this is especially important as natural disasters and other emergencies seem to occur with increasing frequency, causing massive damage. in alabama toadoes that t the floods in missouri to the wild fires in my home state of arizona, it is clear that our communities will never be able to prevent disasters from occurring. while the federal government is able to resist -- assist in the recovery efforts, we must remember that response and recovery must be led by

officials of the local level. it is up to the citizens and local communities to determine what they need and where it needs to go. i look forward to hearing from dr. flynn at the center for national policy and how we can foster our communities and our citizens can play more active role in disaster response and recovery efforts. before introducing our speakers this afternoon, i would like to turn to my co-chair, governor o'malley of maryland's, for the opening remarks. >> thank you very much for that great summation of what we will talk about today. there will be ever -- other governors at the overlapping meetings that we have here at in the beautiful state of utah. i want to thank you, governor

burk, for making sure that this committee continued. -- governor brewer, for making sure this committee continued. there are multiple committed -- committees that have the effect of dealing with legislature during the sessions. but i want to thank you, governor brewer for making sure we continue this. when an emergency happens, especially large-scale emergency, the people look to us to make sure that public safety is guarded and protected, that we have recovered and we are prepared. whether that is in response to incursions across the border, or terrorist attacks, or hurricanes or the like. i want to thank you for keeping this committee going. we also have general -- the

general from washington state who is with us, as well as the director of public safety in utah, and betsy martin from the department of homeland security. we also have governor fortuna, who was with us last time from puerto rico. a place that keeps one eye on the hurricane allen. -- hurricane alley every single year. i am from the city of baltimore, maryland, where we have been doing a homeland security since 1814. we have always placed a premium on being prepared, being resilient, not sitting back and assuming that our national government can protect us. we believe that the security of our city or our state is one of our most important

responsibilities that we have as citizens. as we come up on this 10-year anniversary of 9/11, this is an opportunity not only to remember all of those feelings that we had 10 years ago when our country was attacked from all but also to reflect on what we have accomplished to make our homeland more secure in the meantime. but we should also ask ourselves what more we can do now to help the county, state, country become more prepared. since the day of 9/11, a lot of progress has been made on making communications more interoperable for all of our first responders. the successful mission in pakistan recently that seal team 6 completed in bringing justice

to osama bin laden. but there is so much more that we need to do in bringing response, prepared this, prevention. we would like to prevent every homicide from ever happening. but every unit has prevention as well as apprehension because there is no way to ultimately prevent some of these bad actors from getting through. but the most important defense we have is one another. and we are a citizenry that is taking action. i will turn it over to you to talk about border security. >> thank you, governor o'malley. let's turn to our first panelist. we are very pleased to have deputy commissioner david aguilar from the department of homeland security.

he also serves as chief operating officer, overseeing 57,000 employees, and managing and operations budget of more than $11 billion. prior to this position, mr. aguilar served for more than 30 years with border patrol and was named chief of the border patrol in july of 2004. as chief, he has had over 20,000 border patrol agents across the country under his command. and he oversaw activities between the port of entry on our northern and southern borders. in march, 2004, mr. i aguilar was designated the border security integrator for the execution of the arizona border control initiative. the same year, mr. aguilar was also elected president of the southern arizona executive

association. thank you for being with us here today. we are very interested in your comments. >> thank you, governor. i must say that as a young man being raised in south texas as an individual actually raised on the border of our great united states and one who has spent over 33 years serving our country and protecting the border of the united states, it is, indeed an honor to be here today to speak to the governors of these great united states about the state of the borders and what is occurring along our nation's borders. the fact that it became dhs is something very personal for us. it is because of the attacks we suffered on the horrendous day of 9/11. we have come a long way. we have had some tremendous achievements and successes that we can all be proud of. but even with osama bin laden being there, we still have

vulnerabilities, threats, and risks that our nation will continue to face on an ongoing basis. that is why it is critically important that we maintain the focus, the vigilance, and the efforts to protect our country. and that is what the men and women of our u.s. customs border protection today in and day out along our northern border, southern border, and maritime borders. i will speak briefly to how we carry out these operations, how they contrast to what we did before 9/11, and the value of what we do every day in protecting this great nation. one of the things i think it's critically important for all of us to understand is that the theory of a thought, or theory of approach to protecting our nation changed dramatically on 9/11. on 9/11, we woke to those horrendous visuals that we had on our television sets. we were devastated by what we saw. but all of us that were

concerned to then, and continue to be concerned now with border security, were even more concerned and devastated about what we did not know, we did not know well and had to do to better protect our country. if some of the things we did in the immediate was what we called pushing out the borders, something that had not been done in the past. to the effect that we have now become managers of information, managers of intelligence that is critical to protect our country. partnerships in trade against terrorism that is a private- public partnership between the global supply chain that brings trade to our borders, to ensure that at any opportunity -- every opportunity we keep bad actors from coming to bear on our global supply chain. programs such as our customs csi, customs security

initiative -- container security initiative, where we have officers deployed at 80 different ports of entry where they will screen 85% of the containerized cargo before it even leaves the port of that nation. we have over 247 last point of departure throughout the world. there are more people, more cargo and transportation abilities targeting the united states. at the time we have targeting capabilities that will take information intelligence and all other kinds of flow that we have amounts the international intelligence community to basically target any actor that is coming toward our country. in its simplest form, what's cvp

and dhs do is keep bad people and bad capabilities from coming into our country. we do this by operating in our ports of entry with over 21,000 customers and border patrol officers that on a daily basis inspect close to 1 million people coming into this country. about 700,000 of them come through our land border ports of entry. about 250,000 come through the airports. we have over 50,000 containers a day that come into this country. through our maritime ports of entry. every one of those containers, every one of those persons coming into this country are basically screened by way of watch list and information and intelligence that we have in order to ensure screening of the people coming into this country,

the containers coming into this country, to mitigate the risk of anything bad coming into our united states. we do this by way of partnerships with other governments. if we do this by ensuring that our people were trained up to the best levels that we have and we do this by building relationships throughout the world. in addition to what we do in the air environment and the maritime and armand, we have now -- environment, we have now doubled our security at ports of entry. we now have over 20,000 border patrol agents patrolling our borders between the port of entry. this coming year -- this year, we will get another 1000 border patrol agents between ports of entry. in the last four or five years we have also added a tremendous

amount of infrastructure to our borders between the ports. we have built over 650 miles of fence, border barriers, that is a tremendous asset to our southern border. we have added a tremendous amount of technology that we continue to add on an ongoing basis, technology that gives us the ability to detect, identify, and classified any kind of border incursion between our ports of entry. this is the kind of capability that we did not have enough of right around the 9/11 timeframe. but because of all the things that we have done, america is safer. it is a much more secure border. it is a stronger border. it is a more economically viable border because of the safety that we bring to our ports of entry. one of our biggest concerns is

insuring the global supply chain is intact, continues to operate with fewer threats, and therefore, our partnerships with other countries are critically important. the outcome of what we have added and we have done, we have now basically ensured that our border communities are safer and that the crime rates along our nation's borders have fallen dramatically. in san diego, in tucson, in el paso, and in mcallen texas, a 17% decrease in violent crime in san diego. 22% decrease in tucson. 11% decrease in mcallen, texas. and a 36% decrease in violent crime in el paso.

in el paso in the last 10 years since we increased our capabilities along the southern border, a passover is virtually next door to what has been called the most -- el paso is virtually next door to what has been called the most violent city in the world, lorez, mexico. over 3400 murders -- juarez, mexico. over 3400 murders in the last year in juarez. in el paso, only 10. that says a lot about the security of our border. there was an excellent ride up write-up, a 2.5 page ride u of our southern borders. it talks about the chief of

police greg allen, the sheriff in el paso, the chief that i worked with when i worked in tucson, the chief of police in true love as such, calif. -- in chula vista, california. all of them speak of the frustrations along the southern border. they speak about what has been put out on both sides. unfortunately, there's a tremendous amount of violence south of us in mexico. the government in mexico and our law enforcement partners are putting up very tremendous and heroic efforts in mexico to do everything they can to basically, stem the violence that is occurring. by way of capacity building,

partnerships, intelligence and information sharing, we are working closer than ever before, certainly, closer than what i have ever seen in my 33 years of service. of our borders are stable. are they completely safe? no. as governor o'malley said, everyone was that wears a badge, carries a gun, takes the oath of office, does so to prevent any crime happening against our citizens. but the reality is, we are a human race. we will continue to see acts of violence. but our job is to continue, and the relentless -- be relentless, to drive the violence down and protect our borders and make sure that our country is as safe as possible. with that, governor, any questions that he might have i will have the -- be very happy to answer. >> thank you very much.

that was very concise and a very good description of what we all believe, i think, of what is taking place in regard to our border. i do have a few questions i would like to ask, if i may, and then turn it over for a few minutes for the other governors if there are any other questions. and i do have some questions that i do not know, mr. aguilar, if you have answered or not. if you do not know the answer, you can give it to me in writing. i have talked in my earlier comments in regard to some of the apprehension data that has been compiled from the year 2010. what i would like to know is what kind of data we have now concerning 2011. i would like to know, basically,

how many people have been apprehended for illegal entry into the u.s. on all our borders. >> absolutely. >> you might want to press that button. >> this one here? >> yes. >> that is a very good question i will place it in context by stating the following. the peak year of activity that we had for illegal border crossing incursions was fiscal year 2000. it was my first year as chief of the border patrol in arizona. in that year, it was a total of 1.6 million apprehensions of illegal crossings that the u.s. border patrol made. this year, we are sitting at about 257,000 total. we are about two months out to the end of the fiscal year. that represents an 80% decline from the peak year of

apprehension. almost 250 -- of those 257,000 that we have apprehended -- >> all orders? >> yes, south and north and the coastline. of those 257,000, most of those work in arizona. within arizona, there were problems -- approximately 4600 border patrol officers and about 1000 cvpo officers. placing that in context, and 80% decline from our peak. the demographics of the people crossing or the following -- because i think it is of interest -- the criminal aliens crossing into the united states now, and i am focusing on arizona, in 2006 there was a total of about 7400 hard-core

criminal aliens apprehended trying to come into the u.s. that had probably been deported from the u.s. before, had been involved in some kind of violent criminal activity. last year, the last full year that we have four vital crime statistics across the u.s., that number fell to about 2700. even those dangerous criminal activists, even those numbers are falling. as we began this year, we are experiencing a 40% reduction of arizona specifically of illegal cross border incursions. across the entire border, a 31% reduction of illegal cross border crossings. >> how many people have come across the southern border of arizona that are considered tby

the federal government to have terrorist ties and have been arrested? and how do we know which ones are not being apprehended? it's a very good question. i think i spoke to this during my introductory presentation. one thing that is critically important is that the u.s. government has the capability of screening literally 100% of the people that are trying to come into this country legally through our ports of entry and our airports. if we keep out a lot of people, such as the ones you have described, the ones that match the terrorist databases and that we have intelligence on, etc. as it relates to those coming into the country from special-

interest countries -- not special interest aliens, but the -- we have apprehended about one-tenth of 1%. that is about 384. keep in mind, that includes the wall universe, elderly individuals, young kids, all of those that make up the universe of special-interest countries. of the total number, it is less than one-tenth of 1%. of the mexicans -- those that come to mexico that are from somewhere other than mexico, about 13% are mexicans. that is the whole universe of the people originating from those countries that are special interest to us. >> it would not be classified as

a terrorist? >> no, they would not. >> what is the number that would be classified as terrorists? is that something that you have, or do you need to get back to meet on that? orix i do not know if natarus has been apprehended coming true -- >> i do not know if a terrorist has been apprehended coming through arizona. i can check that and get back to you. >> you have all done a great job getting the southern border somewhat contained in texas and california. and it is on the way in arizona. that is our concern, that we are feeling the effects of all of the illegal immigration, and the criminal element that is coming true. we appreciate the fact that the amount of crime that is closer to the border has been declining.

reports come back to me -- and i have not documented it, but i have also heard from other counties that it has risen. i would like your comments on that. >> the issue of criminal activity, i think the best thing we can do is put into context the negative statements that are made by some in the law- enforcement community. they feel about what they are putting forth is information that needs to be put out. i know most of these individuals. i have worked for these individuals over the years. i think the best thing we can do is to put in context the statements of, not just one or two or three or four, but all of the law-enforcement community along the southwest border.

when we talk about a couple of statements made by individuals that say that the border is out of control, or there is a spillover violence or things of that nature, we must put that in context with the ralph ogdens of the world, a highly respected allen chief of police in texas. richard wiles, in elk so. his fellows in south texas are basically saying this is a much safer and much more secure border. as to the issue of what is occurring in arizona, it is important that we note the following.

things that i referred to as baseline flows of the illegal aliens that continue to come into this country. as long as they believe they can cross the legally -- illegally, they will continue to come. in addition to that, and this is almost embarrassing, but we must admit as a country, ironically this nation has a first. as long as that -- those narcotics out there, there will be a base line flow. 6.2 million pounds of narcotics this fiscal year.

as far as narcotics go right now compared to last year, it is pretty much even. 10 years ago, it has risen. the good news is we are not having to dedicate, from an enforcement perspective. illegal immigration has followed. we are able to dedicate more time to narcotics trafficking. there is more cost to it and things of this nature. arizona, we are calling at our last stand of the border. we have hardened, reinforced,

and placed resources on the southwest border. if they try to come back through some of these other locations, we will have enough resources in place to hold the gains we have made. we are ridley trying to close down illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking. we realize that there will be a reaction along the coastlines. mexico, the pacific, and california. puerto rico, in fact. we are working with them to ensure, working with our partners, taking them on for the baseline flows that exist. >> i appreciate your comments.

yuma is under control, i understand. the reference, if you will, is a good thing. but does it mean under control? i know that a general accounting office state's 45% operational control. so, we are feeling the pain. anyone who has read the newspaper or watched the news, they realize that. and it is not that we are not grateful. but somehow we need to get

better operations at the border into arizona. we talk about what employers want. we went after the employers and we do not need to go after them illegally. we will continue to do those kinds of things. and we need to get operational control. when are we going to get more secure? happy if we have more national guard there?

[laughter] thank you. we know that there will be spillover. if it is on the border, the cartel's and gunfights. we know that we are going to continue with that control. with assistance people can look

at the data and it is wonderful. those of us living there, we need more help, more troops. more on the borders. >> we are working hard every day. a couple of things i did not cover that are important because of the questions that you pose, it is the largest civilian air force in the world. over 130 are dedicated in arizona. unmanned aerial systems with two more coming. 30 in arizona. we have the largest air fleets. the largest number of border

patrol agents. we have a tremendous amount of technology coming. by our estimates right now, by the end of 2014 we will have all of the technology needed to cover the entire state of arizona. of the thousands of new border patrol agents coming into service this year, a vast majority are going into arizona. it is critical to note that there are other activities. our partnership with mexico, mexican partners operating, there were 60 of the state law enforcement agents with us.

an operation that incorporates other law-enforcement agencies. the national guard, right now, we have 363 national guard troops on the ground. we have more coming. it is a constant build up of what we do in arizona. we will do so as quickly as we can. something that i think is critical here, because of the drop in activity levels that we have seen, we figure that apprehensive is between 106,100 19,000.

over 630,000 for fiscal year 2000, it has dropped dramatically. using those figures in california, right now throughout the state we have apprehended 750,840 cross border e legal aliens coming across. i feel comfortable making the following statement. in california, people are not complaining. we are still driving that number down. what is the proper number? to me it would be zero. as the governor said earlier, that is an impossibility. we are working to make sure that what is crossing is being caught.

the border actually begins transit to the border with entry and egress from the border and final destination. i will close this out with the following. the demographics tell another story. 80% of what was being apprehended in phoenix, but by people that had crossed into the united states within three days, less than 30 days, year to date that figure has dropped. the rest of them are people who

have been in the country for less than one year. all of these things coming together tell the tale of the status. one thing that you mentioned that is also important, how do we measure this? operational control was a technical term instituted by the border patrol. it was critical that we use it and necessary. and it basically did what we needed it to do to articulate the resources we needed. what we are working on nell is a comprehensive and systematic index that will take into account a comprehensive measure and third-party indicator to give a true measure of border security.

transcending the border in homeland security measures. we hope to have something that will give us that outcome by early next year. >> thank you. i appreciate your answers and we look forward to working with you. the people of my state, we are unfortunately the recipients of what we consider very porous border. migrating into our state and

other parts. we certainly hope that we do get resolved. why can our borders be controlled and they cannot control hours? in california, even the tucson sector. i have driven it. i have seen the trail. apprehended, i have experience with you have.

the terrible effect it has had on our state and country. [unintelligible] so, if there are any other question? >> i have a few things. concerning the work an accomplishment, i would like to commend you for the great accomplishments being achieved.

do you have any graphs of how they relate to the numbers that go -- that go across these borders? i believe that you were talking about the apprehensions. can you put that in perspective, the numbers of attempted crossings? >> very good question. we have been attempting, there have been many universities a tempting to identify what we refer to as a denominator. the number of people attempting to cross our borders. we do not have a good measure and those attempting to cross. that is why we focus so much on measuring third-party

indicators. in a situation where there exists a high level of cross border activity, there are associated activities that occur. high-speed pursuits, rates, murders, and other crimes associated with other levels. those are proxies' that we measure that help us to gauge the total numbers of people attempting to cross. we have often been asked what percentage of the people that we apprehend account for the total number. we do not have a means of measuring. we are working on that now. along with several high level institutions, including universities. that is what the communities and crime statistics tell us.

for example, at the peak in arizona, the costs of local hospitals and tribal nations on the border are horrendous. elevated levels of cross-border activities have fallen dramatically. we feel very comfortable engaging the flow who was fallen dramatically also. >> i have two more questions. >> we know that a great amount of liberty has been given to feel secure in the area of travel. the concerns as a governor and a traveler, i believe that one of the statements he made was a

possible screening at the border. many americans are concerned with the technology not being deployed at the borders. that they are more invasive. i would like to know if there is any real effort on the part of the department of homeland security and security agencies with the research into equipment that is less invasive. it bothers me a lot, in order for the area to be secure,

giving up more and more freedom and liberty is something that we think we should be addressing. the last question i was going to say, as you are aware, not the only jurisdiction outside of your jurisdiction. and that brings its own problems. basically our border security is on our local capability. the areas where we do not have a lot of systems, training our actual forces on the ground. my question there, my last question is, when your agency opens up training regimens to our agencies to be able to train, that way they will be just as competent in the

jurisdiction and in protecting that border. as well as the u.s. citizens and nationals. i can tell you, the last incident that we had of suspected anthrax, it took four days for a response team to arrive. if that was an actual incident, it could have been wiped out. as governor i am concerned that we continue to try to find the right solutions for the u.s. nationals living there. i think that we can do just as good a job if we have the tools to do this job. one of the tools is training. >> i will answer the last

question first. one of the things that we are involved in his capacity building. we have officers in afghanistan, iraq, several others able to train and a buildup that capacity. if we are not doing enough, please get me the information. we are very interested in that type of build up, capacity building, so that it will help with your homeland and hours also. we are very much interested in that. on the invasive nista to talk about, anything that we do within dhs, we have an entity

called civil rights, civil liberties. it reviews every activity that we undertake, that we are planning to undertake, and that we are looking to move toward so that when we do take action, we take into account the civil rights in civil liberties that are of the highest interests of all of us who have historically worked this type of effort. the amount of equipment out there is tremendous. it helps dramatically. we are very sensitive to that and base of this and want to make sure that we get the job done, making sure that the rights and liberties of our citizens are not in pain is. >> first of all, thank-you.

we wish you the best. having said that, i would like to raise a couple of issues. approaching the central border, waiting this issue last month, this is the number one issue. >> we are working closely with partners, the fbi and the u.s.

attorney's office more resources. the number of homicides related have skyrocketed. with operations from south america to the eastern seaboard, they have skyrocketed as well. we are working closely with the dominican republic, but there is only so much that we can do. we have boats competing with theirs, coming through the region. truly it is getting out of hand. we have moved to a 100%

continuing mechanism. starting with operations in our main court, we are already installing systems and hopefully by the end of this year it will be 100% operational. coming in from other states. why? handling cargo, american cargo, illegal drugs and arms coming in. there is stuff coming in from the north as well. again, i will tell you that this is truly getting out of hand.

pressing a balloon on both sides, that is exactly what we have. the third border is important. the person and the cargo, in puerto rico or the virgin islands, we already saw that in maryland. there is no need for passports or anything. truly this is the no. 1 issuance. this was the main issue that i brought up with them. i got my state national guard out there. all of their resources will be available. it is affecting exports in terms

of guns, arms, and people. >> thank you, governor. >> we recognize it as a third border. one of the things i will do is take the opportunity to thank you for the assistance of your state and locals. they are so tremendous. they are always there, the relationships have been amazing. we need more resources out there. 30 aerial platforms are dedicated to that part of the world. we will probably answer more. >> [inaudible] >> i will try to be brief. thank you both for this

opportunity. i do not know what straka you drew to get this great job -- [laughter] >> it has been a great opportunity. >> you have done a great job answering these questions. of course, we are not a border state. but in my previous life as an attorney we served under anti- terrorism and we got to view the border over there in the middle of the day. people coming over shortly after 9/11. one of the things that governor brewer has done that is good, has done a good job with, it is law-enforcement issue. much of the drug trade in wyoming came up from mexico. wyoming came up from mexico.