for these officers have voted no confidence in your leadership. to what extent have you confronted this question, met with them, examined the charges that have been made and made a formal response to them? >> let me, if i might, senator prosecutor for many years, particularly in border and immigration matters. i believe the priorities we havei think results matter. and the results are really incontrovertible now. removing war criminals from the time -- removing more criminals. with respect to priorities that have been set, when you actually read what director more news that document to a number

of prior memos by prior directors that were in his or similar are very similar historical. sense and they reflect a reality that we have never had an offer resources to remove everyone who the field across the country about what the priorities are. >> i am just focusing mainly on the problems within the department. officers that morale is very low. calling on them to consider a determining whether or not the to be released not, whether

diploma, whether or not they might be a witness to a crime, that these are very confusing directives and it makes it more difficult for them to act effectively to apprehend people. very disdainful -- i see that you are looking very disdainful.i am saying these are people on having to deal with the arrests>> let the secretary answer the question. >> i am not rolling my eyes. what i am suggesting is that results matter here and priorities really matter and that the results reflect theand

these are priorities that are consistent with prior administrations and, indeed, with what i testified to this committee my first months in office. that this is what -- >> i am told that ice carried over from last year 19,000 removals and counting them this >> i am not rolling my eyes. what i am suggesting is that results matter here and priorities really matter and that the results reflect the priorities we have set. and these are priorities that are consistent with prior administrations and, indeed, with what i testified to this committee my first months in office.

that this is what -- >> i am told that ice carried over from last year 19,000 year and is sort of a gimmick higher than they are. are you aware of that? and i think what you are refering to, senator, is in the movement from fy 09 to fy 10, we made the decision we would not an actual verify departure fromthat had the affect of moving 2010 because there was a calendar -- there was a removal verify the departure into fy 10. we continue that practice into the 10 and the 11 numbers are exactly the same. >> what i am hearing is, is while claiming to arrest more criminal aliens, internal ice documents show that dhs officers not to arrest fugitives efforts to conceal this from the the field. aggressively pushing back, even have when they stopped them, they showed the memo and says arrest me.

>> if they say that, they are not reading it correctly because that is exactly not the case. but at some point and the process there need to be decisions made about who is to be removed -- at some point in the process. we talked about how much it cost to detain somebody. it costs in the neighborhood of $23,000 to $30,000 to actually remove somebody. that is our cost. it does not include the justice department costs. congress gives us the ability to finance removal of 400,000 people year. we can just removed anybody without any priorities, and that would be one way to do it. or the other way, the better way, and probably the way you ran your office when you were a prosecutor is to say we want to focus on expediting the removal of those who are criminals, those who are fugitives, of

those who are repeat violators, entrants, meaning within five years, into the united states. what you are now seeing is that of the numbers reflect those priorities. >> well, you have a problem with more rale and i am confident -- i think the officers feel like you spend more time talking with the activist groups then the officers themselves and drafting guidelines to help them do their job. thank you, mr. chairman. sorry to run over. >> senator coons? >> thank you, madame secretary, for your testimony in front of this committee, for your one leadership of this remarkably far-flung and brought agency. in difficult times it is a fellow german scholar to do well. as other members of the

committee have commented, you face enormous challenges and i want to commend you for the work you're doing given the limited resources and given the great pressures to keep america safe and to secure the borders and respect our constitution and advance our national interest. of the six prairie missionaries, -- priority missions, there is one that has not been touched on a dog -- priority been touched on at all today. cyberspace. i was at a secure briefing that was hair raising -- probably not in my case -- about cyber attacks and the coordination between the intelligence community and dhs. recently a university of delaware instructor, actually the man who wrote "black hawk down" wrote a book that lays out a fairly disconcerting picture of a connection between the private sector and government and how we are cold war in meeting our defenses. -- coordinating our defenses. and preparedness. tell mehow you see your department coordinating with dob

and the private sector to make sure we are sufficiently prepared for regular basis. >> i was just in new jersey yesterday meeting with a number of individuals in the private sector, financial institutions sector, and the fbi on how we are, or needing -- coordinating. think the analysis is coming out, and i think legislation will come out, is that dhs will have the primary responsibility with the protection of dot-gov networks and the intersection with the private sector. and also through the sears service, crimes committed on the net. and also through ice. things like child pornography on

tyhe -- the net. with respect to the protection of critical infrastructure networks, that is in our nppd division, we have a memorandum of agreement with the department have a memorandum with them as nsa. this is an area where, in my judgment, we need to grow. continuing and expanding threat.there is not get any kind of international framework on which to hang our hats. and so, there are a lot of challenges. but it is definitely an area that we are moving forward on. two things, if i might. in your written testimony you successful partnerships with suspicious activity reporting initiative. what do you see as the future

role for local law enforcement, for local first responder communities, and frankly, for the national guard and reserve in providing some of the first points of contact and a trained work force to help provide the source of security for infrastructure, local communities, and local government, as we build out toward the future or you are literally policing and online border? and private sector partners. but i think this will be a centers to help. they are designed as an all- hazards colocation center. access to real-time classified information.

and private sector reach into this cyber arena. >> one of my larger concerns about cybersecurity long-term is the protection of american intellectual property. and number of more egregious intrusions, not just to access banking or financial data or steel identities for financial gain but also download and a -- or steal identities for financial gain but also to download and tate -- take american innovation and invention. i just wanted to point out to you and number of initiatives folks on this committee are taking and hope to work with you and your department in making sure the legal infrastructure be put together that makes sense and is responsible. i am also particularly concerned about infringing shipments. my aunt -- my impression is there is ongoing challenges with customs and border controls that intercepts shipments it believes contains thomas of goods and -- contains

counterfeit goods and whether they shared the affirmation probably what the see whether it is counterfeit. some questions have been raised about whether it has the necessary authority to share information about suspected infringing shipments with the rights holders and whether they shipments in a timely way. i would be happy to follow up further with your office. >> let's do that. >> last question, if i might. the immigrant investor visa program can be a real opportunity to attract to this country foreign nationals with significant resources who want to invest them in american companies or american communities. our state director of international trade has been trying to be successful. but the area's most successful has been through regional centers where they could aggregate significant numbers of applicants. it is hard to get clear information on which regional center models have had the greatest success. i wanted to leave with you a question about whether dhs

might models have been more successful. referred to it and look across going on. from my colleagues about the help advance tourism in the united states. i think they're good opportunities as well as challenges. >> your colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar. >> thank you, madame secretary, for the work you are doing every day. i want to mention two things i did not know have been discussed. i have been here for most of the questions, but, first, the good work you have done in our area on flooding issues, that fema has done in the red river valley and the administrator's assistance with the floods was very much appreciated. >> great. >> and then, the second piece of this is the work that i don't think many people focused on

that you do, adoption. when things come up in helping parents adopt children from issues. i wanted to know, the last -- i did want you to know that at the last hearing i ask you about a family from the philippines, senator sessions and senator inhofe and i worked to pass a bill to allow older siblings if they turn 16 or 17 to still be adopted if they have a younger sibling adopted. this literally allowed 10,000 kids retroactively to come into loving homes in our country. one of them was a family that i brought up. thanks to the help of your agency -- they were going to have to leave the older kids that held this family together -- of nine -- when the mother died and thanks to the help of your agency the two older kids were able to get on the plain what a family. i met all nine children and a celebration in the community and it would not have happened without the work of your agency. i wanted thank you for that. i am also on the commerce

committee -- the first issue, aviation security. it has been my concern as a person with a hip replacement deals a lot with your tsa people, and there has been a great improvement in morrell the past few years. they appreciate the local defense that you and the director had given when questions are raised. and obviously questions should be raised, but overall theyand d be raised, but overall they are protecting the security of the people in this country doing incredibly difficult jobs. the issue i wanted to raise, the new stick image body scanner. that has been a concern of some people, with the new security that is there. i have not had a problem with it at all. i think it is great because it goes faster. but can you discuss this new software and get your assessment about how it has been working? >> we began installing software that rather than the smudge it photo-like image, it is just a stick figure, and it identifies where there may be an anomaly that requires deep they forgot

to take something out of their pocket or something needs to be checked. initially, when this was being deployed, i think in amsterdam, there were a lot of false positives. but those problems have been rectified so we are now in the process of installing that type of software throughout the country. >> what is happening with the pre-check pilot -- again, some pilots to speed things along? >> it is the name for the program that is a domestic version of global entry. it is the process by which people can voluntarily provide information and biometrics and

that will help speed them through the security lines. obviously, one of the issues with the pilot is the scale ability -- scalability. but my initial impression is it is popular in people like it. >> senator coons mentioned the tourism work. i chaired the subcommittee on commerce along with rory blunt and we introduce the tourism facilitation act, which we worked with the state department on these issues to make sure we were doing something that had a chance of passing. we have also seen some improvement. we are waiting to get the exact numbers from the consulate officers on the state department side. since 9/11 we lost 16% of the international tourism market,

which is about 467,000 jobs. we want to keep all of the security measures in place. we also want to see if there are ways, while keeping them in place, to make them more efficient. even if we add one more point, that is 160,000 jobs in the country. they are gone nowhere else. they are in the country. the background checks for tourist visas, they are performed by the state department but dhs does play a role when a tourist b-1 or b-2 visa holder applies for an extension. are you familiar with that and how can we make this run more smoothly? >> let me, if i might, look into that and perhaps have someone meet with you. it suggests there are some problems. let us figure that out. >> we don't want to change your security, but we really believe -- it is mostly consulate officers on the state department side, that you could process things faster and this is one thing that came up with the dhs side. >> as a former governor of a state heavily dependent on tourism, i appreciate the fact that this is a jobs issue. >> it is a really -- it is

really a jobs issue. we have had no change in the last two years and there seems to be a lot of interest and making changes, so we are excited. a lasting one to follow up on is cybersecurity. ice -- i shares senator coons' viewed that this is a public and private partnership. what more do you think we can do to encourage businesses and institutions to work with the government on cybersecurity challenges? >> i think this is one of the key issues congress will have to take up when it takes up hopefully cybersecurity legislation. but the extent to which particularly private business, that is, control a critical infrastructure of the country, should give notice if there has been an intrusion or attack, what kind of notice, how is it shared, what is the government's role, is it an incentive or mandate -- these

are all things that are appropriate for congressional resolution. >> i think people were kind of shocked a few weeks ago or months ago when the one worker working in a power grid -- >> southwest arizona. >> the power grid had gone down, affecting the power in people -- for people in southern california and other places. more has to be done to vertex the power grid. what should our priorities be? i am looking at this as a cybersecurity issue, but it was an accident. >> that was a situation where i think 6 million people were without power -- excuse me, 2 million people out of power for six hours because of an accident of one worker. i asked my staff to look at what happened and why there were not redundant or fail-safe systems

in place. >> i also have a note that senator schumer -- discussing his buffalo bridge. i have a few questions that i did not know of other senators want to hear about concerning northern minnesota but i will put them in the record and ask that she answered them at a later time. thank you. >> noting that the distinguished senator from minnesota -- it is not without precedent that sometimes questions that may appear to be parochial have actually been asked. [laughter] >> i think -- i appreciate their earlier answers and i know my colleague senator whitehouse is here. >> and i should know there has not been a single time where i called the secretary and have not been able to get a response. this is not a department we have a difficult time getting answers from.

she is always available. senator whitehouse? >> your remarks about the cybersecurity legislation, that we ought to be and shall be undertaking fairly soon makes a good segue into my questioning. let me first ask you, what level of urgency and dispatch would you advise that we proceed to this legislation with? >> i would hope that you would proceed as quickly. this is an area involving rapidly. i think having a basis in statued, of jurisdiction,

authorization, and a light, is very important. work has been done on the senate side, work has been done on the house side. i would hope that congress could move very quickly to resolve this and give us a bill. >> do you hope that we can do it quickly because it -- what? >> this is an area that deserves foundation in statute. right now we are moving administratively, and things are moving and moving expeditiously. but it does seem to me there is a lot happening here which ultimately needs to be established, not just jurisdictionally but fiscally as well so it is something congress has to take up. >> do you think that of the legislation that has been

proposed, the idea proposed for allowing more protection, more government support, more protection of our critical infrastructure can be implemented quickly and will make a real difference in terms of the safety and security of the american people? >> i believe so. but i want to be frank with you, senator. one of the areas where the department of homeland security needs to keep expanding its capacity and capability is in cyber. it is very difficult to hire professionals and this area. there is a lot of competition for these individuals. it is one of the reasons we initially made a decision that we would not tried to replicate a civilian nsa with a military nsa, that there will be arrangements to share some of the technological expertise. this is an area, even in a period of restraint fiscal resources, that needs focus.

>> at the moment, if our nsa folks were aware of an attack targeting, say, an american bank, financial processing center, electric utility network, would they need, would you need the kind of the authorities that this legislation can provide in order legislation can provide in order to be able to intervene and