watson coleman for five minutes of questions. mrs. watson coleman: thank you, mr. chairman. i'm certain you heard a little bit of my testimony -- my opening statement as it relates to what's happening with international travel and i'd like to pursue that. particularly with mr. mccormick and ms. howerton. visits pest inbound came the president's first two travel bans. there's also been a sharp decline in tourists coming from mexico, which may have speculated a direct consequence of the president's plan to build a wall along the southern border. i have a series of questions in support of this premise. first question is, what message do you believe the president's policies and rhetoric are sending to the international visitors, ms. howerton and mr. mccormick, if any? mr. mccormick: so last year when the second executive order was put out in march, we pulled a european membership and 38% of business travel professionals said their companies would be less willing to send business travelers to the u.s. 45% said they had eab less willing to plan future meetings and events in the u.

watson-coleman. other members of the subcommittee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. we are pleased to have two panels of witnesses before us today. let me remind the witnesses that your entire written statement will appear in the record. on a first panel we are pleased to have mr. darby lajoie, the assistant administrator for tsa's security office operations, as his role of assistant administrator, he oversees regulatory compliance, cargo inspections and other specialized programs designed to secure transportation. previously mr. la joye served as a federal security director, of los angeles and was responsible for los angeles international airport. ontario international airport and palm springs international airport. with intermodal responsibilities throughout southern california and hawaii. he also served a as federal security director at john f. kennedy international airport in new york. before joining tsa, he served in in the u.s. army in various light infantry

with that i will recognize is is a watson coleman. >> the data shows that this sharp declines are for the international visit that came directly following the president's first to travel bans. there's also been a decline in the tourists coming from mexico which may have speculated the confidence of the president's plan to build a wall on the southern border. i have a series of questions in support of this premise, and the first question is what message did you believe the president's policy and rhetoric has for the visitors? >> last year when the second executive order was put out in march, we pulled a european membership and 38% of the business travel professionals said the companies would be left standing to thsending to the u.d they would be left willing to plaplan future meetings and eves in the u.s.. we were estimating last year the impact it would have on a $1.3 billion impact on the travel expenditures and related expenditures in the u.s.. the problem is when you are talking about the planned travel that is one to two years out. so we aren't even going to begin to see the impac

watson coleman for her opening statement mcconkey for holding this hearing i think the witnesses from both panels to be here today it is good to have tsa here because your work is so important we have so many questions and it is all very dynamic moving along. tsa has a long struggle to effectively manage its resources in 2011 using the pre-check program for low risk passengers who have background checks and fingerprints to receive expedited screening. using combination of intelligence and matching programs pre-check allows tsa to focus resources more effectively and the pre-check program has had some setbacks. unfortunately by 2013, tsa efforts to drive more passenger traffic into the pre-check lanes caused it to adopt the practice known as manage inclusion which relies heavily upon detection officers and randomizing acts to expedite screenings for large numbers of passengers who were not enrolled in pre-check. last congress ranking member thompson introduced a bill and after it passed the house and the administrator directed that the practice be phased out. although inclusion came to

with that i recognize miss watson-coleman for five minutes of questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm certain you heard a little bit of my opening statement as it relates to what's happening with international travel and i would like to pursue that. particularly with mr. mccormick and miss howardton. the data shows the sharpest declines in inbound international visits came directly following president's first two travel dance. there's a sharp decline in tourists come being from mexico which many have speculated is a direct consequence of the president's plan to build a wall along the southern border. i have a series of questions in support of this premise and my first question s-what message do you believe that the president's policies and rhetoric are sending to the international visitors? if any? >> i think -- last year when the second executive order was put out in march, we polled our european membership and 38% of professional business travel said their companies would be less willing to send business travel toers the u.s. alers to . >> can you translate that into m

watson coleman: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i want to speak on an issue that's very important to all of us, i want to speak on behalf of the 43 million people who are snap recipient, many of whom are working each and every day. i want to talk about the fact that those are individuals who we consider working poor. and one of the -- you mentioned that snap was rereflection of something. snap is a reflection of the fact that we have so many jobs that don't pay adequate wages. snap is a reflection of the raw deal that our citizens are getting under an administration that would choose to give trillions of dollars worth of money to those people who are already rich, asking nothing in return for that horrible tax scam, at the same time asking those at the lowest income spectrum in the entire united states of america to work for -- so they can be supplemented with meals that are $140 -- that are $1.40 a meal. that's hypocrisy. that's disgusting. we should not even be having a discussion about whether or not we should be eliminating, re

the gallery shouting, but it turns out that person was in fact democratic congresswoman donny watson coleman from new jersey. she was calling for action in response to this latest school shooting. >>> a three-hour car chase across southern california hit speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour. the hours long tri-county pursuit came to a bizarre in riverside county after the suspected car thief drove wreck lislie on highways and streets. at one point appearing to drive circles. where am i going to go, left or right. about two hours into the chase, the driver then abandoned the stolen toyota camry and tried to flee on foot along with his female passenger. well, despite changing his shirt, officers arrested both the driver, christian beltran and the passenger, cecilia martinez. >>> parts of the world are dealing with violent floods and raging water from intense storms. in turkey, fast-moving flash floods stranded dozens of cars and trucks, main roads submerged, even trapping a city bus. heavy monsoon rains claimed five lives in sri lanka. landslides and flooding there have forced evacuations. here

watson coleman: thank you for leading us on such an important topic. it's safe to say we are past that point. every time we face down another mass shooting, we have another moment of silence. the united states has more gun deaths than any other developed nation and it has far higher levels of gun ownership than any other country in the world. the u.s. has nearly six times the gun homicide rate of canada, more than seven times of sweden and 16 times of germany according to united nations' data. mass shootings constitute less than 2% of deaths u.s. makes up less than 5% of the world's population, however we hold 31% of the global mass shooters. we can go on and on and on with statistics. we know what researchers have found. researchers found that when there are commonsense gun safety legislation, the numbers of deaths associated with guns decreases. we know that there was a 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries published by which found that new legal restrictions on owning tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence, a strong indicator that rest

>lawmakers, like congresswoman bonnie watson coleman, want to make sure the agency is ready for the rushstorically long security lines in 2016. the tsa is testing new screening technology, working to get more people enrolled in tsa pre-check and hiring more staff. : lawmakers from both parties slammed the agency for how it's using those k9s. they say tsa is letting people who have been screened by k9s, go through expedited security like tsa pre-check -- even if they aren't enrolled in the program -- to make the lines move faster. congressman john katko says only precheck passengers who pay for the service and pass a background check should go through the streamlined screening process.but tsa argues the dogs are actually enhanced security.

miss watson coleman? mr. krishnamoorthy votes nay. mr. after kin. mr. ravkin votes nay. mr. gomez. mr. gomez votes no. mr. welch? mr. welch notes very. mr. cartwright? mr. cartwright votes no. mr. dasnay votes no. miss last kin. mr. sarbanes. mr. sarbanes votes no. >> clerk will report. >> on this vote 22 ayes and 15 nos. >> motion to table passes. we will now, i want to thank all the members on both sides for coming. we will rue assume with our questioning of the witness until votes are called and we're over here. so, give me one second. gentleman from illinois is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning mr. gore. many individual citizens as well as non-citizens including legal permanent residents are fearful about giving their personal data to the government particularly in the current political climate. these fears were escalated recently by the doj's request to include the citizenship question on the 2020 census. that is why i think it is so critical today for us to remind individuals that title 13 protects the confidentiality of their census responses and prohibits

watson coleman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, is this budget your budget? did you have any input in this budget? >> we did, yes, ma'am. so, the men and women of dhs put together their request and it goes all the way up, if you will. >> okay. so, this happened under your watch, too? all right. >> the '19 budget. well, in part, i joined in december, so we were already well into budget. >> our greatest value statement is where we're putting our resources, and i'm not 100% sure that there is a consistency between where your people or your budget applies its resources and its ability to keep this homeland safe. with regard to land transportation issues, there is a reduction in the security grants. there is a reduction in the vipr teams. there is a reduction or elimination of the law enforcement officers grants. there is a reduction in the exit lane staffing. there is tso staffing still is somewhere around 2,500 people short. i don't know how that helps us to be more secure in those areas where we're supposed to be. i