[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SECURING OUR BORDERS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
AND CITIZEN PATROLS?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 12, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-24
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 12, 2005..................................... 1
Statement of:
Bonner, Robert C., Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........... 30
Bonner, T.J., president, National Border Patrol Council,
accompanied by Daryl Schermerhorn, regional vice president,
National Border Patrol Council; Chris Simcox, co-founder,
the Minuteman Project; and Janice Kephart, former counsel,
the National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States.............................................. 73
Bonner, T.J.............................................. 73
Kephart, Janice.......................................... 96
Simcox, Chris............................................ 82
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bonner, Robert C., Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, prepared
statement of............................................... 33
Bonner, T.J., president, National Border Patrol Council,
prepared statement of...................................... 75
Brown-Waite, Hon. Ginny, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Florida, prepared statement of................ 69
Cannon, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Utah, prepared statement of....................... 144
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 52
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 4
Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 146
Kephart, Janice, former counsel, the National Commission of
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, prepared
statement of............................................... 98
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio:
Letter dated March 8, 2005............................... 25
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
McHenry, Hon. Patrick T., a Representative in Congress from
the State of North Carolina, prepared statement of......... 63
Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada, prepared statement of..................... 148
Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of.......... 8
Sanchez, Hon. Linda T., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 129
Simcox, Chris, co-founder, the Minuteman Project, prepared
statement of............................................... 84
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 13
Van Hollen, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Maryland, prepared statement of................... 126
Westmoreland, Hon. Lynn A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Georgia, prepared statement of................ 149
SECURING OUR BORDERS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
AND CITIZEN PATROLS?
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2005
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Gutknecht, Souder,
Duncan, Brown-Waite, Marchant, Westmoreland, McHenry, Dent,
Cummings, Kucinich, Van Hollen, Sanchez, Ruppersberger, and
Norton.
Staff present: Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Jennifer
Safavian, chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Anne
Marie Turner and Jim Moore, counsels; Rob White, press
secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications;
Brian Stout, professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief
clerk; Sarah D'Orsie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief
information officer; Andrew James, staff assistant; Tony
Haywood, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk;
and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Chairman Tom Davis. Good afternoon. We are here today to
discuss border security.
This hearing has been a long time in the making, as it
builds on the committee's 2 years of extensive oversight of
Customs and Border Protection [CBP], including numerous
committee trips to the southern border and a subcommittee
hearing in Arizona.
Ensuring the integrity of our Nation's borders has always
been important, but since September 11, 2001, it has become
essential. The primary obligation of any government is the
safety and security of its citizens, and to fulfill that
obligation, we must first be able to prevent those individuals
who seek to do us harm from entering the United States. Our
concern is not naive or misplaced. In addition to the ongoing
threat of criminals engaged in human or drug trafficking,
recent congressional testimony from the Department of Homeland
Security [DHS], has highlighted intelligence reports suggesting
that al Qaeda is considering using the southwest border to
infiltrate the United States.
Concern for the integrity and control of our borders is far
from new, especially along the southern border. This area has
long been targeted by the Federal Government for enhanced
security due to the overwhelming volume of illegal crossings.
In 1993, a study commissioned by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy concluded that the southwest border was being
overrun, estimating that 6,000 individuals attempted to enter
the United States illegally every night along a 7\1/2\ mile
stretch of the San Diego border.
As a result, the Southwest Border Strategy was created,
calling for additional personnel, equipment, and infrastructure
improvements. The strategy also involved multi-year operations,
such as Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Operation Hold the
Line in El Paso, Operation Rio Grande in McAllen, and Operation
Safeguard in Tucson to target the most vulnerable and most
heavily trafficked border areas at that time.
More recently, on March 16, 2004, in response to the
continuing high levels of apprehensions in the Tucson sector,
CBP launched the Arizona Border Control [ABC], Initiative,
which just recently moved into phase 2. ABC seeks to coordinate
Federal, State and local authorities to control the Arizona
border by detecting, arresting and deterring anyone seeking to
enter the country illegally. The initiative seeks to increase
the use of technology and the number of ``boots on the ground''
to establish a benchmark for resource allocations and
commitments in order to gain operational control of the Arizona
border.
Despite all of the work of Legacy INS and CBP through these
various initiatives, the fact remains that we do not yet have
operational control of our borders. These operations have been
successful in increasing the number of apprehensions at those
targeted areas of our border. It does not appear, however, that
we have been able to translate the lessons learned into a
comprehensive plan that shuts down our borders to illegal
traffic. In fact, we currently do not even have complete
visibility and awareness, there are many points along our
borders where the Federal Government is effectively blind.
Recently, citizens frustrated by the number of individuals
entering our country illegally on the southern border have
begun to band together and start their own citizen patrols.
During the month of April, the Minuteman Project announced the
placement of 857 volunteers along the Arizona border. The
project claims their efforts resulted in the apprehension by
the Border Patrol of 335 individuals illegally crossing the
border, and we will hear more about their efforts today.
Officials within DHS have repeatedly stated that we are
moving in the right direction, and I have no doubt that we are.
The concern of this committee, and many others in Congress, and
the American public, is the pace and the efficiency of the
effort to make progress. We need to move beyond broad policy
statements and get down to the facts. How will we know when we
have achieved operational control of our borders? How many
boots on the ground and cameras in the sky will it take to get
there? What are the funding requirements going to be?
Congress needs to hear the hard truths about the state of
the border so that we know what we must do to achieve our
mission. We need to move beyond discrete initiatives and take
what we have learned to create an effective, agile, layered and
comprehensive border security strategy.
There is not only great urgency in addressing these needs,
but a vital requirement that we do this right. Therefore, we
must not only work harder and faster, but smarter. Technology
applications such as sensors, cameras, blimps and unmanned
aerial vehicles have the ability to serve as force multipliers,
and there is no question we need more of it.
Let me also say this is not the time or the forum to point
fingers. Debates about immigration policy have no place in this
discussion. Whether you favor a more permissive or restrictive
stance on immigration, a functioning and structurally sound
border is the basic building block of any workable policy.
We hope to learn today about technological advances and
infrastructure improvements that CBP is currently implementing
at the border. We also hope to learn some answers to the
question of whether CBP is adequately staffing and training
agents at the border.
Finally, we hope to address the public's growing concerns
about the capability and the will of the Federal Government to
establish operational control of the southern border.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. I now recognize Mr. Ruppersberger for
an opening statement.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this
important hearing.
First, protecting our borders must be our No. 1 priority
with respect to our national security. We must do everything we
can to stop illegal immigration.
We are here today to talk about our borders and if we are
doing enough to keep our country secure. We are also going to
discuss the actions of private citizens and their efforts to
protect our borders.
We all know, the drug dealers know, the terrorists know
that our borders are a sieve. This is a serious concern, and I
know that the Members in the border States have been working on
this issue for awhile. We must look for more agents on the
border. We need better technology, and we need a more
comprehensive solution.
The question is how we stop illegal immigration. In my
opinion, the only way to stop illegal immigration is to have
the manpower or the boots on the ground to patrol and stop the
crossings.
I have introduced legislation to add an additional 2,000
agents per year for the next 5 years to our borders. That is
10,000 agents in total. Manpower and boots on the ground is an
important tool to fill the gaps in our border. I would also
suggest a comprehensive border solution where we bring DEA,
border agents, customs, CIA, FBI, and NSA into an interagency
task force like we have with the JTTF, which is a Joint
Terrorism Task Force to fight terrorism, or the Joint
Interagency Task Force in Key West that fights drug shipments.
While that is what we are focusing on in Congress, and
hopefully in our law enforcement, we need to look at what the
citizens are doing. There has been an issue with the Minutemen,
and some people are concerned that they might be considered
vigilantes. There are other people who think they are doing the
job.
My former job when I was a Baltimore County executive, we
had citizens on patrol, and these were volunteers that worked
with police and the only equipment they had were microphones.
They were eyes and ears. They were not involved in any arrests.
They worked tremendously. Whenever we had a citizens on patrol
in a neighborhood that had a serious crime problem, crime
dropped. One of the most important issues with the citizens on
patrol, as we need to do with the Minutemen, is that they need
to be managed properly. They need to be managed properly by law
enforcement who have the jurisdiction on the border. Law
enforcement needs to know what they are doing at all times and
that they have an agenda because everyone needs a boss, and we
have to have that accountability.
My concern is we have well-meaning people with the
Minutemen, but one person who steps out of line and creates a
vigilante-type situation could hurt the entire program. It is
management at the top and making sure that they know what they
are supposed to do and that the people in charge are always
there and working with them. They can be a tremendous asset and
tool. They can be eyes and ears because we do not have enough
people working on our border patrol to deal with this entire
problem.
We must as a country focus on this issue. We need to remove
the fear and politicization of the issue out of Congress. For
too many years, Congress has used immigration as a tool for
votes without much action and without real solutions. Because
of that, people have sought to fix a problem where there should
be a solution to this issue of illegal immigration. We need to
stop abrogating our role in Congress, and we need to fund more
Border Patrol agents and get more technology on the border.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger
follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. We have the chairman of the
Subcommittee on Drug Policy, Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to you and the
ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for holding this hearing discussing
the critical issue of securing our borders.
As chairman of the subcommittee charged with oversight of
all drug control programs, as well as an original member of the
Committee on Homeland Security, I am very familiar with the
challenges of securing our borders.
My subcommittee has focused extensively on narcotics
smuggling activities across the borders. And in July 2002, we
issued a comprehensive congressional report which discussed the
challenges about which you will be hearing today.
The southwest border remains a primary conduit of illegal
drugs into our country. With up to three-quarters of the
narcotics coming across it, the problem is not going away. Drug
seizures here have risen significantly during this decade, even
as they fell in other parts of the country. It seems almost
every week, law enforcement agents discover huge shipments of
drugs in this area.
Drug smuggling and related crime have taken a toll on the
environment and the quality of life for local residents,
besides presenting a threat to the entire Nation. According to
the Centers for Disease Control, preliminary estimates for
2003, over 25,000 Americans died of drug-related causes. To put
this in perspective, we have never lost this many Americans
annually to a post World War II military or terrorist campaign.
This staggering statistic is significant when we consider that
we have lost over 1,500 brave Americans in Iraq since Operation
Iraqi Freedom began, accounting for less than 3 percent of
those lost to drugs over the same period of time. We have lost
more Americans to drugs than were killed in all terrorist acts
to date.
Therefore, it is vitally important that we maintain
vigorous efforts to control the sources and supplies for
narcotics as we attempt to secure our borders. The Department
of Homeland Security is an absolutely crucial player in our
efforts to secure the borders. When Congress created the
department in 2002, it combined some of the most important
border security agencies in the Federal Government: The Border
Patrol agents, the former INS and Customs inspectors, the
Customs special agents, the former Customs pilots, represent
America's front line against smugglers and drug traffickers.
Although there are certainly other Federal agencies with
vital roles in our fight to achieve some type of border
control, the Department of Homeland Security and specifically
CBP, is largely responsible for manning the front lines in this
mission. Without them, we would have little or no defense
against the smugglers, people or drugs at our borders. Thus, it
is vitally important that these agencies remain focused and
adaptive to various threats as they attempt to secure the
borders and that they be provided the tools and authority to do
their jobs. Several issues have arisen, however, that need to
be addressed to ensure that DHS remains on track in the
struggle to secure our borders and protect against drug
trafficking.
In particular, Congress and the administration need to work
together to ensure that the structures and procedures at the
Department reflect the importance of border security and
counternarcotics. No one doubts the individuals currently
serving at the department have a strong personal commitment. In
particular, Mr. Bonner here today, to controlling the borders
and stopping drug trafficking, but we need to make sure that
over the long term, the Department is institutionally committed
to these challenges.
The first and foremost obvious issue is what is the plan?
Does CBP have a strategic plan to address border security, a
comprehensive, layered interagency plan to address border
security? If we do not have a comprehensive idea of what we
want to achieve, which threats we need to address and which
agencies will lead, then we cannot believe our border security
efforts will be successful. For example, at present there are
two entities within CBP that have substantial air and/or marine
operations, the Office of Air and Marine Operations [AMO], and
the Border Patrol. These entities do not communicate with each
other on a systematic basis about their fights or marine
operations, even when they overlap with respect to mission and
their geographic area. This has created a significant problem
with duplication of effort and a safety issue for the pilots
and boat operators involved. Additional issues of intelligence
sharing, coordinated investigations and operational
deconfliction must be addressed if CBP is to maximize its
effectiveness along the borders and against drug traffickers.
As the gentleman with us today fully knows, I think that is
an artificial distinction and ICE and CBP need to be combined,
and we will continue on that mission as long as I am in this
position and until it is recognized. And Department of Homeland
Security and everybody in the field knows it, and most of the
leaders know it. We just need to get this done. I am concerned
that although surge operations, as we have just seen, may be
temporarily successful in controlling a portion of the land
border, we may be at the same time permitting gaping holes
somewhere else in the arrival zone.
At a recent hearing in my subcommittee, we heard about
critical shortages of marine patrol aircraft to support known
drug smuggling activities in the maritime transit zones. Are we
giving up our transit zones to secure the Arizona border? Are
we catching the little fish and missing the big ones? We need
to closely examine how well the multiple agencies charged with
border security responsibilities are coordinating their efforts
with each other and with their State and local law enforcement
partners. We know we still lack adequate technologies and
integrated information systems to maximize our efforts. We are
working toward that goal. It is my hope at this hearing we will
learn what steps Department of Homeland Security and CBP are
taking to improve agency cooperation and security in securing
our borders.
I also hope to hear about what new initiatives CBP agencies
have put in place to stay ahead of the smugglers and
traffickers. These issues are all very important and extremely
urgent. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today
about ways to address them. I thank everybody for taking time
for this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. All members will have 5 days to include
statements for the record.
Our first witness has a time limit. I know Mr. Kucinich
wanted to say something.
Mr. Kucinich. I will be brief out of deference to the
Chair's concern about the witness' time.
I will ask that my opening statement be included in the
record.
Chairman Tom Davis. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
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Mr. Kucinich. The questions we are talking about dealing
with border security also involve cases which reflect major
deficiencies on the part of our government's investigation of
custom and border violations. I want to cite two quickly.
First of all, how U.S. Customs handles an investigation of
slave labor allegations regarding a product that we import into
the United States. And as you know, importing products made
with slave labor has been illegal since 1930. Allegations of
slave labor used in the production of pig iron in the state of
Brazil came out in the summer of 2002 as the United States
reportedly imports 92 percent of the pig iron produced in
Brazil, most of which is produced in Podda. It is probable that
this importation violates section 1307 of the U.S. Tariff Act
of 1930. I sent a letter to U.S. Customs asking which actions
have been taken in response to this violation of law. I got a
response back that says that the Amazon basin in Brazil is in a
remote area where the majority of the roads are only accessible
by way of four-wheel drive vehicles. They cannot investigate
it, but for some reason, pig iron can get carried out but our
investigators cannot get in.
Finally, there is another case that involves the presence
of an international terrorist, Luis Posada Correas, who has
been in the United States, it is my understanding, for 6 weeks.
He crossed the border illegally. He has arrived clandestinely
in our country, and apparently in violation of many national
laws. I would just like to point that out as you get into the
hearing to talk about the work of U.S. Customs and the Border
Patrol.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. All opening statements by Members will
be included for the record.
Our first witness today is the Honorable Robert C. Bonner,
Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security.
It is our policy that all witnesses be sworn.
[Witness sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Your entire testimony is part of the
record.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. BONNER, COMMISSIONER, U.S. CUSTOMS AND
BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Robert Bonner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished members of the committee. I would like to make a
brief opening statement and frame some of the issues that I see
with respect to our border patrol security situation.
Let me begin by saying, as I think all of you know, this is
National Police Memorial Week, and I came this morning from CBP
headquarters where we honored the sacrifice of CBP Border
Patrol agents, three of whom were killed in the line of duty
this past year. It is always a poignant time of the year when
we pause to acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices of our
law enforcement officers and their families, the sacrifices
they make to protection our Nation and protect our borders.
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to appear before the committee
today to discuss U.S. Customs and border protection, and in
particular, what it is doing to better secure our borders. I
mean, all of our ports of entry, and between those official
ports of entry or official crossing points along the Mexican
and the Canadian border.
In the post September 11 era and the era of global
terrorism, securing our borders is not only a matter of
national sovereignty, it is a matter of national security.
As the chairman suggested, in the age of global terrorism,
control of our borders is essential.
A little over 2 years, the personnel and all of the front
line border agencies of the U.S. Government were unified into
one agency and that is U.S. Customs and border protection, one
of the principal operational agencies of the Department of
Homeland Security. With 42,000 employees, it represents nearly
one-fourth of all personnel of the Department of Homeland
Security. CBP's priority mission is homeland security, of
course, and specifically that means keeping terrorist and
terrorist weapons from getting into the United States, but we
also continue to perform some traditional missions, and that
includes everything from interdicting and seizing illegal drugs
to arresting and apprehending smugglers of drugs and people, to
apprehending people that are illegally entering the United
States.
As the Nation's single front line border agency, for the
first time in our Nation's history, we are able to develop and
implement a comprehensive national strategy for securing our
borders between our ports of entry. As part of that overall
strategy, you have asked me to talk about a part of it, which
is the new national border control strategy for controlling our
borders. That strategy deals with between our ports of entry.
Let me say this, the strategic goal of the National Border
Patrol strategy, and it has never had one before it came over
to CBP, the strategic goal is nothing less than operational
control of our borders.
The new Border Patrol strategy does build upon prior Border
Patrol initiatives, everything from Operation Gatekeeper and
Hold the Line, but it goes beyond those concepts. It focuses on
five key objectives. One is centralized command over all of the
20 sectors of the Border Patrol, something that did not exist
when the Border Patrol was part of the INS.
Second, it focuses on the need for technology to better
detect all illegal intrusions across our borders.
Third, it talks about the capability of the Border Patrol
to rapidly respond to those intrusions.
Fourth, it contemplates a defensive strategy that is
lateral to interior check points as well as transit areas
coming away from our border.
And five, and this is probably the most important, adequate
numbers of well-trained Border Patrol agents.
Recognizing the old adage that the chain is as strong as
its weakest link, we have strengthened security at our ports of
entry, our official crossings, and we are increasing our
efforts between those ports of entry, including at the very
weakest parts of our land border, and that is the Arizona
border with Mexico. It is the weakest because last year, 52
percent of all of the 1.1 million illegal aliens apprehended by
the Border Patrol crossing into our country were apprehended in
Arizona, crossing the Arizona border. That is close to 600,000
illegal aliens apprehended in Arizona alone.
Arizona has three primary corridors that illegal aliens and
smugglers of drugs use to get either drugs or people into the
United States. One is the west desert corridor, the other is
the Nogales-Douglas corridor, and the other is the Yuma
corridor. The first phase of the Arizona Border Control
Initiative was focused primarily on the west desert corridor.
We did achieve some of our objectives last year with the
Arizona Border Control Initiative in terms of increased numbers
of arrests, reduced numbers of people illegally entering
through that corridor, reduced numbers of deaths in the desert,
decreased crime, and decreased damage to the environment, but
we did not achieve operational control.
Two months ago on March 25, we launched the second phase of
the Arizona Border Control Initiative, which is a full court
press to reduce the number of illegal aliens crossing our
border into Arizona and to reduce the illegal activity at our
borders, concentrating first in the west desert corridor. Our
aim is to gain operational control of the Arizona border, and
to do that by putting more boots on the ground and that is
directing the deployment of 534 more Border Patrol agents to
the Arizona sectors. We immediately deployed in March 200
additional Border Patrol agents on a TDY basis, so we have more
boots on the ground.
We have doubled the number of aircraft operating in Arizona
for air surveillance purposes and rapid air response. We have
interior check points along the highway and are interdicting
laterally from those check points. Border Patrol disrupt units
are working with ICE investigators to disrupt the organizations
that illegally smuggle aliens into the United States, and we
are using the Border Patrol's new centralized command structure
to rapidly deploy additional resources when and where they are
needed to address the hottest and weakest spots on that border.
Just 2 months into the second phase, we are seeing results.
Just last month in Arizona, the Border Patrol arrested 79,000
illegal aliens crossing the border in Arizona. Including about
2,000 of whom were nationalities other than Mexican. Yesterday
alone in Arizona, the Border Patrol apprehended 1,670 illegal
aliens. Just a brief comment on the Minutemen Project and the
topic that will be addressed certainly by your next panel.
Last month, citizen volunteers stationed themselves along a
23-mile stretch of the Arizona border to help stop illegal
aliens crossing our border from Mexico. The Minutemen brought
significant media attention to an extremely important national
issue. The actions of the Minutemen were well motivated, and we
all know, saying that, that law enforcement is a very dangerous
profession and that border environment is a dangerous
environment. We are grateful there were incidents. There were
no acts of vigilantism, and that is a tribute to the organizers
of the Minutemen Project.
Mr. Chairman, we are not going to control our borders
overnight, and it is not easy. I believe we have a sound
strategy, a good operational plan, and with sustained
enforcement efforts and sufficient resources, we can and will
gain control of our Nation's borders. This is not an impossible
task. It is doable and we need to do it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Robert C. Bonner follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Commissioner Bonner, you said the
Border Patrol will need more agents, but you have not said how
many more, in addition to what I think is currently about
11,000. In testimony before the 9/11 Commission, former INS
Commissioner Ziglar testified that 31,700 Border Patrol agents
were needed to carry out enforcement. Do you have an opinion on
his estimate?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I have not had a chance to talk to Jim
Ziglar to hear how he arrived at that figure.
But let me say, we need more Border Patrol agents. There is
no question about that.
Chairman Tom Davis. Would you say a lot more?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Certainly we are talking about two
things. It is not all about agents. It is also about getting
the optimal technology to detect interdictions and getting
those agents and having the capability of rapid response to
intrusions across our borders. If we had optimal technology, we
are certainly talking about an increase in the numbers of
agents. It is, I would say, in the thousands. I cannot go
further. We worked up a number. I am addressing that through
the appropriate channels through the Department of Homeland
Security. We do have an idea based upon the optimal level of
detection technology the number that is needed, but I don't
feel comfortable at this point given the need to further brief
and discuss this with Secretary Chertoff, who is very much
aware and on top of this issue in the very short time he has
been at the Department of Homeland Security as Secretary.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Ruppersberger talked about the
neighbors on patrol in his opening statement that they used in
Baltimore County. In my county, we have neighborhood watch
where citizens can volunteer. They work with the police. They
are not working contrary to them. It is an adjunct to the
police, adding more eyes and ears. They do not have arresting
power. They are not posse comitatus. Do you have any role for
that, where you have people coming forward and volunteering?
Have we thought about utilizing that in any way, shape or form?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Yes. The Border Patrol, and we continue
to value the support of citizens. These are the eyes and ears
of the Border Patrol along the border. This is particularly
important in what I would call the thinly or more rural parts
of the border which are the ones that are the most difficult to
control. The Border Patrol has made significant progress in
gaining greater control, not perfect control. These tend to be
areas along some of the larger urban areas.
In a nutshell, the Border Patrol, Customs and Border
Protection, we value citizen help. We value having citizens
that are eyes and ears to tell us when there is suspicious
activity. The question would be is there a way to let us say
better and more effectively harness the citizen volunteers?
That is something that we are looking at. I don't have the
answer, but we want any kind of force multiplier we can get.
But the border is a dangerous area. We want to be able to
provide at least some insights, possibly even training to any
citizens that are volunteering to go down.
Chairman Tom Davis. We use volunteers for fire service and
a lot of other public service safety areas as well. We are
going to hear from people who have been there. It is important
that you channel them appropriately. It sounds like you are
thinking this through.
Mr. Robert Bonner. We think it is worthy to consider how
this might be done.
Chairman Tom Davis. I am concerned that we are not using
the best capability in our UAV technology to protect the
southwest border. We should not be using drones that lack the
satellite capability to fly beyond the line of sight missions
required to reach the most remote areas, such as the west
desert areas of Arizona. Can you give us, make available to the
committee the results from the UAV tests from the southwest
border?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I am sure that we can work with the
committee on that subject. We deployed a UAV last year on a
pilot basis in Arizona. By the way, the jury is out on this a
bit. We think that the UAV or something equivalent to the UAV
could play an important role in terms of continuous aerial
border surveillance, which would allow us to take Border Patrol
agents doing surveillance duty on a static deployment basis and
allow them to be part of a rapid response capability to detect
and move--not detect, but to move against detected
apprehension. We are moving forward on essentially----
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have a time line for that?
Mr. Robert Bonner. In terms of talking to our procurement
people or getting something else in place, and by the way, I am
as anxious to move forward on this as anybody here, but I would
say right now we are hopeful, just given the procurement
process, to have something selected, if you will, by around
August. There could be some slippage in that. But that is how
long my procurement people say it is going to take. We would
hope to have something deployed by September, something up in
the air. That is our goal.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bonner, are you familiar with correspondence that you
received relative to slave labor occurring in the power state
in Brazil from my office?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I am not as I sit here, Mr. Kucinich. I
heard you talk about the situation in Brazil. I am not
specifically familiar with the details of the potential use of
slave labor for the manufacture of pig iron in Brazil.
Mr. Kucinich. I sent two letters, and I am going to ask
staff to provide copies to Mr. Bonner, one is dated September
24, 2004, and one dated May 4, 2005. In response to the letter
in September, I got a reply from the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, which among other things, said that the
Amazon basins in Brazil, where the majority of these violations
take place, the roads are only accessible by four-wheel-drive
vehicles.
I am calling this to your attention, Mr. Bonner, because
there have been widespread reports about people working as
slave laborers in Brazil, particularly with respect to the
power region. Reports have surfaced that indicate that the
United States is directly benefiting from the proceeds of
slavery, that 92 percent of the pig iron produced in the forest
is exported to U.S. mills, and much of the smelting is done by
forced labor which contravenes section 1307 of the U.S. tariff
act of 1930. You are familiar with 1307.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I am familiar with the law on that
subject, yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Information which has been brought forward
suggests there is a violation that has occurred. Is Customs
looking the other way at slave labor in Brazil because it is
benefiting U.S. interests?
Mr. Robert Bonner. It is not, but you use the word
``Customs.'' There is no U.S. Customs any more. The DHS
reorganization, they took essentially the investigators that
had been in Customs and put them in an entity called ICE. That
is why it was not me that responded to you.
Mr. Kucinich. ICE has enforcement?
Mr. Robert Bonner. They have the investigators, and the
overseas attaches.
Mr. Kucinich. Is enforcement on ICE?
Mr. Robert Bonner. It is a shared responsibility. I have
part of the responsibility here, but if you are talking about
investigating overseas, it is totally ICE. I have no attaches
in Brazil. ICE does. I have no attaches any place in the world.
The investigative responsibility----
Mr. Kucinich. So you are saying you have no responsibility
for these matters whatsoever?
Mr. Robert Bonner. We do have responsibility. When ICE
tells us there is a shipment of pig iron that is as a result of
slave labor, we seize it. We depend upon getting information
from ICE to enforce the laws that are made against products
made with child labor. We do that and we are serious about
doing it, but we are dependent on getting that information from
some investigative agency, and that is ICE principally.
Mr. Kucinich. Are you familiar with whether any materials,
pig iron from the power region of Brazil, have ever been
interdicted, any shipments ever blocked by Customs?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Customs and Border Protection now at the
ports of entry. As I sit here, no.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you have any interest in this at all?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Yes, I have an interest. I will followup
with ICE and Mr. Garcia, who is the head of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, who has the investigators. I will
personally followup with him for you.
Mr. Kucinich. I would like to do that, because according to
the information I have, in this one particular area, 534 rural
workers were reported as killed in the last 30 years until
2001. That is 26 times the national homicide average.
U.S. Customs, when they are asked to comment on a story
about a guardian, say, there was no one familiar with the
problem available to comment. I trust as a result of this
hearing, you will become familiar with the problem enough to
give us a report?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I will be happy to. But I want to say on
March 1, 2003, U.S. Customs was split. The investigators were
split out of Customs into ICE.
Mr. Kucinich. To the extent that you can be responsible for
any of this, will you?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Absolutely. I will followup with you on
this.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. The next question is with respect
to Luis Posada Correas. Are you familiar with him being in this
country?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I have heard that he is in this country.
Mr. Kucinich. Is he in this country illegally?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I am not sure we know for sure how he
entered the United States.
Mr. Kucinich. Are you interested in how he entered?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Of course.
Mr. Kucinich. Will you find out whether he is in this
country illegally?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I said I will undertake to see if I can
get that information.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. First, let me thank the gentleman from Ohio for
pointing out the almost silliness of separating ICE from the
border, because it is ridiculous to have one group watching the
border but not be able to followup. I hope as they reorganize
that Mr. Bonner, who knows full well these challenges, will be
given more authority to figure out how this interrelates. We
even have the air and marine divisions in Colombia and inside,
and this clearly, and I know the Department is looking at it
right now, and they need to look at it aggressively.
I have a couple of things in the line of questioning. Two
basic parts. One directly relates to the Arizona surge. I would
like some idea of how many additional people came through Texas
and California while we were moving assets from all over the
country for an Arizona surge. I was in Texas at the time, and
saw assets moved. I was in California at the time and saw
assets moved. To some degree you even had to move assets to
watch the Minutemen.
To some degree, while it has the great advantage of
focusing attention on the problem, it was relatively
counterproductive if what we do, and particularly, when these
things are announced, they just moved to another area. It is
not like we were fixing either with the surge or with the
Minutemen Project. I held hearings at Sells. I saw hundreds
myself moving through. Unless we in Congress deal with a
reasonable immigration policy and start to address this, your
agents are overwhelmed. It is impossible to picket fence this
whole border. We have to get the coyotes and the networks, and
not overreact to every media story.
We held hearings in Douglas and Nogales. I held hearings in
California, multiple places on the Texas border. This problem
is not just Arizona, it is across the board and we have to have
a comprehensive backup network. We have to follow as they move
in and see where they are hitting the road and networking like
it is a trucking company. We need to make sure that the drugs
and terrorist networks are inside that.
In my original statement, and you responded by saying you
had a Border Patrol strategy. My question was broader. Is
Homeland Security going to coordinate, FBI, DEA? Are you going
to get the Coast Guard involved? Are you going to have a
comprehensive border strategy?
Second, you did not mention information sharing. We are
proliferating the intelligence. Each agency wants its sub area
of intelligence. How is this going to be coordinated so we do
not have everybody in 10 meetings figuring out how to talk to
each other? How can we coordinate this?
Third, NORTHCOM is looking at getting this in a big way.
One of the fundamental questions here is: Is Department of
Homeland Security going to get organized enough to merge the
border and the ICE people and get this coordinated, or do we
have to move it over to the Department of Defense and NORTHCOM,
and have them be the coordinator of intelligence and use the
Guard and so on. I appreciate all of the time you have given me
to talk with you about this. But I want to get on the record
some of your thoughts as well.
Mr. Robert Bonner. You have raised some extremely broad
issues, Mr. Souder. First of all, there is a broad strategy for
the front line border that is not just the Border Patrol
strategy. It also includes all of our official crossing points,
so we do have a comprehensive strategy to keep things that we
do not want in our country out. Whether that is illegal drugs
or potential terrorist operatives. Everything we do and have
done to improve our posture on the border to be able to better
perform our homeland security mission, keeping terrorists and
terrorist weapons out, improves our ability to keep illegal
drugs and drug smugglers out as well.
That said, you touched upon an issue of great importance
and that is, how do we get the best information to our front
line border agency to allow them to respond in the best and
most effective way. You have been to the border.
We seized 2.1 million pounds of illegal drugs on our
border. We are paying attention to this issue. On the other
hand, 99 percent of those seizures were cold hits. Those were
as a result of hard work by front line CBP officers at the
ports of entry, across the southwest border mainly, JFK and
Miami, but mainly the southwest border, and Border Patrol
agents between the ports of entry.
We could do better if we could organize our intelligence
better to get intelligence and information to our front line
Border Patrol personnel, CBP, so we are interdicting more of
those drugs based upon intelligence like we are doing right now
in the east pack, like we are doing right now with air and
marine assets of CBP in the source and transit zone because
most of those seizures are intelligence QTs. So we have to do
this at the border. It means getting DEA and ICE. It means the
right people at the table that is providing this feedback
information to our front line border agency.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
important hearing on border security.
The tragic events of September 11 forced our country to
acknowledge that border security must address more than just
the significant challenges of drug trafficking and illegal
immigration, but also the savagery of terrorism.
This hard-learned lesson demands that we effectively secure
our borders. At the same time, we must hold fast to the values
of hope, diversity and openness that make America great by
welcoming legal immigrants and visitors who enrich our culture
while upholding the integrity of our laws.
In the post September 11 world, maintaining a robust,
multifaceted and responsive border security strategy is
essential to our national security. If there be any doubt of
its necessity, bear in mind that the Department of Homeland
Security's recent testimony that al Qaeda is considering
exploiting our southwest border vulnerabilities as means of
entry into the United States.
Unfortunately, I have serious questions about the
government's ability to secure our borders. I am deeply
troubled by a report issued during the 108th Congress of the
minority staff of the select committee on homeland security
that included the following: The southern border is porous and
more staffing is needed at the southern border. Modern
technology must be deployed on the entire southern border.
Border officials are not getting the intelligence they need to
perform their counterterrorism mission. It went on to say the
Department of Homeland Security detention and removal operation
is failing. The administration has failed, it said, to develop
a comprehensive, long-term border strategy.
The substantive weakness in our border system also impacts
our ability to interdict drugs from foreign nations. With that
said, nearly all of the cocaine consumed in the United States
and most of the heroin consumed on the East Coast originates in
Colombia. As ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, and as a
Congressman who represents Baltimore and Maryland, I have seen
firsthand communities from urban centers to the heartland in
the grips of death and devastation due to drugs. Terrorism
fueled by drugs can be just as destructive as the terrorism
driven by religious extremism. President Bush stated during his
2005 State of the Union address, ``It is time for an
immigration policy that tells us who is entering and leaving
our country and that closes the border to drug dealers and
terrorists.''
While these words are comforting, we must recognize that
words alone are not enough to stop drug dealers and terrorists
from harming the communities we have sworn to protect. I am
deeply troubled that the President's rhetoric on border
security does not correspond with the priorities in his fiscal
year 2006 budget. To begin, the President proposed to cut
funding for important homeland security grants to States at a
time of unprecedented threats to the homeland. Moreover, the
President proposed funding for only 210 additional Border
Patrol agents even though 2,000 additional agents were
authorized.
I am no less troubled that the President's budget proposes
to withdraw significant levels of Federal support for State and
local drug enforcement. The President proposes to decimate the
high intensity drug trafficking areas programs by eliminating
more than half its budget and moving it to the Department of
Justice. At the same time, he proposes to eviscerate funding
for the COPS program and to entirely eliminate funding for the
burn grants. These programs provide a critical line of defense
in stopping drugs from flooding our streets once they have
entered our Nation.
In the end, the American people expect more than
inspirational speeches. They expect us to effectively secure
our border. Sadly, the administration's commitment in their
budget leaves much to be desired if we are to achieve this
worthwhile end. I look forward to this testimony today.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. Gutknecht. Mr. Chairman, I didn't really have a
question, but I want to attach myself to the comments just
made.
I think there is a growing feeling that we do not take this
issue very seriously. I am hopeful in the coming months that we
can all be proved wrong on that, but there is growing
suspicion. Let me give one example.
We have a serious problem with methamphetamines throughout
much of rural America, although I must say that one of my
sheriffs told me she was convinced that at least a majority and
perhaps as much as 70 to 80 percent of the meth was coming in
via illegal aliens through Mexico. And to confirm her point, I
think a few weeks later there were five illegal aliens driving
on Interstate 35 north of Albert Lea, Minnesota, and they had a
trunk load of meth. So this nagging suspicion sort of gets
reconfirmed that we do not take this whole issue as seriously
as we should. I think that is a bipartisan concern. I think it
is a concern of those who live in the big cities, and it is a
concern of those of us who represent what some might describe
as more rural districts. I don't know if you want to respond to
that.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I would like to respond.
I can tell Members that we, Customs and Border Protection,
part of the Department of Homeland Security, do take the issue
seriously in terms of the ability of people or drugs to get
into the United States. It is a difficult issue.
I served in the first Bush administration as head of the
DEA. I have seen the ravages of meth and meth labs and the
ability to move meth around. The Mexican trafficking
organizations get involved in essentially meth production and
the like. I work very closely with Karen Tandy, who is now the
administrator of DEA on these issues. We do take it seriously,
and we take seriously the control and security of our border.
As we were saying earlier, I think as a country, we always
had a duty and obligation as the Federal Government to control
and secure our borders. But in the post September 11 era, it is
absolutely essential that we do so because there is the
potential for terrorist penetration. We have to do this. We are
doing everything we can with our resources to be as effective
as possible in interdicting the flow of illegal drugs and
people moving into the United States.
Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Commissioner Bonner, both President Bush and
representatives from the U.S. Border Patrol have been critical
of the Minutemen as interfering with law enforcement efforts,
posing a danger to citizens, to legal immigrants and
themselves. In fact, President Bush has described the Minutemen
as vigilantes. Would you describe for the committee some of the
specific instances of Minutemen or similar type citizen patrols
interfering with Federal Border Patrol efforts?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Let me say the President's comment I
think you are referring to was made before the Minutemen even
arrived in Arizona.
Ms. Sanchez. So your opinion is they are not vigilantes?
Are they armed?
Mr. Robert Bonner. It was in March. I will say this, I was
concerned about the potential for vigilantism that might take
place with people coming to Arizona. The reality, and I think
it is a tribute to the people who organized the Minutemen
Project, there were no acts of vigilantism.
Ms. Sanchez. Was there any interference with Federal Border
Patrol efforts?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't know I would call it
interference. During the project there were--first of all,
there were times, I am told that sensors were tripped.
Ms. Sanchez. What does that do to our limited Federal
resources when we have citizen patrol groups that are tripping
sensors?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Anything that walks or moves can trip a
sensor.
Ms. Sanchez. But when they are falsely positively tripping
sensors, what does that do? Do you not respond when the sensors
go off?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't think it is a big issue.
Ms. Sanchez. It is not a big issue that Federal resources
can be wasted on nonthreats to our national security?
Mr. Robert Bonner. If a sensor is tripped, we respond to
it. It may turn out to be something other than a group of
illegal aliens. That happens. You probably want to take a look
at the totality of the circumstances here.
There was some I would say diversion of Border Patrol
resources to responding to sensors that were tripped. But on
the other hand, if you look at the totality, first of all, I am
grateful there were no acts of improper and inappropriate
incidents during the month that the Minutemen Project held
forth in that 23 mile area of the border.
Ms. Sanchez. So you would not discourage these patrols from
continuing to patrol?
Mr. Robert Bonner. There is an interesting question about
how do you do this. I am very concerned about people
unnecessarily getting hurt or killed.
And I do know and I visited down in many areas of our
border, but certainly it's particularly true in various parts
of the Arizona border, it is very treacherous and it is a very
dangerous place. Border Patrol agents have and are from time to
time shot at. Their lives are in danger. So I think this is
fundamentally the control of the border, patrolling the border.
Making apprehensions is a law enforcement responsibility, and
Border Patrol agents should do this job.
Ms. Sanchez. How would you propose to deter citizens from
acting as Border Patrol agents and acting perhaps in an
appropriate manner?
Mr. Robert Bonner. For one thing as I have indicated
before, I do depend upon the eyes and ears of citizens. We will
continue to do that and certainly will encourage that and have
hotline and tip lines to do that. I'm not quite sure, Ms.
Sanchez, I'm totally capturing the thrust of your question.
Ms. Sanchez. I have two last questions and will try to get
them on the record and have you respond if you will. Are any of
these folks armed that are out doing these citizen patrols? And
my last question is are they patrolling the northern border
where there has been actually specific terrorists that have
been apprehended at the border?
Those would be my last two questions. If you could respond
to them, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I believe, of course, it is legal in
Arizona to carry a weapon in the open.
Ms. Sanchez. California, it is not.
Mr. Robert Bonner. And I believe----
Chairman Tom Davis. Go ahead and answer the question.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I believe that some of them had arms.
And as far as the northern border, look, we have had specific
intelligence, it's not new, but that al Qaeda has considered,
has actually contemplated using the southern border and the
ability to illegally cross our southern border to get terrorist
operatives into the United States. Both borders are a potential
threat when it comes to the terrorist issue.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Marchant.
Mr. Marchant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner, I have
a couple of questions and maybe a comment to start. Being from
Texas and having the longest stretch of border between Mexico
and Texas, maybe 1,000 miles, is it that long?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Longer.
Mr. Marchant. I would say at least 20 percent of my
constituent mail that I get in Washington is about this subject
and it is from the time I served in the State legislature till
now, it just is a straight line. And when we go home and do our
town hall meetings, really the people don't want to talk about
Social Security much. They don't want to talk about tax reform
much. They want to talk about illegal aliens and what is
happening in our hospitals and our schools, and so it is
beginning to really hit us as Congressmen back home in a way
that I know you appreciate, but there is beginning to be a
pressure on us so that when we hear buzzwords like operational
control of our borders, we understand that. We respect that
here in Washington. I can't go back and use a buzzword like
``control,'' you know, operational control of our borders,
because the definition of my constituency of operational
control of our borders is they are not building the new shelter
in town for the illegal aliens to show up in the morning and
not get wet because they are building shelters for them. And
that is the--so what does operational control--what would it
mean to me living in the suburbs of Dallas if you achieve--if
the Border Patrol--not you, but if the Border Patrol achieves
its goal of having operational control? What will it look like?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Doesn't mean it would be absolutely
impossible for anybody to cross our border because if we set
that as a goal it's a goal for a certain failure, but what it
does mean is a substantially high level of probability that you
are going to be apprehended if you are illegally entering our
country.
Do you know it when you see it? There are areas of the
border in the El Paso area, in the San Diego County area, not
all of it by the way, but there are areas of the border where I
can say and you can say if you go down and look at them that we
have achieved something, that there is a high level of
apprehension and it has staunched the flow of illegal aliens
and potentially anybody else who might be trying to illegally
enter our country. I am not saying we've got the border under
control. We don't. We have a long way to go here.
But I will tell you, I'm from Los Angeles, Ms. Sanchez. And
I went down to the border many times when I was U.S. attorney
in L.A. and I saw at sundown the illegal aliens gathered on the
hillsides waiting for the sun to do down and they just rushed
across the border. I mean it was totally, flat out of control.
As a result of efforts of the Border Patrol, some tactical
infrastructure, increased numbers of Border Patrol agents,
better technology, lighting and other things, most of that
border area is under a reasonable degree of control. Not all of
it. Frankly, we haven't been able to complete a middle section
of the fence from--about 3\1/2\ miles to the ocean. You will
know it when you see it.
And how else will you know it? Crime goes down. The
environmental damage goes down in terms of people illegally
crossing and leaving their junk and debris behind. You know it
when you see it. And we will know as we get greater control of
our border.
Again, we're doing everything we can within our current
resources to achieve greater control of our border and we are
addressing and we are doing it with greater mobility. Part of
the strategy, national border patrol strategy, greater mobility
than we had before to move more quickly to where and when the
Border Patrol needs to be to show up in the weakest areas. So
we've got to--and we are doing our best with people and
technology and that's what it means.
Mr. Marchant. The House is trying to assist in that in some
of the legislation we have been passing lately, and we have
been trying to get that word back. Can I ask just one more
operational question?
Chairman Tom Davis. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Commissioner Bonner, two areas I would
like to get into, I think Congressman Souder got into this, he
asked about was there a program for the different agencies to
work together and you mentioned it and didn't get into detail.
Also the issue of information sharing. From a perspective--
we have serious problems on our border. You used Mexico as an
example. We have the majority of drugs that come to the United
States that come through Mexico. I'm sure that the same bad
guys that are helping to get illegal immigrants through the
border are the same bad guys that are connected to drugs and
the same bad guys that are probably going to be working with al
Qaeda to get people into our country to deal with the things
that we don't want to deal with, and that's terrorism. In order
for us to take this issue seriously--and I'm talking more from
a security point of view and not the issue of immigration,
there are a lot of issues there, we need to have a joint group
of agencies working together the same way we do in Iraq and
Afghanistan. We need to have not only your organization but
FBI, DEA, NSA, CIA all working and focusing on that border,
because if you look at the problems we have with drugs, drugs
is probably--not probably, it is a more serious problem than
terrorism because drugs affects everyone in the world; 85
percent of all our violent crime is drug related.
My question to you, I want you to get into the specifics--
do you have a comprehensive program working with the different
Federal agencies to help you to get you intelligence to make
sure we are focusing on the bad guys that have been so
effective in getting people through our borders?
Mr. Robert Bonner. We have actually a very good method, and
it has certainly vastly improved, of getting intelligence with
respect to the potential terrorist threat, and that is through
the Department of Homeland Security working with the
Intelligence Community and all aspects of the Intelligence
Community and the FBI. So we have that, and that would apply
not just to our border with Mexico or our border with Canada,
all of our ports of entry, people coming into the United States
from abroad and through our airports and so forth. I think
that's working reasonably well and we have made tremendous
progress.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I would like to get into detail. You can
say you are working together, but are you sharing office space?
Are you getting information? Are the people collocated in the
same area, because it's about results and accountability of the
performance. And I'm not sure whether or not that performance
is there and I'm not throwing fault, I'm talking more about
giving the resources to you.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I understand what you're saying. This is
a very important point and that is when you are talking about
the operational effort at the border. You have front-line
people, and that's the Border Patrol, and at the ports of
entry. That is CBP officers. FBI agents don't do interdiction
at the border. DEA agents don't do interdiction at the border.
What you have is a relationship between the investigative
agencies, which are DEA and FBI and ICE now, and the front line
border personnel, so that you have a feedback loop of
information. So that if there is a drug trafficker--and by the
way, this happens everyday, and it is happening right now as we
speak. We interdict and intercept illegal drugs at El Paso. We
call in one of these investigative agencies. Usually would be
ICE. And it needs to--if there is an investigative potential,
it runs with it or it's DEA, it runs with that. And when it
brings down that organization, how do the drugs get across?
What is the modus operandi for getting across? It's that
feedback loop of information that I was referring to in Mr.
Souder's question. It isn't putting FBI agents or DEA agents or
even ICE agents at the border. We have interdicters at the
border and you need the sharing and flow of information.
Mr. Ruppersberger. My light came on and I want to ask you
this question. Asa Hutchinson, when he was the Deputy Secretary
of Homeland Security, made a comment that we did not have the
resources on the border and he never thought we would solve the
problem unless Congress and the public of the United States is
willing to give the money and the resources. He made that
comment. Do you agree with that comment? And if you do, what
are the resources that you think you need to do the job?
I told you before I put a bill in to try to get 2,000 more
agents on the ground for the next 5 years, which is 10,000.
That bill hasn't gone anywhere yet, but as a result of his
comments, do you agree with them, No. 1? And if you do or
don't, what resources do you need?
Mr. Robert Bonner. We need more Border Patrol agents.
Mr. Ruppersberger. How many more?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I would say that we have--you know the
President has added about 1,500 Border Patrol agents in the
last several years. Just very quickly, it's not all agents, it
is technology. If you are just talking about agents at the
border, well, I probably agree with Mr. Ziglar's number and
that may be south of what we need. This is the American Shield
Initiative as part of the new border patrol strategy with the
right number of agents. But even so, we are going to need more
Border Patrol agents.
Chairman Tom Davis. Gentleman's time has expired. You have
5 more minutes and you have to meet the Secretary.
Mr. McHenry, you are next.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the
Commissioner being here and I only have 5 minutes. This will
work out nicely for you. I had a question. There's Phase 2 of
the Arizona Border Patrol Initiative that calls for 200 boots
on the ground and increased 42 aircraft. Where are these
resources coming from? Are they being taken from other areas?
Mr. Robert Bonner. In essence, the 200 new Border Patrol
agents are not new Border Patrol agents. The 200 Border Patrol
agents that I directed be put into Arizona on top of a base of
about 2,200 came principally from the sectors in California and
Texas. Now I didn't move all of the 11,000 Border Patrol agents
in Arizona, because I don't want to detract or degrade the
ability to maintain the degree of control we are maintaining in
California and Texas, and I'm not saying that degree of control
is perfect, but we have to address the weakest spot in our
border, while maintaining other sections.
Mr. McHenry. California and Texas, where are the aircrafts
coming from?
Mr. Robert Bonner. Essentially the same locations. I'm
generalizing. But the aircrafts are highly mobile assets, as
you know, and so we double from about 19 to 42 aircrafts that
are doing aerial surveillance in response in the area. By and
large, they came mainly from California and they are
temporarily there. When we get control, which I hope we do,
they'll return. We haven't permanentized those assets.
Mr. McHenry. If you could provide me with that information,
that would be a great help where the 200 agents came from, and
where the aircraft came from, because it seems like we are
neglecting areas in order to focus on narrow areas. But one of
the more interesting things that I would like to hear from you
is about Border Safety Initiative. If you could explain to the
panel in essence what you all are thinking by doing this?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Patrick T. McHenry
follows:]
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Mr. Robert Bonner. First of all, we're not neglecting
areas. What you are doing is you are operating smartly. We're
considering the entirety of our southern border in this case
and saying what do we need to do? Are we going to apply
resources to gain, essentially, control of our areas and to do
that as wisely and quickly and as rapidly as possible.
So assets--it is a national border and it is a Federal
issue. On the Border Safety Initiative, I am not quite sure
where your question is on that.
Mr. McHenry. Explain it to us. As I understand it, instead
of actually using moneys appropriated to defend our border, we
are actually providing water, for instance, in certain areas of
the desert for these folks that are coming across the border,
which I think is really just quite frankly bizarre that we are
actually encouraging people to come in and intrude on our
borders by giving them the resources to do it.
Mr. Robert Bonner. We don't provide that.
Mr. McHenry. You don't provide water?
Mr. Robert Bonner. No, we don't. We put stations in so
illegal aliens who are in great distress can call us and we
apprehend them. When we find them and they're dehydrated and
almost dead in the desert, we give them water, but we don't put
water out there. Those are citizen groups who are doing that
who no doubt are altruistically motivated to the issue.
But on the other hand, you know, we have--we do have a
Border Safety Initiative and have been working with the Mexican
Government. The way to prevent deaths in the desert is to
control our border, and that's what we are trying to do. The
more we control our border, the fewer people are going to die
in the desert. It has a safety net. And it will--to the extent
we can be more successful, it will prevent people from crossing
the border and fewer people are going to die crossing.
Mr. McHenry. If I may followup.
Mr. Robert Bonner. That is my safety initiative.
Mr. McHenry. I know it's in cooperation with the Mexican
Government, and I think it's been highlighted in recent news
accounts, the fact that the Mexican Government is providing a
booklet on the safest way to cross the border. Is that part of
the Border Safety Initiative?
Mr. Robert Bonner. No, it's not, and the Mexican Government
is--there was a guide or a booklet that was put out, it seems
to me it was 4, 5 months ago, and I believe it was
inappropriate. I mean it had a lot of information in it but it
tended to encourage people to illegally enter the United
States. And I believe that booklet has been withdrawn by the
Mexican Government. That's my information.
Chairman Tom Davis. We will try to get--I know you have to
go in just a minute. Ms. Brown-Waite.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you very much. I would like to ask
the Commissioner if he has yet solved the issue that I brought
to your attention last year and that is that the Customs people
still have conflicting badges with their IDs. I forget whether
it is the badge or the ID still says Treasury Department, which
is what Customs used to be under. This may be a small issue,
and I got back a letter that it's a good thing we didn't have
this hearing last year or I would still be angry because of the
letter I got back. It was a ``don't worry, be happy'' letter.
Some smart attorney is going to get somebody off because of
this conflict. And I understand it still has not yet been
resolved. That's question No. 1.
Question No. 2, or statement No. 2, I represent Florida and
I can just tell you that at any given time, and I'm sure my
colleagues here will agree, our people back in the district
office handling immigration have upwards of 150 cases of people
in our district trying to have family members come in legally
or that they are trying to extend their visit here legally.
They're trying to do it legally. And the big joke is, no, I'm
sorry, you cannot become a citizen. And I have had so many of
them say to me, I'll go down to the Mexican border. The
frustration is the amount of time it takes to go through
immigration, the legal process. People are trying very hard to
do what's right and abide by the law so they're not illegal.
And one of the last things is that I understand that overtime
in the agency is being sucked up, and let me use that word in
quotes, sucked up by administrators and that the people
actually on the ground at the border, at the airports, at the
seaports who do the job are not getting the overtime. It's
being sucked up, and I'm putting that in quotes, by the
administrators.
And the last question, without any restrictions by the
administration, how many more border patrol would you really
have requested? I didn't hear a hard and fast number there. I
know it takes training time and I know it's not going to be an
overnight fix, but I can just tell you that people in my
district, and I think I hear this echoed on both sides of the
aisle, that the taxpayers in the United States of America do
not believe that we are doing enough.
So tell me what is enough, not just for Border Patrol, but
certainly for technology and making their jobs easier, because
in California I know that the Border Patrol people are very
frustrated. I have some relatives out there who live very close
to some people who work for Border Patrol out there. They're
very frustrated at not just this administration's policy, but
previous administrations' policy of kind of the wink and nod
approach to illegal immigration. And Americans are fed up with
it. They are tired of people constantly coming into this
country illegally. And you know, a couple of years ago, we
might have all bought that, well, they are doing jobs that
average Americans won't do, but I'm not sure that still is the
case. I think we filled our quota of jobs that Americans won't
do. So we have to come up with another excuse why we are so
lax, and I would appreciate your responses.
Mr. Robert Bonner. Trying to take those quickly in
sequence, the badges, we were the first law enforcement agency
at the Department of Homeland Security to issue new badges. We
have 30,000 uniformed law enforcement personnel, 11,000 Border
Patrol agents, about 19,000 at the ports of entry, and all of
the port of entry officers have the new CBP Department of
Homeland Security badge. I think we're well along with all of
the Border Patrol agents to get everybody with a badge. There
has been a holdup in the credentials and that was getting--just
a decision essentially that took more time than I would have
liked, but I have authorized the credentials now and those
haven't been issued, so that there will be new credentials for
U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Ms. Brown-Waite. When will those credentials be issued?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I honestly don't know. I will be happy
to get that to you. It's printed and then you have 42,000
employees.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Do those 42,000 employees get paid
regularly? I mean is it not something that could be put with
their paychecks? Come on. It has been so long and this ID issue
is a serious legal issue.
Mr. Robert Bonner. I'm not saying it isn't. I feel we have
done well on badges, but for reasons that I don't even know
that I can fully explain to get the approval and the
credentials from the Department of Homeland Security, we just
got the approval recently. We certainly had been moving forward
on that. In any event, it is done or is in the process of being
done. As far as people not being able to get into the country
or get a visa or they are in the country change of status, the
Citizenship and Immigration Services, I mean that is an entity,
a service and benefit immigration entity. It happens to be in
the Department of Homeland Security, but it's not me. I can't
really help with that particular issue.
The overtime thing, I never heard that before. We use a lot
of overtime obviously to be able to--I will get back to you.
And I think I've taken my best stab how many Border Patrol
agents we need short of divulging things.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Ginny Brown-Waite follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. We have one more Member who has not
asked questions.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will take a few
minutes. First of all, I agree with what Ms. Brown-Waite has
said and can tell you based on things that I've read and heard
from others across the country, I think there is probably three
or four times as many illegal immigrants in this country as the
government estimates.
I read in Newsweek and read another report, that half the
people of the world have to get by on $2 or less a day. The
other article said half the people of the world don't have a
second pair of shoes. And it made me recall many years ago, and
this is my 17th year in the Congress, one of our agencies did
an estimate that said half of the people in the world want to
come here.
Now we can't take half of the people in the world. That
would be over 3 billion people. So we have to have some sort of
orderly legal system of immigration. And right now we are
overrun with illegal immigrants. And I read in this one report
that we have in front of us that interior enforcement has gone
down by 80 percent since 1998. And always, all the committees,
whenever we hear about a government agency messing up, they
blame it on one of two things or both. First thing they say is
that they are underfunded. And second thing, they blame it on
the computer system. They say the computers can't talk to each
other or something.
We found out that 15 of the 19 illegal people involved in
the--hijackers involved in September 11 were here illegally.
The INS said they were underfunded. And our Congressman
Gallegly appeared on 60 Minutes said we have given 250 percent
increase in funding to the INS over the previous 8 years. Since
that time we have voted several times in the House to give
additional funding and increases to the Border Patrol for
increased numbers of agents, and yet we keep seeing all these
people flood in here.
We have this Minuteman Project who some people have
criticized, which I think is in the best American tradition of
volunteerism in trying to help out, and we have this quote in
this one report from Mr. Simcox that says the government can't
afford to let this thing succeed. I know that government
agencies don't like to have volunteers because they want to get
more employees and more money instead of having volunteers to
help them with their jobs. But I can tell you this, it's
getting frustrating for many of us, and we are all being
flooded with complaints and criticisms and hearing about people
who have wrecks and don't have insurance.
Why are these enforcements going down and why were the
Minutemen able to claim that they achieved such great success?
And I had some complaints and so I kept trying to get the INS
to come up a few years ago, and I had to deal with an office in
New Orleans instead of Memphis or Washington. And I finally got
them to come up and they came up for 2 days and they did two
raids, 1 day apart from each other, and found 1,200 illegal
immigrants. And they could come back the next day and find just
as many.
I mean, why do you have so many people who aren't wanting
to do their jobs in this agency, Mr. Bonner?
Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't think you do. Let me start off
by saying, I guess there is the third excuse now because
interior enforcement--you are talking to the border agency
here, and I take responsibility for the border, but interior
immigration enforcement is actually in ICE, in a different
agency.
But I will say this. Look, I said we need more Border
Patrol agents. I appreciate the fact, one, that the
intelligence bill had 2,000 more new Border Patrol agents in
it. That wasn't a funding or an appropriation, that was 2,000
more on paper. By the way, I'm very grateful and will state
this right now that Congress has passed the supplemental and
added 500 new Border Patrol agents in the supplemental that
just passed and signed by the President either today or
yesterday and that's a good start in the right direction.
The Minuteman, by the way, I think I have said positive
things about them, but that was 23 miles of border that we are
talking about there. Based upon phone calls we've got from the
Minuteman, Border Patrol apprehended about 200 people as a
result of calls where they identified themselves as Minuteman.
In the same period of time in the Arizona border, not the 23
miles but the 300-mile Arizona border, the Border Patrol
apprehended 79,000. You bet, look, we are talking about numbers
that are overwhelming. And if we are serious about the border,
we are going to have to add some real technology and we are
going to have to add some more Border Patrol agents and get a
handle on it.
By the way, I welcome eyes and ears, volunteer citizens if
we can make it work with some smart strategy rather than with
something that exposes people to danger, including people that
might be involved in a citizen type Minuteman Project. If there
are ways to do it, it's certainly something I want to think
about and see if there isn't some way we can do that and
harness what is a lot of concern by American citizens about the
number of illegal people that are getting into the country.
Mr. Duncan. There is a lot of concern about this around the
country.
Chairman Tom Davis. Commissioner, thank you very much. And
you have a difficult job and I think you have done well here as
a witness. We appreciate your being here. If you could have
your staff contact our committee staff regarding the UAV
testing, the deployment and the responses to Mr. McHenry's and
Ms. Brown-Waite's questions.
We will take about a 3-minute recess as we change panels.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. You are welcome to sit down. I know
that you were just in the next committee.
We have a great panel. We have Mr. T.J. Bonner, president
of the National Border Patrol Council; Mr. Daryl Schermerhorn,
the regional vice president of the National Border Patrol
Council. Thank you both for being with us.
We have Mr. Chris Simcox, the co-founder of the Minuteman
Project, which was talked about previously, and we have Ms.
Janice Kephart, former counsel of the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. And also I am happy
that today is her birthday. We appreciate you giving us so
generously of your time.
It is the policy of this committee we swear in all
witnesses. So if you would rise with me and raise your right
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Bonner, I understand you are going
to give the testimony and Mr. Schermerhorn will be here for
questions?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. I will give the testimony and he will take
the tough questions.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, we will go to you and Ms.
Kephart. Thank you for your patience and thanks for being with
us.
STATEMENTS OF T.J. BONNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL
COUNCIL, ACCOMPANIED BY DARYL SCHERMERHORN, REGIONAL VICE
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL; CHRIS SIMCOX, CO-
FOUNDER, THE MINUTEMAN PROJECT; AND JANICE KEPHART, FORMER
COUNSEL, THE NATIONAL COMMISSION OF TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE
UNITED STATES
STATEMENT OF T.J. BONNER
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, other members of
the committee. The issue of border security is one that is in
the forefront of every person's mind, especially after the
events of September 11, and there can be no question that our
borders, the U.S. borders, are out of control. Last year, the
U.S. Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million
people, but the front line agents estimate that for every
person that we caught 2 or 3 people slipped by us.
This is a matter of very great concern, because we don't
know who those people are who are slipping by us. When we
married the fingerprint system of the Border Patrol and the FBI
together last September, in the first 3 months we discovered
that 8 percent of all the people we were catching were
criminals. And it's fair to assume that of the people who are
slipping by us, at least the same percentage are criminals and
probably for good measure there are a few terrorists in that
mix. Even if a terrorist is a one in a million occurrence with
several million people coming into the country every year, they
reach that critical mass necessary to carry out another attack
of the magnitude of September 11.
This is totally unacceptable from the standpoint of
homeland security and national security. We have to gain
control of our borders. A number of measures have been proposed
to gain control of our borders, but the National Border Patrol
Council, representing the rank and file, the front line
employees, believe that the only solution that is going to get
us where we need to be is the implementation of legislation
such as H.R. 98, which would give us a counterfeit proof
employment authorization document allowing employers to know
who has a right to work in this country and allowing enforcing
agents to enforce that law with stiff fines.
That is the only solution that will turn off the employment
magnet. Unless we turn off the employment magnet, we will
continue to have millions of people coming across our borders
and mixed in that, at least 8 percent of them criminals and
some terrorists.
A lot of opinion polls have been taken of late as to how
people feel about the security of our borders and how concerned
they are about illegal immigration; 75 to 80 percent of all of
the respondents expressed grave concern about the insecurity of
our borders. The Minuteman Project is a manifestation of that
frustration. The Federal Government clearly is not carrying its
weight. We are not controlling the borders. Our borders are
insecure. Ask any front line agent out there and they'll tell
you that we are simply overwhelmed. It's not that we're sitting
around doing nothing, but when millions of people are streaming
in every year, there is only so much we can do. You can only be
at one place at one given time. We have to gain control of the
illegal immigration crisis if we are going to bring any
semblance of security to our borders.
So I go back to the point of the hearing that I just came
from, where I was urging your colleagues to adopt a counterfeit
proof form of employment verification to turn off the jobs
magnet. People will stop coming to this country if they realize
that unless they have that card they can't get a job. They will
realize that it does them no good to trek across the desert for
3 days if at the end of the rainbow they show up at an
employer's doorstep and he says I am not going to hire you
because I don't want to pay a $50,000 fine.
This is a matter of national security and homeland
security. The current tactics we're employing are not working.
Putting more manpower out there is shoveling sand against the
tide unless we deal with the employment magnet.
Of course, we need more manpower once a new law is in place
to turn off the employment magnet, which would enable us to go
after the terrorists and the criminals who are out there,
because that is our No. 1 priority in the Department of
Homeland Security.
And I thank you for your time and I urge you to seriously
consider these measures. And I'm not here obviously to argue
for H.R. 98, because that is a separate hearing, but what we
are saying is that is the real solution to the insecure borders
that we have.
While we appreciate the efforts of people like Mr. Simcox,
the support that they give, we do have concerns about citizens
taking the law into their own hands, and I'm not saying Mr.
Simcox's group did that, but I'm saying other groups may feel
that is something that should be done. We would discourage
people from doing that and we do not encourage people to go
down to the border where it's very dangerous to make their
political statement. We think it's important that they do so in
a manner that protects their safety. But if the Federal
Government continues to turn a blind eye to this problem, I
fear that you'll see more and more people turning to desperate
measures.
[The prepared statement of Mr. T.J. Bonner follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Mr. Simcox,
welcome.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS SIMCOX
Mr. Simcox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
and thank you to the committee. I'm here to bring a very simple
and direct message from we the people that too many citizens of
Cochise County and other communities along the border have
testified before these committees previously. We have sent
letters, e-mails, faxes and have shown up at town hall meetings
to no avail. This is about public safety and our national
security, and we are done waiting bluntly for the Federal
Government to do its job.
Despite the efforts by many groups to portray our political
statement as a racially motivated or anti-immigrant effort, we
brought it back to what this is really about, which is national
security and public safety. This great republic was founded and
formed on immigration. When you come legally, you're welcome.
What we have now is out of control, and the citizens basically
have had enough.
We hope this will encourage everyone to do something,
because while you're waiting and while you are making up your
minds what to do we are going to continue with Minuteman type
projects. We are going to basically reinvent the civil defense
movement that aided our country during World War II. We are
basically under attack and there's an invasion. We have enough
home grown criminals in this country, let alone the criminals
that are coming in.
I find it curious that there is so much worry about and
speculation about vigilantism which, by the way, there have
been zero incidents as of yet, but I hear little worry about
the real terrorism that we deal with, such as the families of
detectives Donald Young and Jack Bishop, who were murdered in
Denver this week, law enforcement agents who are dying at the
hands of criminals that come into this country.
The citizens of Cochise County have made a statement, a
clear statement, and I want to show you a half page ad that
they took out in the local newspaper on Mother's Day thanking
the Minuteman. From grateful residents of the Sierra Vista-
Hereford area, thanks for doing what our government won't do,
which is close the border to illegal aliens and criminals. It
was the quietest month we have had in many years. It was nice
to once again have the freedom to hike our mountains without
being armed. You made us feel very safe because the border was
closed. We didn't have to worry about manmade fires, which we
have another fire raging out of control now in our area,
created by illegals trying to get away from Border Patrol and
they felt secure.
I think if there has ever been a mandate, this is a mandate
from the citizens. We are going to continue to abide by the law
and work within the law, but honestly, we don't need, as I
heard comments about that we need to be regulated, I think we
have proven that citizens that participate in the Minuteman
Project were of the utmost highest character and standards of
American citizens. We're there to defend our property, our
private property, our Nation, to defend the sovereignty of our
borders, and a country is not a country without borders.
So again, and I ask why are our borders dangerous? I keep
hearing this from, with all due respect, the Border Patrol. If
the Department of Homeland Security almost 4 years after the
attacks of September 11 were doing their jobs, our borders
would be safe. Why should American citizens sitting in lawn
chairs with cell phones and binoculars have to fear for their
safety on U.S. soil? That is intolerable and unacceptable from
our point.
I'm very impressed with the security at the airports and
here in Washington. I have never seen so much security. I think
the citizens who live along the southern border would like to
see the same kind of security right on the line. And when we
talk about Border Patrol what we see and what we have proven
during April is that you need border guards, not a Border
Patrol. We need static observation posts set up along that
2,000-mile sector. We give you our permission, the citizens of
this Nation give you permission to spend whatever it takes to
man Border Patrol and what we would like to see is that
immediately done, and that means using military reserves and
our National Guard.
I don't think the families of Donald Young and other
Americans who have fallen victim to the crime that have come
across that border would care about the rules of posse
comitatus, and we don't accept that argument. We are not asking
for our military to be used against American citizens. We are
asking that it be used to protect our country, our neighbors
and private property.
So that's the message we bring. We have another Minuteman
Project working this weekend, and I would invite all of the
committee members, any time you want to come down and see what
the border is really like, you should do it unannounced. We
will be more than happy to show you the lack of homeland
security on any given day. The rank and file Border Patrol
agents, I have worked with them for 3 years, they are great
people and work hard. Whoever is managing them is not doing the
best job, and we the citizens have proven there is a better
way.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simcox follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Ms. Kephart, thank
you for being with us.
STATEMENT OF JANICE KEPHART
Ms. Kephart. Thank you Chairman Davis. Thank you for
holding this hearing and giving me the opportunity to discuss
with you both terrorist travel and the national security
mission of our border agencies.
From my vantage point of spending 15 months devoted to
figuring out how the September 11 terrorists conducted their
travel operation into the United States so easily, it is clear
to me that if national security is to become a reality for our
border agencies, we must put old thinking aside, incorporating
all we know about terrorist travel. We must put together a
long-term plan that seamlessly integrates policies across our
border apparatus, maximizing security and efficiency. Yet a
comprehensive and cohesive long-term border plan will not be an
easy goal to reach as long as the seven elements of our border
system remain fragmented into three departments and six
agencies, and this is just one of the many reasons why I have
proposed consideration of the creation of a Department of
Immigration and Border Protection.
But let's step back and understand what terrorist travel
is. Start with the fact that foreign terrorists carefully plan
their attempts to enter and stay in the United States based on
a relatively sophisticated understanding of our border system.
Terrorists will use any infiltration tactic if it works, from
hiding in a ship's hole or a car trunk to fraudulently seeking
legitimate U.S. visas and passports as the hijackers. These
terrorists do not just represent al Qaeda. Hamas and Hezbollah
and lesser known terrorist organizations operatives also engage
in all varieties of immigration fraud.
Once in the United States, terrorists seek legal status.
They resist removal through shared marriages, claims of
political asylum and applications for naturalization. A
terrorist managed to stay in the United States when his spouse
won the visa lottery. They seek United States and State issued
identifications to establish themselves in communities and
travel more easily. And wherever a vulnerability exists from
visa issuance to admission standards at our ports of entry to
our immigration benefits adjudication system, terrorists take
advantage of it.
While we work on long-term solutions, we cannot wait to fix
severe deficiencies that have existed for a decade prior to
September 11. Solutions are required now. We are once more in
crisis on our hard borders, both north and south. The Minuteman
Project has made that clear. The project has also made clear
that the American people get what we said on the 9/11
Commission, that border security is national security. We must
now seek out ways to relieve these good people of these duties
and help the government do the job it is supposed to be doing.
For now, it is here that we must focus our efforts to
prevent potential clandestine entry by terrorists. Clandestine
entry permits terrorists the anonymity we are lucky the
September 11 hijackers did not have.
In addition, information I acquired on the commission along
with comments in recent weeks by Admiral Loy and FBI Director
Mueller all indicate that terror organizations do seek illicit
entry into the United States. Remember, for example, the
Lebanese Mexican human smuggler Bougadaro, who brought in over
300 Hezbollah sympathizers by way of false visas in Tijuana in
the last few years. He served a short 11 months in U.S. jails
and is now serving time in Mexico.
Also Hezbollah operative Mahmoud Kourani, who pled guilty
to terrorism charges last month in Detroit, crossed over the
southwest U.S. border in a car trunk in February 2001.
There was also Nabil al-Marabh, a likely member of al
Qaeda, who was caught trying to cross over the northern borders
at Niagara Falls in the back of a tractor-trailer in June 2001.
Not only was al-Marabh a frequent border crosser and had a fake
Canadian passport, but he also held five U.S. driver's licenses
acquired in 13 months along with the commercial driver's
license and a permit to haul hazardous materials.
In light of the national security interests in securing our
hard borders, the Border Patrol has needs that need to be met
now and they include centralized operational intelligence,
centralized command and control, streamlined business processes
to enable agents to spend less time in offices and more time in
patrolling, tracking communication devices to ensure greater
safety and efficiency in operations, forensic support for false
documents, access to US-VISIT and aggressive use of expedited
removal.
In conclusion, terrorists are creative and they are
adaptable. Yet we have the ability to counter them by being
adaptable in our thinking and providing front line officers
with the tools they need to do the job they are all eager to
do.
My written testimony lays out many, many recommendations
that I believe will infuse the rule of law and integrity into
the system that can deter terrorists and illegal entry. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kephart follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. I want to thank all of you. Mr. Bonner,
let me start with you. Even--and I pick the idea of the card
that Mr. Dreier has talked about today is a good day. But even
without a card, someone coming here illegally, if they have
their kid in the United States, their child is a citizen, isn't
that right?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Someone born in the United States is a
U.S. citizen.
Chairman Tom Davis. If you want to get your kids in here--
if you want your kids born here for a better life. Second, if
you present yourself in an emergency room, they're not going to
ask you for proof of citizenship, right?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. That's correct.
Chairman Tom Davis. And if you're here and you can get into
the population, you can get your kids into the public school
and they're not going to ask them. They are going to have to
educate them, right?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Depending on where you are. If you're
close to the border, they are going to require proof that you
actually live in the United States.
Chairman Tom Davis. But not here illegally?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Right.
Chairman Tom Davis. The card doesn't solve all those
problems, but goes a long way and from your perspective having
that card, once people are inside the border that is a nice
check, is that what you're saying?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. The real magnets here are the jobs. People
aren't coming here to take advantage of our education or health
system. They are coming because in most of these countries,
Mexico is a good example, the average unskilled worker makes $4
a day and they can go a few yards north of the border and
increase that 20, 30 times easily. So they're coming to improve
their economic lot in life. And I'm not saying I blame them,
but it creates a huge problem, because it's very labor
intensive to deal with millions of people crossing the border.
It's not just a game where you say tag, you're it. What you
have to do is process these people, detain them, run criminal
checks and then send them back and that takes up our resources
and in the meantime other people are coming in. They don't give
us a time out.
Chairman Tom Davis. What do you think of the Minuteman
Project?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think the Minuteman Project is, as I
said earlier, a manifestation of the frustration that average
Americans are feeling and it's not something new. There was a
project called Light Up the Border in San Diego back in the
late 1980's, early 1990's, where citizens drove down to the
border and shined their headlights on the border to highlight
the problem of the lawlessness on the border. The Border Patrol
installed first temporary and then permanent lighting in fences
and it brought an end to that lawlessness in that part of the
world.
Now I think that the Minuteman experienced some success
down there in Arizona, in that during the time period that they
sat out in their lawn chairs in that 23-mile stretch of border
very few people came through. I think a large part of that
success was due to the fact that the Mexican military was down
south of that telling people don't cross through here. Now we
can't depend on the Mexican military to blockade the entire
southern border.
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you think the Mexican military is
complicit with some of the people crossing the border?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Absolutely. Our agents have been shot at
by the Mexican military as a diversion to keep us away from
some of the drugs being smuggled across. We caught--down in
Santa Teresa, NM, we caught two Humvees with armed Mexican
soldiers who were shooting at us on U.S. soil, chasing our
agents and shooting at us.
Chairman Tom Davis. They do that at North and South Korea.
But I guess it occurs all the time down there?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. I wouldn't say all the time but it occurs
often enough and it is a matter of great concern to our agents.
Chairman Tom Davis. What is the level of drug smuggling
across the border, do you think, of the people coming over?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. It is tremendous and let me turn over the
microphone over to Daryl Schermerhorn, who just apprehended the
largest narcotics seizure on the Canadian border last week.
Chairman Tom Davis. Congratulations and thank you.
Mr. Schermerhorn. Along the northern border the BC buds are
going for such a high price that the Canadians are growing it
and bringing it across daily. We are apprehending some of the
loads. Many are getting by. Three nights ago, Border Patrol
apprehended 45 pounds of Ecstasy valued at over $1 million.
It's a daily occurrence that drug loads are coming through.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, on the one hand we have a
lot of frustrated citizens and all of us go out into our
districts and hear there needs to be a greater presence on the
border. On the other hand, we have critics who think that the
southern border is no place for private citizens or vigilante
enforcement and Members' opinions are varied as well.
From your judgment, what is the reality of the situation on
the southern border, particularly in Arizona where you were?
Mr. Simcox. The reality is we do not have enough Border
Patrol agents.
Chairman Tom Davis. Or listening devices?
Mr. Simcox. A lot of the equipment and a lot of the
supposed sensors that we were setting off were found to be
inoperable and we worked with the Border Patrol previous to our
mission to ensure that we were not in those areas. But it's
manpower. The equipment works. In fact we have been pleased
with cameras, camera poles that have been erected right in
areas we have led them to.
Remember, the Minuteman patrols have been going on for
almost 3 years and we started in Cochise County and we assisted
Border Patrol with over 4,600 apprehensions, and that
represents people from 26 different countries. And we have made
150 lifesaving rescues. It is every night day after day. And if
Border Patrol had the resources, they should be on the border.
We should not have to be citizens calling in groups of 20, 30,
40 people, 10, 15, 20 miles north of the border. And that was
our goal during the Minuteman Project. Bodies on the line are a
deterrent to prevent people coming into the country in the
first place.
Chairman Tom Davis. My time is up. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to yield to Mr. Van Hollen.
Chairman Tom Davis. I recognize Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank my
colleague Mr. Cummings and I have another meeting, so I would
like to submit a statement. One additional point, and this goes
to some of the comments our witnesses are making. In this body,
just a very short time ago, we had the emergency supplemental
appropriations before us and there was a motion made by Mr.
Obey, Congressman from Wisconsin, to increase the funds for
border security and border patrol so we could put more people
on that border. I supported that motion, and a lot of our
colleagues supported that motion. Unfortunately, it did not
carry. But I hope all of our colleagues will agree with you
that we should put more resources into that effort and increase
our border security.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Cummings.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Chris Van Hollen follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. I yield now to Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you for yielding, Mr. Cummings. I have
another engagement but this is a question I feel is important
enough to ask and I would ask it of Mr. Simcox. You just stated
in a response to one of the questions that supposedly whatever
sensors you are tripping at the border or that your members or
the Minuteman are tripping are found to be inoperable. But to
the extent that you guys are tripping sensors that are operable
and you are diverting scarce Federal resources at the border,
which everybody agrees there aren't enough agents or resources,
to the extent that you are diverting those because you are
tripping these sensors, aren't you in fact making the border
less secure because you are causing them to respond to you who
are not a real threat? I don't see the wisdom in getting
together people to try to do a job that you are specifically
not trained to do and getting in the way of the scarce number
of Federal agents and resources that are available at the
border, and I would love for you to answer that question.
Mr. Simcox. Our operation was highly publicized and we
worked with Border Patrol months in advance to alert them to
the locations we would be working in. That was Border Patrol's
choice to continue to monitor our activities in that area. We
worked with Border Patrol. We identified each of the
observation posts. There was no one coming through that area.
Border Patrol knew that. One of the most heavily traveled
routes was completely shut down. Why was border patrol there?
Ms. Sanchez. So your response is if you guys are there,
Border Patrol need not be there, even though you are not
trained? You guys go through no training in terms of border
security. So if citizens, nontrained citizens, are there, you
maintain Border Patrol need not be there?
Mr. Simcox. They would be there to respond to our calls if
we witnessed someone coming. The border road is a public right
of way. All citizens have access to the road. They drive on
that road every day.
Ms. Sanchez. With respect to tripping sensors and diverting
attention away from the regular Border Patrol duties because
citizens are there and are causing that to happen, you don't
think that is a problem?
Mr. Simcox. Our presence shut down those sectors. There was
no need for Border Patrol to be there because the Mexican
military, working with the advertisement of the Minutemen
Project, worked to deter people from coming through that area.
How about if we were to advertise that across the entire 2,000-
mile border and worked with the Mexican Government? People will
not be coming in in the first place.
Ms. Sanchez. So your testimony is wherever the Minutemen
are, there is no need to send Border Patrol to those areas?
Mr. Simcox. We would be force multipliers that would create
a deterrence to allow Border Patrol to be used in other areas.
Ms. Sanchez. I don't happen to agree with you.
I yield back to the distinguished ranking member.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Linda T. Sanchez follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Just one question. You are saying if Border
Patrol is present, if your group is present, then Border Patrol
is not needed. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Simcox. In this instance, the areas which we were
occupying, the illegal immigration flow dropped to almost zero.
What we wanted to do was prove that an obvious presence--we
would like to be relieved from duty. We would like to see the
U.S. military or Border Patrol set up the same strategy which
would create the same deterrence to anyone to cross the border.
Mr. Cummings. Have you gotten any complaint from DHS or
Border Patrol?
Mr. Simcox. Only from Sector Chief Michael Nicely. The rank
and file were absolutely supportive.
Mr. Cummings. What was that complaint?
Mr. Simcox. We were setting off sensors and diverting
resources to our area unnecessarily.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have great
admiration and respect for the work the Minutemen have done. I
think it is in one of the best traditions of our country. I
think it was a very patriotic thing that Mr. Simcox and his
associates did. The way I feel about this was summed up best--
read the first two or three sentences of that ad again, what
you read.
Mr. Simcox. The ad, along with hundreds of e-mails and
letters of support that came to the organization, citizens were
grateful. ``Thanks for doing what our government won't do,
which is close the border to illegal aliens. It was the
quietest month we have had in many years.''
Mr. Duncan. I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court judge
trying felony criminal cases before I came to Congress, and
whenever a defendant took off or skipped bond, the bonding
companies went after them. That is done all over the country. I
don't think people realize how much law enforcement is done in
this country through private agencies or citizens or
businesses.
In addition to that, it is clear to anybody who studied
this that we get our biggest bang for our buck in law
enforcement from our lowest-paid law enforcement officials, the
local law enforcement officials. I think if we took half of the
money we are spending now on border enforcement and turned it
over to local enforcement along the border, we would probably
apprehend more illegal aliens.
I am not advocating that because it is a Federal
responsibility, but over the last 10 years or so, we have given
INS, the Border Patrol, Customs, all of the agencies involved,
whopping increases in spending, probably at least at a minimum
10 times the rate of inflation over those years, yet they
continually cry about being underfunded. I think they hire too
many chiefs and not enough Indians. I am proud of what you have
done, and I wanted to stay here and tell you that. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Simcox. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I think your concept is great. I think
when we as government--and government cannot do all things.
When citizens step up, I think it is very positive.
My concern is the management of you working with Border
Patrol, because if, in fact, we do not have the proper
management and focus on what our end goal is to stop the
immigration problem, there could be an incident that someone is
hurt, and that could hurt your whole process.
My question really, and I am not sure who to ask this to,
but do you have an agreement of understanding if you are going
to go to a certain area, are the Border Patrol--are they
working with you? If you see a situation, do you have
communication, resources to get the Border Patrol there to do
what they have to do?
Mr. Simcox. Yes. On all of our patrols, we have always
alerted Border Patrol to our presence in that area so there is
no confusion. Communications work fine through cell phones.
Ms. Sanchez talked about training. There is not a lot of
training involved other than being alert and vigilant. And when
you recognize suspicious activity, you call Border Patrol, and
they respond quickly.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I talked about citizens on patrol in our
community in my opening statement. We publicize it and make
sure there are communications to the police. That is basically
your format also?
Mr. Simcox. Neighborhood watch group.
Mr. Ruppersberger. And you are not doing the apprehension?
Mr. Simcox. No.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I think it is important that people
understand that. You are not doing the apprehension. If that is
the case, I think it is a very positive program.
Where are you getting your resources for communication to
contact the Border Patrol when they are someplace else?
Mr. Simcox. Cell phones. At this point, that is the only
communication. We have worked in previous years with Border
Patrol by giving them our basic FRS radios that you can buy at
any store, and they have worked very well with us. We monitor
an area, report to them, and they do the job. They do the
apprehension.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Bonner, you made a comment about the
real problem. We all think we need more resources and boots on
the ground, and also technology. But the bottom line has to do
with the employers. There are certain programs. There is a
guest program right now that is out there where the employers
have the obligation to make sure everyone who comes has
identification, I assume it is a work permit or whatever needs
to be done. We are never going to solve this problem just by
dealing with the borders because people are willing to risk
their lives because of jobs. It is about jobs. Yet the
President's position is there are a lot of jobs that are
unfilled. In Maryland we have a crabbing industry. There are
people who came over for the temporary jobs, and the industry
was going to have real problems. They could not get anybody to
fill the temporary jobs. From what I understand, these people
are coming over, and they are temporary. They are identified,
and they go back.
Do you have an opinion on that type of program, what needs
to be done?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. The guest worker program will only work if
you have a theoretical fence, because a guest worker program is
a gate, if you will, and without a fence around the property,
people will just go around. That is why the Bracero program
failed back in the 1960's because it was easier for someone to
just walk across the border and get that job.
I think a guest worker program could easily work in concert
with tougher employer sanctions where you could actually
identify who has a right to be here. Then you could bring
people in if there are jobs.
Mr. Ruppersberger. And hold the employers more accountable.
People come and then they leave, and you don't know who or
where they are.
Ms. Kephart, the thing that concerns me greatly is the
issue of narcoterrorism. What resources do you think we need as
far as the border as it relates to the terrorism issue?
Ms. Kephart. Let me back up and give a little background on
what I testified to. What I referred to was what I came across
when I was on the Commission, an unclassified Border Patrol
alert that is now a year and a half old that said the Colombia
FARC was meeting with al Qaeda in Madrid, Spain, to seek
Mexican Islamic converts to come through the southwest border
clandestine.
That was of very great interest to me and my colleagues on
my time on the 9/11 Commission, and we began to look at the
human smuggling aspect, the international terrorist travel
aspect, what we needed to do to work with other governments to
make sure we have law enforcement to prevent the human
smugglers from coming into the United States, stronger laws
against human smuggling.
For example, one of the things you will hear is former drug
couriers who have been arrested would turn to human smuggling
because the sentencing is so low. You heard me mention
Bougadaro who only got 11 months in the United States. We need
tougher sentencing. We do have a human smuggling center right
now. We need to give them the resources, and we need to make
sure that it becomes a priority for our DHS law enforcement.
Right now at DHS, the FBI still has the counterterrorism
mandate. The DHS and ICE folks do not have that mandate. They
have a great role to play in counterterrorism, and that was not
really fought for them, and they can have that role. So it is a
combination of things.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Marchant.
Mr. Marchant. Ms. Kephart, in your interviews that you
conducted with the Border Patrol, what was the most common
problem that they identify as shortfalls in their tools? What
was the largest impediment to them doing their job?
Ms. Kephart. Remember that the September 11 hijackers came
in through airports of entry. The majority of my focus was
there. However, part of my role was to figure out why the INS
had failed in counterterrorism and why they had no policy
there. So I did look at the Border Patrol and interviewed the
Border Patrol Chief, but did not go out to the field just to
clarify. However, what we were talking about were the same
things they were talking about a decade ago, a lack of human
resources, a lack of up-to-grade technological resources; for
example, told me in the early 1990's they were still working
from manual typewriters to type up their reporting. Right now
sometimes they are dealing with five different forms to fill
out once they bring, for example, other than Mexican into their
station. It takes them 3 to 5 hours to process those folks.
They need that streamlined so they can be out in the field.
So they do not have the technology in the field for the
rapid response, as Commissioner Bonner was saying. They do not
have the business processes. They do not have operational
intelligence that is centralized. They have none of it. They
are operating, sector by sector, pretty much as people come
across. They do not have centralized command and control.
We talk about, and Mr. Simcox talks about, the military
being on the border. The military would never put up with not
having centralized command and control, but the Border Patrol
does not have that. So part of my answer was my own analysis,
and part of it is what the Border Patrol has told me before.
Mr. Marchant. This question is for Mr. Bonner.
Mr. Bonner, when someone walks across the border from
Mexico or from Canada, what is their legal status?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Their legal status? They are in our
country illegally when they cross that border. The first
offense is a misdemeanor.
Mr. Marchant. What is the degree of the criminal act?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. The first offense it is a misdemeanor; and
subsequently it is a felony.
Mr. Marchant. What court is it adjudicated in?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. It is not. Typically we offer people to
voluntarily return to their country of origin unless we have
identified through our fingerprinting system that they have
entered, and depending which sector you are in, up to 25 times
before you will initiate any action, and that is just a formal
deportation hearing.
Mr. Marchant. So the recidivism rate is 20, 25 before they
are successful.
Mr. T.J. Bonner. People keep trying until they make it. The
ones that get by us, we have no record of them. I think it is a
safe assumption if you catch somebody eight times and you do
not see them again, they got by you. They did not just give up
and say, I will go back to my $4-a-day job at home.
Mr. Marchant. Obviously there have been Border Patrol
officers killed.
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Nearly 100.
Mr. Marchant. So there is some aggressiveness on the part
of the criminal, in my view.
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Sure. This has escalated in recent years.
Because of our court system being so lenient on people who
assault Federal officers, we find people are more willing to
shoot it out with Federal officers. When I came in 27 years
ago, the drug smugglers would be armed to protect themselves
against each other, but when they were apprehended by Federal
officers, they would ditch their weapons. Now they are more
inclined to shoot it out with Federal officers.
Mr. Marchant. What is permissible use of force for a Border
Patrol agent?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Whatever is appropriate to the situation.
If someone is firing at you, you are authorized to fire back.
Mr. Marchant. That is defense. What is proper procedure for
one to apprehend?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Only that level of force necessary to
effect apprehension. We start out with verbal commands, ask
them to stop. If they run, we are allowed to grab them and
bring them under control. If they resist arrest, we are allowed
to use the level of force appropriate.
Mr. Marchant. Stun guns, rubber bullets.
Mr. T.J. Bonner. No stun guns or rubber bullets. We have
pepper spray and collapsible steel batons as intermediate
weapons.
Mr. Marchant. So if a guy gets 25 or 30 feet away, you are
either faster----
Mr. T.J. Bonner. You are going to have to outsmart that
person or be faster. You are not authorized to use force just
to stop someone from running.
Mr. Marchant. So a normal police method in a city or a
county for a sheriff cannot be employed by a Border Patrol
agent?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Well, it depends on what you are talking
about as a normal city or county. If a shoplifter is running
away, most jurisdictions do not authorize any type of force to
stop that.
Mr. Marchant. So an offense is considered an offense
similar to shoplifting?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think that is one way to characterize
it.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
We will do just a couple more questions.
Let me ask Ms. Kephart, this committee has worked
tirelessly on the issue of terrorist travel, something you are
acquainted with. We have sought to strengthen domestic identity
requirements for individuals to strengthen our intelligence
function, to better identify and track individuals of interest.
As we strengthen security in these areas, it appears likely
that terrorists and other criminals will not seek to enter
through official channels, but through holes in our border.
What does our intelligence tell us about the intent of al Qaeda
and other groups that seek to enter our country illegally and
do us harm, and what are the weaknesses that they have
identified that we have not rectified yet?
Ms. Kephart. In terms of current intelligence, I cannot
speak to it because I am not privy to it anymore. We had
documents upon documents.
Chairman Tom Davis. Just go back a year.
Ms. Kephart. The thing that we need to understand about al
Qaeda is they had a very sophisticated travel operation. When I
started on the Commission, our congressional mandate was to
look at border security. But as we started looking at detainee
reports, it became clear it was actually a travel operation. As
I put together the chronology in our staff report, September 11
and terrorist travel, it became clear that the travel operation
started back in Afghanistan and moved--it started with the
recruit, and that recruit would go to Afghanistan through a
specific travel operation, false passports through Iran or
Pakistan, and they would come out and be instructed where to go
and what to do. They had travel facilitators all over the world
helping them. We discussed the intelligence that we have about
that, Riyadh, the facilitator, etc., specific biographies of
those folks.
So we know they were sophisticated in their travel
operation. The thing that I learned, sort of my own analysis
from looking at this, that Mohammed Atta--the pilots came in
first. The muscle came in the 2001, but the pilots were here
for about a year before that with a couple of exceptions.
Mohammed Atta was sort of testing the system as he was moving
through it. He came in three times before any of the muscle
came in. He figured out length of stay was 6 months if you are
a tourist, so ask for a tourist. If that meant bringing the
hijackers, the muscle, in the spring and summer of 2001 meant
they had a legitimate length of stay while they were here, it
was clear he did not want his folks to go illegal in the
immigration system. It was also clear that identifications were
extremely important to them to embedding. He also sought
immigration benefits for himself, changing of tourist status to
student status. They even went so far as to go into an
immigration benefit service center, he and one of the other
pilots, I believe, in May 2001, asking for a longer length of
stay for one of the pilots until September 8, 2001.
So what we have then for our intelligence is an
understanding that terrorists travel operationally very
carefully. If the fraudulent passport does not work or getting
the visa does not work, they will be prevented from going where
they go, or else they will seek another point of entry. From
that point of view, we did establish that terrorist travel
exists.
Weaknesses in the system, I think I would be here all
afternoon. But I do lay out a series of about five pages of
recommendations, some of which are very discrete, about our
ports of entry, about our immigration benefits, and immigration
enforcement and our Border Patrol, things that we need. But
mostly I think the biggest weakness is tremendous fragmentation
in the system.
Before September 11 we had three departments and three
agencies running immigration and border security. Now we have
three different departments and six agencies running it, and we
do not have holistic policymaking. Nobody has an idea of the
structure at the top and what we are looking for.
Chairman Tom Davis. Is it still very stovepiped?
Ms. Kephart. We are more stovepiped than we were. When I
hear discussions of mergers of ICE and CBP, yes, that would be
helpful to some degree, but it is only part of the problem. We
still have immigration benefits, consular officers at the State
Department; we have the Coast Guard, which is in a different
part of DHS; and we have a President who recognizes that border
security is national security, but there are so many layers of
bureaucracy, a wholehearted approach on how to achieve border
security truly with overarching policies is just nonexistent.
That, to me, is the biggest weakness right now.
Mr. Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Ms. Kephart, I just listened to what you
said. It sounds like we are worse off from a security
standpoint than maybe we were prior to September 11. Is that
accurate or inaccurate?
Ms. Kephart. We have made some strides ahead. I think we
have pulled back in other ways. I don't think we have a
holistic approach to border security right now, and I think it
is hurting us. We are approaching things to some degree
myopically, looking at just the Border Patrol or just
immigration benefits without looking at the whole thing and how
to make it right.
But we do have a recognition now of the importance of
border security and national security, which is extremely
important. And it has made people, for example, very
encouraging, biometrics insisted upon, new rules for our
passports, new rules for our identification set that is now
being passed, US-VISIT which is at our ports of entry and needs
to get out for exit data as well. So we have some real
positives, but we need to bring it all together. That is my
frustration.
Mr. Cummings. When I listen to the testimony here, it
reminds me of a situation where it is like a circle. We seem to
be covering maybe about three-fourths, maybe even 90 percent of
the circle, but there is an opening called border, and as we
think that we are guarding everything, people are slipping in
through that opening.
That leads me to you, Mr. Bonner. When you listen to Mr.
Simcox, and then I think about the testimony you just gave a
few minutes ago about the fact that folks are toting guns, that
is some of these folks trying to cross the border, and then I
combine it with what my colleague said comparing the Minutemen
to Citizens on Patrol, is that your perception?
If I have people with guns, and I have everyday citizens--
and, Mr. Simcox, one of the documents says keep your guns in
your holsters?
Mr. Simcox. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Do you feel comfortable with that as a
professional representing these people?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. Border Patrol agents undergo 19 weeks of
intensive training. It makes us nervous when citizens are out
there armed because things go bump in the night when you are
out there. Untrained people might do things that a trained
person would not do. The fact that people are out there armed,
and I realize in Arizona that is permissible under their State
law, and other parts of the country it is not, but it certainly
is something that concerns me.
And I have talked with some Minutemen, some nice
grandmothers, and I am concerned that they go down there, and
they are really down there to make a political statement, but
they get caught in the crossfires of one of these drug
smugglers who thinks that they are shooting at Border Patrol,
and they kill some nice grandmother who leaves behind a family,
and all she was trying to do was make a statement that she
wanted the U.S. Government to step up to the plate and secure
our borders.
There are a number of concerns that I have about this, as
the movement grows, as people think they are going to make a
difference, if you blockade the border, and if you have people
out every few yards, that will deter people from coming in.
That is not our experience. What we found in San Diego, it
pushed the traffic over to Arizona. It did not make it go away,
it just pushed it to a different part. We also found in San
Diego when the smugglers became frustrated enough, they would
modify their tactics. They would gather groups of several
hundred people and run right over the top of us.
Mr. Cummings. What I am concerned about is a lot of what
was just said. If I have somebody who sees that their
opportunity for success, for their children's success, and they
are already hopeless, and they see anybody standing in their
way--I see it in my district with people trying to get drugs.
Sometimes they will kill their family members to get money for
drugs. We have people trying to get to the United States
because they think that it is going to be the great place of
opportunity. I am concerned with some of the same concerns.
Mr. Simcox. We are very concerned, and it certainly shows
the frustration and compassion of American citizens; for
instance, 80-year-old World War II veterans and what we call
vigil grannies who were sitting in lawn chairs. They take it
very seriously. Citizens are putting themselves in harm's way
if there is a real threat at the border, but that is the
passion and the frustration level, and it should send a clear
message to Congress and to the Border Patrol and to the Federal
Government and to the President that we want this problem
solved.
They are willing to take that risk. A majority of our
volunteers are retired law enforcement officers and military
veterans, well trained, who are willing to give service to
their country again. I think if we had an opportunity to train
ex-military, military police, law enforcement officers; I would
hate to see an 80-year-old grandmother--I would hate to see her
blood spilled on that border because we cannot control it.
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have any Minutemen grandmothers?
Mr. Simcox. Almost 40 percent were women. The majority of
the volunteers were 50 or older, many in their 70's or 80's.
Chairman Tom Davis. I don't think that is old.
Mr. Cummings. If you had to guess percentagewise, how many
were carrying a gun?
Mr. Simcox. Forty percent of our volunteers were carrying
sidearms only for self-defense purposes. Ninety-nine percent
are concealed weapons card-carrying, well-trained individuals
who understand the law when it comes to self-defense.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Have you had anybody in Minutemen hurt?
Mr. Simcox. Not at all. Not one incident ever.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Any gunfire?
Mr. Simcox. None in the 3\1/2\ years that we have been
coordinating.
Mr. Ruppersberger. So your coordination with Border Patrol
is working?
Mr. Simcox. Yes.
Mr. Ruppersberger. And you are there as a deterrent to
communicate where there is a problem, and the vigilante
argument that is out there, there are no facts to support that?
Mr. Simcox. No facts to support that. We work within the
law to support the law. We do not take the law into our own
hands. That would defeat the purpose.
Mr. Ruppersberger. This whole immigration problem is very
serious, and we as a government have not made it a priority.
What compounds the problem is now the issue of terrorism, where
people, the same drug dealers that are getting the drugs in,
are going to be able to get al Qaeda into our country.
Mr. Bonner, I think you have so many illegal immigrants in
the United States right now. You have people who come here on a
temporary visa and then stay, and that is from all over the
world. If you were a Member of Congress, what would your
priority be?
We need a system to somehow identify the illegal immigrants
within the United States. We have a problem, and the President
has taken this position, it is my understanding, that we would
really shut down a lot of business if we did not have the guest
worker visas. That is an issue.
How do we put together a program that works with
immigration, because we have not put the resources at the
border, we do not have a data base on illegal immigrants, and
if they stay and have children, they become citizens of the
United States? It is a very complex problem.
The bigger picture that I threw out to you, what do you
recommend from your expertise in this field?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. It has been my experience that illegal
aliens are not independently wealthy. They come here because of
the work. If you cutoff the access to jobs and limit it to U.S.
citizens, aliens who are lawfully admitted into this country on
a permanent basis or as guest workers, you solve 98 percent of
the problem. I think a guest worker program can work hand in
glove.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Because we would have a serious problem
as far as certain industries without the guest work program.
But how do you enforce it?
Mr. T.J. Bonner. By legitimizing it and saying you cannot
get a job unless you have permission.
Mr. Ruppersberger. They can have identification cards, but
even though you have a card, you do not go back. There has to
be some kind of mechanism. I guess the employer has to take
responsibility.
Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think it is a self-enforcing one. If you
are here on a temporary guest worker permit, anyone who employs
you beyond the expiration of that is in violation of the law,
so no one will give you a job. Your choice is to sit in the
street and beg or go home. Most will go home.
Mr. Simcox. I take a very pragmatic approach. We need to
seal the border so people cannot come in illegally. We need to
deport the criminals in our prisons, and we need to enforce the
laws on the books. That is the problem. I can show you boxes
full of Social Security cards, fake IDs that we find in the
desert at lay-up areas.
Mr. Ruppersberger. If we put the same priority in all of
our agencies, and we would put that resource--and it is not
always when they get over to the border, it is getting to them
before.
Ms. Kephart, it seems to me the best defense against
terrorism is intelligence. If you go get this information ahead
of time, and you deal with the people, and you get the Mexican
Government to stand up and help us, we would be better off. We
have not made that a priority.
Mr. Simcox. I would like to see a Social Security
verification system for employers so employers are held
accountable for hiring illegal aliens in this country, and how
about an employer-sponsored guest worker program, not sponsored
by the taxpayers.
Ms. Kephart. May I make one comment about the guest worker
program?
First of all, I want to make clear, I don't think
citizenship and immigration services is built to be able to
handle a guest worker program. Until you get the bureaucracy in
line to be able to handle a huge surge in immigration benefits,
you are going to have a problem.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Guest workers are temporary.
Ms. Kephart. But they still have to be adjudicated through
the system.
Second of all, you have to ensure there is security vetting
for criminals and terrorists and those who have otherwise
disobeyed our laws previously. Otherwise you are going to be
giving legitimacy to folks we do not want to give legitimacy
to.
Third, you have to have a system that authenticates
identities and ensure that people are who they say they are.
That is my 2 cents on that.
Mr. Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, you talked about where do you go
next. Do you look at the Canadian border, too?
Mr. Simcox. Yes. We have 15,000 volunteers in the queue. We
are moving to the northern border. We will be packaging our
success and assisting other States to develop their own
neighborhood border watch groups.
Mr. Tom Davis. Mr. Bonner and Mr. Schermerhorn, thank you
for the job you are doing. Your members are out there every day
putting their lives on the line for us, and we appreciate it.
Mr. Simcox and Ms. Kephart, we appreciate all of the ideas.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Chris Cannon, Hon. Darrell
E. Issa, Hon. Jon C. Porter, and Hon. Lynn A. Westmoreland, and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]
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