[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LIFE ON THE BORDER: EXAMINING BORDER SECURITY THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL
RESIDENTS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
BORDER AND
MARITIME SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 9, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-67
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
22-760 PDF WASHINGTON : 2016
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Vice James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Chair Brian Higgins, New York
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
Curt Clawson, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
John Katko, New York Kathleen M. Rice, New York
Will Hurd, Texas Norma J. Torres, California
Earl L. ``Buddy'' Carter, Georgia
Mark Walker, North Carolina
Barry Loudermilk, Georgia
Martha McSally, Arizona
John Ratcliffe, Texas
Daniel M. Donovan, Jr., New York
Brendan P. Shields, Staff Director
Joan V. O'Hara, General Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER AND MARITIME SECURITY
Martha McSally, Arizona, Chairwoman
Lamar Smith, Texas Filemon Vela, Texas
Mike Rogers, Alabama Loretta Sanchez, California
Candice S. Miller, Michigan Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Brian Higgins, New York
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Norma J. Torres, California
Will Hurd, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (ex (ex officio)
officio)
Paul L. Anstine, Subcommittee Staff Director
John L. Dickhaus, Subcommittee Clerk
Alison Northrop, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Martha S. McSally, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Arizona, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Stevan Pearce, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Arizona........................................... 5
WITNESSES
Panel I
Hon. Mark Dannels, Sheriff, Cochise County, Arizona:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Hon. Danny Ortega, Mayor, Douglas, Arizona:
Oral Statement................................................. 18
Prepared Statement............................................. 19
Mr. Art Del Cueto, President, Local 2544, National Border Patrol
Council:
Oral Statement................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 23
Panel II
Mr. Daniel G. Bell, President, ZZ Cattle Corporation:
Oral Statement................................................. 42
Prepared Statement............................................. 44
Mr. Mark Stephen Adams, Coordinator, Frontera De Cristo:
Oral Statement................................................. 46
Prepared Statement............................................. 48
Mr. Jaime Chamberlain, President, JC Distributing Inc.:
Oral Statement................................................. 54
Prepared Statement............................................. 56
Mr. Nan Stockholm Walden, Vice President and Legal Counsel,
Farmers Investment Co. (FICO):
Oral Statement................................................. 57
Prepared Statement............................................. 60
Mr. Frank Krentz, Rancher:
Oral Statement................................................. 63
Prepared Statement............................................. 65
LIFE ON THE BORDER: EXAMINING BORDER SECURITY THROUGH THE EYES OF LOCAL
RESIDENTS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
----------
Monday, May 9, 2016
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security,
Sahuarita, AZ.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in
the Council Chambers, Sahuarita Town Hall Building, 375 W.
Sahuarita Center Way, Sahuarita, Arizona, Hon. Martha McSally
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representative McSally.
Also present: Representative Pearce.
Ms. McSally. The Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, will come to
order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to examine border
security through the perspective of our local law enforcement,
Border Patrol Agents, and residents.
Before we proceed any further, as the Chair, I need to make
just a few important announcements.
It takes a tremendous amount of work to put a hearing like
this together. I appreciate the interest shown by the number of
people who are in attendance today. I also would like to thank
the town of Sahuarita for letting us use this beautiful
facility for our hearing.
I am now going to recognize myself for an opening
statement.
A few weeks ago, I convened my first hearing as the
Chairwoman of the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee on
the important topic of border security effectiveness and
situational awareness. My subcommittee heard, in Washington,
DC, from Border Patrol and CBP air and maritime leadership on
the conditions along the border from their vantage point.
The testimony given by these Government officials
established further that there seems to be a deep disconnect
between what some politicians and policymakers in Washington,
DC say about our current situation to secure the border and
what I hear on a daily basis back here at home. This is not
surprising considering many policymakers in the Nation's
capital have never seen or experienced the situation along our
border, although we have invited many of them to come visit and
see it first-hand. But this is something Southern Arizona
residents live with every single day.
At my first hearing, Border Patrol officials stated they
have the ability to interdict and apprehend more than 80
percent of the illegal traffic on the Southwest Border, which
sounds like an improvement from the last time they measured
operational control of the border in 2010, where it stood at 44
percent.
But the Border Patrol numbers only take into account what
they see and fail to include all activity, the denominator. So
they just have the numerator of what they were able to
interdict, not the denominator of everything that is out there.
So it is really an incomplete, if not misleading, figure. It
does not give an accurate assessment of the current strategy's
effectiveness.
At the same hearing, after I pressed them, CBP admitted to
having only roughly 50 percent situational awareness of the
border and border activity. That means of the illicit activity
coming across our Nation's roughly 2,000-mile Southwest Border,
CBP only knows what is happening with certainty in about half
of it, and that doesn't mean they can interdict what they see.
It just means that is what they said they have situational
awareness of.
The truth is that the border is not as secure as it needs
to be. We all know that here in this room and in this
community. And the Department of Homeland Security for years
has been trying to sell the American people a false narrative
that the border is now more secure than ever.
Local law enforcement, business and community leaders,
ranchers and residents, those that I represent who have met
with me and spoken to me on countless occasions, you all have a
different perspective. You also have a better understanding of
the very real border security challenges faced by fellow
citizens because you live and work here and experience the
ramifications of an unsecure border every day.
Viewing the border through the eyes of local residents,
like those before us today, arms policymakers with first-hand
experiences on what is and isn't working in border security
efforts. At the end of the day, I want to get down to the
business of finding thoughtful, common-sense solutions to
improve border security.
We are fortunate to have the brave men and women of the
Border Patrol do all they can with the tools that they are
provided. However, they are often hampered by outdated, flawed
strategies or political leadership that doesn't have the
resolve to let them do what agents do best, secure the border
and protect our communities and the homeland.
Rural border security is a challenging task. Agents do a
difficult job, often alone, in rugged terrain. They are subject
to a rising number of assaults, which are not frequently
prosecuted, and on a daily basis put their lives on the line to
prevent cartels from trafficking drugs, money, people, and
weapons through our communities.
Local law enforcement officers are often willing and able
border security partners, so we need to properly fund and equip
them through programs like Operation Stonegarden in order to
assist the Federal Government's efforts. Information sharing,
joint operations, and collaboration should be the pillars of
this approach and will help maximize the results for the whole
community.
Every day our fellow citizens, including many in attendance
here today, must endure the hassle of border security
checkpoints and fear the consequences of illegal activity on
their properties, or have their businesses harmed by a
perception of the border that does not totally square with
reality.
Legislation I authored that recently passed in the House
directs the Border Patrol to develop a new strategy that is
based on a full assessment of the threats along our Southern
Border, including where we have vulnerabilities, the impact of
terrain, where we have gaps in situational awareness and
operational control, and where the drug cartels are beating us.
Having a frank and honest discussion about what the
witnesses see and experience on the border, and their proposed
solutions, will help us ensure our Nation's border security
efforts protect the citizens who live and work on the border
every day, as well as secure the Nation.
We have a very diverse group of witnesses today to provide
important perspectives on the challenges, complexities, and
solutions regarding border security. As the saying goes,
``Where you stand depends upon where you sit,'' and I think in
this case it maybe is adapted to ``Where you stand depends upon
where you live and where you work,'' and that I think applies
for our witnesses here today.
From reading some of the written statements, or all the
written statements, of course, we do have some different
viewpoints that will be expressed today from our witnesses, and
some disagreements on how to address these issues on a variety
of different topics. I look forward to a fruitful, spirited,
but respectful discussion and debate on this issue. I would ask
that we all consider that we can learn something from each
other and maybe find some common ground since we all have, I
think, the desire to keep our country and our communities safe.
So let's start with that main objective and then figure out how
we can find common ground to address these important issues.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today,
each of whom brings a unique and important perspective. I want
to especially thank my colleague from New Mexico, Mr. Pearce, a
fellow Air Force combat pilot as well, by the way. Mr. Pearce
represents the 2nd Congressional District of New Mexico, which
borders Arizona's 2nd Congressional District to the east and is
also home to many miles of the Southwest Border.
[The statement of Chairwoman McSally follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairwoman Martha McSally
May 9, 2016
A few weeks ago, I convened my first hearing as the Chairwoman of
the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee on the important topics
of border security effectiveness and situational awareness.
My subcommittee heard from Border Patrol and CBP Air and Marine
leadership on the conditions along the border from their vantage point.
The testimony given by these Government officials established
further that there is a deep disconnect between what politicians and
policymakers in Washington, DC say about our current situation to
secure the border and what I hear on a daily basis here at home. This
is not surprising considering many policy makers in the Nation's
capital have never seen or experienced our situation along the border,
something Southern Arizona residents live with every day.
At my first hearing, Border Patrol officials stated that they have
the ability to interdict and apprehend more than 80% of the illegal
traffic on the Southwest Border, which sounds like an improvement from
the last time we measured operational control of the border in 2010,
which stood at 44%.
But the Border Patrol's numbers only take into account what they
see, the numerator, and fail to include all activity, the denominator,
so it is an incomplete, if not misleading figure, that does not give an
accurate assessment of current strategy's effectiveness.
At the same hearing, after I pressed them, CBP admitted to having
only roughly 50% situational awareness of the border. That means, of
illicit activity coming across our Nation's roughly 2,000-mile
Southwest Border, CBP only knows what is happening with certainty in
half of it.
The truth is that the border is not as secure as it needs to be,
and the Department of Homeland Security for years has, been trying to
sell the American people a false narrative that the border is more
secure than ever.
Local law enforcement, business and community leaders, ranchers and
residents--those I represent and have met with and spoken to on
countless occasions--have a different perspective. They also have a
better understanding of the very real border security challenges faced
by our fellow citizens because they live and work here and experience
the ramifications of an unsecure border every day.
Viewing the border through the eyes of local residents, like those
before us today, arms policymakers with first-hand experiences on what
is and isn't working in border security efforts. At the end of the day,
I want to get down to the business of finding thoughtful, common-sense
solutions to improve border security.
We are fortunate to have brave men and women of the Border Patrol
do all they can with the tools they are provided. However, they are
often hampered by outdated, flawed strategies and political leadership
that does not have the resolve to let them do what agents do best--
secure the border and protect the homeland.
Rural border security is a difficult task. Agents do a difficult
job, often alone, in rugged terrain. They are subject to a rising
number of assaults, which are not frequently prosecuted, and on a daily
basis put their lives on the line to prevent cartels from trafficking
drugs, money, people, and weapons through our communities.
Local law enforcement officers are often willing and able border
security partners, so we need to properly fund and equip them through
programs like Operation Stonegarden in order to assist the Federal
Government's efforts. Information sharing, joint operations and
collaboration should be the pillars of this approach and will help
maximize the results for the community.
Every day our fellow citizens, including many in attendance here
today, must endure the hassle of a border security checkpoints, fear
the consequences of illegal activity on their property, or have their
businesses harmed by a perception of the border that does not totally
square with reality.
Legislation I authored that recently passed in the House directs
the Border Patrol to develop a new strategy that is based on a full
assessment of the threats along our Southern Border, including where we
have vulnerabilities, the impact of terrain, where we have gaps in
situational awareness and operational control, and where the drug
cartels are beating us.
Having a frank and honest discussion about what the witnesses see
and experience on the border, and their proposed solutions will help us
ensure our Nation's border security efforts protect the citizens who
live and work on the border every day, as well as secure the Nation.
We have a very diverse group of witnesses today to provide
important perspectives on the challenges, complexities, and solutions
regarding border security. As the saying goes: ``Where you stand
depends upon where you sit'' and maybe for this topic, perhaps it
should be ``where you stand depends upon where you live and work.''
From reading the written statements, we have some different
viewpoints and disagreements between some of our witnesses on a variety
of topics. I look forward to a fruitful, spirited, but respectful
discussion and debate. I would ask that we all consider that we can
learn from each other today and find common ground, since we all have
the desire to keep our country and communities safe.
I very much look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today,
each of whom brings a unique and important perspective to this
discussion. I want to especially welcome the gentleman from New Mexico,
Mr. Pearce, to Arizona. Mr. Pearce represents the 2nd Congressional
District of New Mexico, which borders Arizona's 2nd Congressional
District to the east and is also home to many miles of the Southwest
Border.
Ms. McSally. I now want to recognize the gentleman from New
Mexico, Mr. Pearce, for any opening statement you may have.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you. I will just be brief. Thanks for not
saying also that you flew in this millennium and I flew in the
last millennium.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. So I appreciate you leaving that part out.
When you deal with the voters, which we have to do every 2
years, you start to understand that they don't really want to
focus too much on the exact circumstances of bills and
legislation. Instead, it is like the tide moving back and
forth. I will guarantee you that people in this country right
now do not feel safe.
So Washington can say the border is secure all they want,
and I appreciate reading your testimony, sir, that says that we
have work to do and we need to be more transparent, more
honest. I think that the beginning point is exactly what we are
doing here, getting all the stakeholders together.
Congresswoman McSally came in and immediately took a lead role
in this.
Her district and mine butt up against each other. I am just
across the end of New Mexico all the way to El Paso, and we see
very strong similarities, and you just have the sense here that
the closer you get to the border, the more that people are just
very unsettled. We as a Nation need to be dealing with that
unsettlement.
Of course, the problem is that some people want to solve it
one way and some another. So the testimony that I have read
today--and I really appreciate the balance that you have on the
panels, because that is one of the keys--you can't just
approach it from one direction. So I am looking forward to it.
I would just tell you frankly that I think both parties
have gamed this issue for years. So the fact that it is here
and we are dealing with it in the fashion that the anger has
reached the level that it has just tells us it is time to get
to work and do what we were sent there to do, make hard
decisions about very difficult things in a pragmatic and
sensible way.
So I am looking forward to the discussion and seeing what
we come up with.
Thanks again. I appreciate the invitation to be here.
Ms. McSally. Absolutely. Thanks.
Okay, so we have 2 panels today. The first panel has 3
people on it, and the second panel has 5 people on it. We tried
to group them, generally speaking. We have elected officials,
our Cochise County Sheriff, and Mr. Del Cueto is representing
the Border Patrol Agents. So this is kind of the official
perspective, if that makes sense, the public-sector
perspective. Then the second panel has a mix of individuals
that are from the community and the private sector providing
different perspectives. So I just wanted to lay that
groundwork.
I do want to acknowledge we do have the Pima County Sheriff
Nanos here in the audience. We appreciate you coming for our
discussion here today.
So first I will give a couple of introductions and bios
here.
Sheriff Mark Dannels is the sheriff of Cochise County,
Arizona, a position he has held since November 2012. Sheriff
Dannels began his law enforcement career in 1984 after serving
in the United States Army and progressed through the ranks
within Cochise County Sheriff's Office after working numerous
specialty assignments and leadership roles. He is a member of
numerous organizations, including the Fraternal Order of
Police, the National Sheriffs Association, the Southwest Border
Sheriffs Association, and the Arizona Homeland Security
Regional Advisory Council.
Mayor Danny Ortega is the mayor of Douglas, Arizona. Mayor
Ortega was born and raised in Douglas, and also serves as the
vice president of his family-owned business that was first
established in Douglas in 1923. He has been involved in many
organizations in the Douglas community, including the Douglas
Chamber of Commerce and the Douglas Lion's Club.
Mr. Art Del Cueto is the president of the Border Patrol
Union Local 2544. Mr. Del Cueto has been a Border Patrol Agent
since 2003 and began his career in Casa Grande, Arizona, where
he helped in the effort to establish a new substation at Three
Points, Arizona. Prior to working for the Border Patrol, Mr.
Del Cueto worked in a maximum security state prison in Tucson.
The witnesses' full written testimony will appear in the
record.
The Chair now recognizes Sheriff Dannels for his verbal
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MARK DANNELS, SHERIFF, COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA
Sheriff Dannels. Good morning, everyone. Chairwoman
McSally, Mr. Pearce, thank you for having us today, and thank
you, both of you, for just your awareness and support in these
issues.
With me today is also Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who
is sitting to my right. He is the Pima County Sheriff here who
works closely with us on the Southwest Border Task Force.
With 83 miles of international border within its
jurisdiction, Cochise County plays a significant role in
combating drug and human trafficking organizations and the
associated violent crime which adversely affects Arizona
residents and other areas throughout the United States. With
6,219 square miles, Cochise County is the 38th-largest land
mass county in the United States.
One of Mexico's largest and most notorious trafficking
organizations and drug cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel, has long
employed the use of local Mexican drug trafficking
organizations, DTOs, to carry out the cartel's drug
distribution and transportation in and throughout the United
States. The Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating in
Cochise County are highly sophisticated and innovative in their
transportation methods. Violence against innocent citizens,
public officials, law enforcement, and rival drug/human
trafficking groups in Mexico continues to escalate.
The adverse effects of the drug and human trafficking
organizations operating in Cochise County not only have
significantly diminished the quality of life of county
residents but also placed unbearable financial strain upon the
budgets and resources of private and Government agencies in the
county.
Having the true-life experience to live and work as a law
enforcement officer/deputy and now sheriff in Cochise County
since 1984, it has been an educational lesson for me to
reference border security in the evolution of this border. I
have witnessed the escalation of violence by these careless
assailants on our citizens, raising the question: Who actually
controls our borders? Cochise County has become known as the
gateway to illegal activity for those unlawfully entering into
the United States.
In the history of the border, which I think is critical to
where we are at today, in the early 1990s the Federal
Government came up with a plan to address the unsecure, unsafe
border. I call it the plan of the Ps, and that was to protect
the populated areas--Yuma, El Paso, and San Diego were targeted
cities--along with the ports of entry.
The other half of the plan, which is the disturbing part of
the plan, was to re-route that illegal activity into the rural
parts of the Southwest Border. Mr. Pearce, your area, as you
know, in New Mexico is a highly-trafficked area, just like
Cochise County, Santa Cruz County, and other parts of the
Southwest Border.
Since that time there have been many changes, since the
early '90s, with this plan being in place. We have had some
successes, and that is a reduction in those protected ``P''
areas. Unfortunately, we have had increased illegal activity in
the outside protected areas, outside the ports and populated
areas, to include Cochise County. We have had fear and
frustration increase in rural Cochise County along the
Southwest Border, ranch and farmlands damaged due to increased
illegal activity, property damage--fencing, livestock, water
lines. Burglaries and thefts in rural Cochise County are on the
rise. Violent crimes include homicides, assaults, rapes, drug
smuggling, et cetera. Transnational cartels and smuggling
organizations have actually controlled and set up smuggling
routes throughout Cochise County, which is on-going as we
speak.
Lack of redefinition of the plan since the 1990s, there has
been no redefinition to this plan for over 20 years.
Economic decline. Cochise County is losing population at a
staggering rate. We were No. 1 population decrease several
years ago. I believe we are going to be No. 1 in the country
again for population decrease.
Legacy ranchers, I think we have had a half-dozen to a
dozen ranches sold in the last few years.
Lack of Federally-elected leaders to address insecure
borders. Fear is creating a lack of trust and anger by citizens
in Cochise County along the border.
Questionable consequences by Federal Government by those
committing border crimes.
Undue pressure on local law enforcement sheriffs to address
these issues; fear and consequences for committing border
crimes.
Lack of funding for local law enforcement, the criminal
justice system, corrections, our jails, in order to address
border crimes at the local level due to the Federal
Government's lack of intervention.
Local solutions and programs are no longer a thought but a
mandate. Many sheriffs on the Southwest Border, to include
Cochise County, have taken our statutory and elected oath
seriously in the fact to protect their freedoms and liberties.
We have enacted many programs, balanced community policing
through education and prevention and enforcement; transparency
plus time, we built community trust; collaborated efforts
coming from the local side with all 3 levels of government;
installation of new radio towers, radios; working with our
schools, 21 rural schools, where they are all getting radios
here in the next few months; ranchers and citizens that live in
the vulnerable areas, we are going to be issuing them radios.
A regional application for law enforcement where we are
sharing together. We have a financial interdiction unit working
on financial crimes, along with a regional border team
supported by the Border Patrol.
A ranch advisory team where 2 deputies are taken off patrol
to work with the ranchers so they have an ear and a voice on
that, a ranch advisory team made up of ranchers throughout
Cochise County to help us enhance communication; and
consequence-driven prosecution. I will give you an example of
what I am talking about with that.
The Federal Government has an issue prosecuting juveniles
based on their laws. We started this several months ago where
we have an average of 26 juveniles, ages 14 to 17, in my jail
that are now being prosecuted as adults and being sent to
prison for a year-and-a-half, and these are ones when the
Border Patrol picks up a backpacker, they turn them over to the
Sheriff's Department or a local agency who makes the arrest,
and then we prosecute them through our local county attorneys,
a partnership that is called a righteous partnership. Before
this was going on, these vulnerable youth, both on the local
side from our local high school and from across the line, were
being recruited by the cartels to smuggle drugs into the United
States. We took a prevention and enforcement approach toward
that.
The Federal Government and elected policymakers have been
slow to react to the voices and concerns of those living on the
Southwest Border. The following comprehensive recommendations
are directly linked to our Federal leaders and given to you
based on what we see.
Re-define the plan of the '90s and build upon its
successes.
There needs to be a political will to make border security
a mandated program and not a discretionary one.
Border security first, immigration reform second.
Secondary checkpoints only after primary border
interdiction is satisfied by the stakeholders.
Quality of life/citizens living on the border supported by
sheriffs and State governors regarding improved security and
safety.
Funding supplement for local law enforcement, prosecution,
detention, criminal justice in support of border crimes.
SCAP needs to be enhanced. Right now it is at 4.8 cents on
the dollar for reimbursing sheriffs to hold illegals.
Continued funding and support for Stonegarden program--it
has been a success, and please don't remove that--to include
the EREs and employee-related expenses that go with that. That
is very important to rural counties.
Enhanced funding for regional communication and
interoperability with local law enforcement.
There is a staggering number of--an article came out here
where in 2015, 19,000 criminal aliens were released back into
communities in the United States. That is a lose/lose for every
sheriff and police chief in this country, and for the morale of
the men and women who serve in our Border Patrol, which we have
a great relationship in our county.
The recipe for success for this problem starts at the local
level first. Our local efforts have proven to be beneficial in
bringing overdue solutions to an unsecure border that has
become a discretionary program by those Federally-elected
leaders and policymakers that have been entrusted to protect
our freedoms and liberties. As a sheriff elected by the good
people of my county, my biggest fear is another loss of life to
one of my citizens and/or law enforcement officers/agents
contributed to a border that is not secure. One would hope the
priority of securing our border doesn't become just about a
price tag and/or political posturing, but rather the legal and
moral requirement to safeguard all of America, which so many
heroic Americans have already paid the ultimate price for.
Today's opportunity to address this group instills fresh
hope that our voice does matter, and on behalf of the citizens
of Cochise County, the Southwest Border sheriffs, Arizona
sheriffs and beyond, we hope you won't forget us and will do
your Constitutional mandate to bring positive change to an
overdue vulnerable situation.
With that, I leave you an open invitation, Mr. Pearce. I
know Ms. McSally has been down there numerous times. Her and I
have spoken and driven around, and she actually has not seen a
show-and-tell border but a real border.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Dannels follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Dannels
May 9, 2016
introduction
Chairwoman Martha McSally and Members of this committee, thank you
for the invitation to speak to you today on this very important
subject.
history of cochise county
With 83 miles of international border within its jurisdiction,
Cochise County plays a significant role in combating drug and human
trafficking organizations and the associated violent crime which
adversely affects Arizona residents and other areas throughout the
United States. In 1990 the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) designated Cochise County as a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area within southern Arizona. This designation is a direct result of
overwhelming and sustained levels of illicit drug and human trafficking
within Cochise County.
With 6,219 square miles, Cochise County is as large as the States
of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. The estimated population of
the county in 2010 is approximately 131,346. The geography of the
county consists of 7 incorporated cities to include the historical town
of Tombstone. Surrounded by vast areas of desolate uninhabited desert
and mountainous terrain, the 7 cities only represent a combined area of
215 square miles, leaving 6,004 square miles of unincorporated area.
These desolate areas are routinely exploited for smuggling routes by
the drug/human traffickers and pose one of the greatest challenges to
local law enforcements effort in establishing border security and
interdiction efforts. Cochise County is the 38th-largest land mass
county in the United States, and is home to the United States Army
base, Fort Huachuca. Throughout the history of the county ranching and
farming has played a significant part in its legacy.
Unlike other border counties in Arizona, Cochise County is unique
in that there are 2 cities in the Republic of Mexico situated on the
international border within the county. The cities of Agua Prieta and
Naco, with an estimated population of 80,000 and 10,000 respectively,
are well know to U.S. Law Enforcement officials as staging and
operational centers for one of Mexico's largest and most notorious drug
cartels. The Sinaloa Cartel has long employed the use of local Mexican
drug trafficking organizations (DTO's) to carry out the cartel's drug
distribution and transportation into and throughout the United States.
These local DTO's also utilize their established smuggling routes
in Cochise County to transport the cartels illicit profits such as U.S.
currency, firearms, and ammunition into Mexico. A large portion of the
profit is used to sustain control over the corridor through the use of
violence against law enforcement, rival trafficking organizations, and
bribes of government officials.
The Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating in Cochise
County are highly sophisticated and innovative in their transportation
methods. Aside from the normal use of human backpackers (mules),
clandestine tunnels, and vehicles, the trafficking organizations have
resorted to the use of ultra light aircraft which cannot be detected by
normal radar, cloned vehicles appearing to be law enforcement or other
legitimate companies, and most recently the use of catapults which hurl
bundles of marijuana into the United States to awaiting co-
conspirators. The organizations utilize sophisticated and technical
communications and counter surveillance equipment to counter law
enforcements interdiction tactics and strategies. Scouts or observers
are strategically placed along smuggling routes to perform counter
surveillance on law enforcement and report their observations to those
controlling the drug/human smuggling operation so they may avoid and
elude law enforcement. The use of cell phones and sophisticated two-way
radio encryptions for communications are standard equipment, as are
night vision and forward looking infra-red devices.
Violence against innocent citizens, public officials, law
enforcement, and rival drug/human trafficking groups in Mexico
continues to escalate. Cochise County's law enforcement and private
citizen fears of it spilling into the county were realized in 2010 when
a long-time Cochise County resident rancher was senselessly murdered
while inspecting fences on his ranch. Further complicating the concerns
is the potential for foreign terrorist to employ drug/human trafficking
organizations to smuggle individuals and or weapons of mass destruction
into the United States through Cochise County.
The adverse affects of the drug and human trafficking organizations
operating in Cochise County not only have significantly diminished the
quality of life of county residents, but also placed unbearable strain
upon the budgets and resources of private and government agencies in
the county.
Historically speaking, illegal border crossings into the United
States are well-known in southern Arizona and recognized as a part of
everyday life within Cochise County and throughout the Southwest
Border. Many years ago, Cochise County citizens were not overly alarmed
when they observed a handful of undocumented aliens travelling through
private or public lands in search of jobs. Unfortunately, over time
these groups dramatically increased in size and became more reckless,
aggressive, and violent, bringing unrest and fear to the citizens
living on the border. Examples of this include reckless high speed
pursuits, assaults on citizens, rapes, kidnappings, murders, and home
invasions to steal one's private and personal possessions. It was
apparent the search for the American dream was being over-shadowed by
these mules, coyotes, bandits, and transnational criminals preying upon
our citizens.
Having the true-life experience to live and work as a law
enforcement officer/deputy and now Sheriff in Cochise County since
1984, it has been an educational lesson for me reference border
security. I have witnessed the escalation of violence by these careless
assailants on our citizens raising the question, who actually controls
our borders? Cochise County has become known as the gateway to illegal
activity for those unlawfully entering into the United States.
federal government's border security plan of the '90s
In the early 1990s, the Federal Government prepared a plan to
address the unsecure, unsafe border. At a press conference in Tucson,
Arizona, a Border Patrol spokesman announced their intent to secure the
populated areas of the border, specifically San Diego, Yuma and El Paso
and the International Ports of Entry. These targeted areas, which I
call the ``Ps=Ports and Population'', would be the Federal Government's
focus points. The second half of their plan was to reroute the illegal
activity/disturbances into the rural parts of the Southwest Border with
the thought that these cartel organizations and smuggling groups would
be deterred by the rugged and mountainous regions along the border.
Since the release of the plan, many changes have taken place.
Specifically, Cochise County has increased their staffing of Border
Patrol agents from a handful of agents to an estimated 1,300 agents
stationed within Cochise County. To add, an estimated 200 Customs
agents working at the port of entries (Douglas and Naco) and within the
Cochise County to secure and protect the estimated 83 miles of
international border. Infrastructure, such as metal fencing, lightning,
cameras, sensors, radars, etc. have been installed between both ports
and some distance beyond bringing some needed relief to this area and
those that live within. Secondary immigration checkpoints were
established on routes (roadways) 20-40 miles north of the border. The
plan has been in place for over 20 years and the following are some
thoughts regarding the plan:
Reduction in illegal activity between the protected areas
(ports)
Decrease in larger groups of undocumented aliens between the
protected areas (ports)
Increase in illegal activity outside the protected areas
(ports)
Fear/Frustration increased in rural Cochise County/Southwest
Border
Ranch and Farm lands damaged due to increased illegal
activity
Property (fencing, livestock, waterlines, etc.) damaged
Burglaries/Thefts increased in rural Cochise County/
Southwest Border
Violent Crimes increased i.e. Homicides, Assaults, Rapes,
Drug and Human Smuggling, etc. in rural Cochise County/
Southwest Border
Transnational Cartels/Smuggling Organizations controlled and
set up smuggling routes in rural Cochise County/Southwest
Border
Lack of Border Patrol Agents directly on border but north of
border
Secondary checkpoints became international ports within
communities resulting in disturbances/illegal activity during
all hours of the day or night
Lack of Re-Definition to the plan of the '90s (time erased
history)
Loss of recreational land use due to fear of criminal
activity
Economic decline (Cochise County largest decrease in
population)
Legacy Ranches being sold
Lack of Federally-elected leaders to address unsecure
border/fears creating a lack of trust and anger by citizens
Questionable consequences by Federal Government by those
committing border crimes
Undue pressure on local law enforcement/Sheriffs to address
issues, fear, and consequences for those committing crimes
Lack of funding for local law enforcement/criminal justice
system/corrections in order to address border crimes at the
local level due to Federal Government lack of intervention
Border Security shall be a Mandate, not a Discretionary
program
Border Security v. Immigration Reform (two different
programs not to be blended)
Lack of Trust and Confidence in Federal Government=Border
Patrol as arm of Federal Government
action-based solutions local government
Local Solutions and Programs are no longer a thought, but a reality
for bringing relief to our citizens who consciously choose to live near
our borders. No better example of the importance of local law
enforcement during a National crisis was the terrorist attack on
September 11, 2001. First responders from local police and fire were
the first on scene to address this horrific threat. Local law
enforcement is best-suited to best understand community needs and
solutions based on the expectations of their citizens. Community
policing begins and succeeds at the local level first.
As the Sheriff of Cochise County, I felt it was my elected and
statutory duty (oath of office to support the United States
Constitution and the Arizona Constitution) to protect and secure the
freedoms and liberties of my citizens, with or without the help of our
Federal law enforcement partners/policy makers. No longer a debate by
those that live in the rural parts of the Southwest Border, the rural
parts of the Southwest Border are NOT secure and are vulnerable for ANY
type of transnational criminal activity.
Working with limited budgets and staffing, sheriffs along the
Southwest Border struggle each and every day to find ways to enhance
the quality of life/safety for those they serve and bring a general
sense of deterrence for those choosing our border as a venue to promote
their criminal enterprises. The following bullet points are action-
driven solutions implemented in hopes of bringing some relief and sense
of security for those living in Cochise County:
Balanced Community Policing (Education, Prevention,
Enforcement)
Transparency+Time=Community Trust
Collaborated Efforts by all 3-levels of Government
Law and Order Partnership between Sheriff and County
Attorney
Private and Public Funding donations/grants to purchase
upgraded equipment/communications
Installation of New Radios/Towers/Consoles/Microwave
Portable Radios to Citizens/Ranchers/Farmers/Schools
Interoperability/Intelligence Sharing at all 3 levels
Regional Application for Law Enforcement
Financial Interdiction Unit
Regional Border Team by Sheriff supported by Border Patrol,
ICE, U.S. Forest
Ranch Advisory Team
Ranch Patrol
Consequence-Driven Prosecution (all 3 levels)
Local Trail-Cameras, Sensors, ATVs, Thermal Vehicle, Off-
Road Vehicle, etc.
Factual Situational Awareness for Media, Elected Officials,
America
Quarterly Law Enforcement Leadership Meetings
Community Outreach Unit
Community Meet & Greets within Communities
Aviation Program (Helicopter & Drone)
Positive-Interactive Use of Media and Social Media
recommendations federal government
The Federal Government (elected and policy makers) has been slow to
react to the voices and concerns of those living on the Southwest
Border. Cochise County and other counties along the border have become
VIP attractions, venues for those seeking to make a difference or
promising change only to become another faded high-hope. The following
comprehensive recommendations are directly linked to our Federal
leaders:
Re-define the plan of the '90s and build upon successes
Political Will to make Border Security a Mandated Program
Border Security First, Immigration Reform Second
Maximize Allocated Resources such as Staffing (only 43% of
Border Agents in the Tucson Sector are assigned on the border)
Support and Embrace First-line Agents that work the border
regions, they have a dangerous job and it's no secret that
their frustration is high based on the unknown complexities
reference their assignments, they have great ideas to share
Secondary Checkpoints only after Primary border interdiction
is satisfied by stakeholders
Quality in Life/Citizens living on border supported by
Sheriffs and State Governors regarding improved security/safety
Funding supplement for Local Law Enforcement/Prosecution/
Detention/Criminal Justice in support of border crimes
Continued Funding and Support for Stone Garden Program
Empowerment with action to Border Patrol Leadership/PACs
(currently Cochise County has 3-dedicated and solution-driven
leaders that work well with local law enforcement)
Enhanced Funding for Regional Communication and
Interoperability with local law enforcement
Cultural/Quality in Service Training for Border Patrol
Agents working in rural counties
summary
Our local efforts have proven to be beneficial in bringing over-due
solutions to an unsecure border that has become a discretionary program
by those Federally-elected leaders and policy makers that have been
entrusted to protect our freedoms and liberties. As a Sheriff elected
by the good people of my county, my biggest fear is another loss of
life to one of my citizens and/or law enforcement officers/agents
contributed to a border that is NOT secure. One would hope the priority
of securing our border doesn't become just about a price tag and/or
political posturing, but rather the legal and moral requirement to
safeguard all of America, which so many heroic Americans have already
paid the ultimate price for.
Today's opportunity to address this group instills fresh hope that
our voice does matter and on behalf of the citizens of Cochise County,
Arizona and beyond, we hope you won't forget us and will do your
Constitutional mandate to bring positive change to an over-due
vulnerable situation.
I will leave each one of you with an open invitation to visit
Cochise County along with a personal-guided tour and visit with our
citizens to hear/see first-hand America's true rural border.
Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to share this
information with you. I will be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
ATTACHMENT.--LETTER FROM THE ARIZONA SHERIFFS ASSOCIATION
July 28, 2014, Phoenix, Arizona.
This letter is authored by the Arizona Sheriffs Association to
address the lack of border security on the part of our Federal
Government, thereby placing our Arizona citizens and all those that
visit our beautiful State in harm's way by those that have chosen to
infringe upon and violate our freedoms and liberties as guaranteed
under the U.S. Constitution.
Arizona Sheriffs are standing united and steadfast in support of
``Secure and Safe'' borders in hopes of enhancing public safety for our
Arizona citizens and all Americans. A ``Secure and Safe'' border is one
that provides a genuine deterrent for those that cross into our country
illegally and for illicit gain.
Border security must never be a discretionary program, but a
mandate by our Federal leaders and policy makers. The quality of life
normally enjoyed by our citizens has been jeopardized by an unsecure
border that enables transnational criminals and their accomplices to
prey on our citizens.
Our focus is border security and is NOT to be confused with
immigration reform.
Sheriff Mark Dannels,
Cochise County.
Sheriff Leon Wilmot,
Yuma County.
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik,
Pima County.
Sheriff Tony Estrada,
Santa Cruz County.
Sheriff John Drum,
La Paz County.
Sheriff Preston ``PJ'' Allred,
Graham County.
Sheriff Larry Avila,
Greenlee County.
Sheriff Adam Shepherd,
Gila County.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio,
Maricopa County.
Sheriff Paul Babeu,
Pinal County.
Sheriff Scott Mascher,
Yavapai County.
Sheriff Kelly ``KC'' Clark,
Navajo County.
Sheriff Tom Sheahan,
Mohave County.
Sheriff Joseph Dedman,
Apache County.
Sheriff Bill Pribil,
Coconino County.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Sheriff Dannels.
The Chair now recognizes Mayor Ortega to testify.
STATEMENT OF DANNY ORTEGA, MAYOR, DOUGLAS, ARIZONA
Mr. Ortega. Thank you, Chairwoman McSally, Representative
Pearce. Thanks for joining us here today.
I am mayor of Douglas, Arizona, and also a businessman. My
family came to Douglas in the early 1920s and established a
shoe business there, and we have been running it ever since. We
have been very active in our community as a family, and myself
personally as well.
When you come to our town, I hope you see security through
our eyes. I think the residents of our community feel very safe
in Douglas, and we have many binational events with the sister
city of Agua Prieta. We recently had a binational concert that
drew hundreds of people where a band played on the Mexican side
and then followed by a band on the American side.
I understand the need for more security away from the ports
of entry, but we cannot let that get in the way of the legal
crossing of goods and people. As I have often heard, we need
high fences and wider gates. We also need to talk about making
it more efficient and easier to trade goods and services with
Mexico. Total U.S. goods traded with Mexico in 2013 equaled
$506.6 billion, and growing at close to 5 percent. Mexico is
the third-ranked commercial trading partner with the United
States and the second-largest market for U.S. export. Trade
with Mexico sustains 6 million jobs in the United States. Sales
to Mexico are larger than all U.S. exports to Brazil, Russia,
India, and China combined. Twenty-two U.S. States count Mexico
as their No. 1 or 2 trading partner in exports, and a top-5
market to 14 other States as well.
For every dollar Mexico makes from exporting to the United
States, it will turn 50 cents in U.S. products or services,
which helps our struggling economy. In May 2010, the United
States and Mexico signed the 21st Century Border Management
Joint Declaration recognizing the importance of developing a
modern and secure border infrastructure to make us both more
competitive in the global market.
Our ports are antiquated and we do not have the staffing to
support the growing trade and border crosses at our southern
ports of entry. We have struggled and are making do with what
limited resources we have, yet are unable to handle the
projected growth without more bodies and money at our ports.
Border towns have been ignored for many years even though
we provide access to one of the fastest-growing economies in
the world. China is starting to have better relations with
Mexico and is one of our biggest competitors for the burgeoning
economy. We need to view the Southern Border as an asset and
not a liability.
Locally in Douglas, our current port was built in 1936,
with minor upgrades done in 1993. We have outgrown the facility
and put the officers and people crossing at risk. If there is
ever a chemical spill at our current port, we do not have a
HAZMAT facility that could control such a spill. We ship many
chemicals to the mines in Mexico. We have trucks waiting for
extended periods of time, polluting the air with exhaust. We do
not have modern equipment to inspect trucks or cars because of
the lack of funding and space.
Douglas is considered a small port, yet over $1.5 billion
worth of merchandise crosses our port on a yearly basis, and
that number is growing at about 5 percent over the last 5
years. We have seen growth in industry of about 40 percent in
the past 5 years, and that growth is starting to show on the
American side. We currently applied for a new port of entry. We
think we need to take the commercial port out of our local
footprint. Congresswoman McSally has been very supportive of
that effort, and we thank you for that.
The cattle industry is also very large in our area. We
currently cross about 1,500 head of cattle a day in the peak
season of November to May. That is over $2 million a day in
cattle crossings to help support the American appetite for
beef. We need some investment in our ports of entry. The road
for the cattle pen is currently a dirt road that is not
maintained, and we are looking to work with some of our local
investors to see how we can improve that port.
We also need to streamline the process in which Mexican
citizens have the ability to obtain a B1 or B2 border crossing
card to come to the United States, shop, and visit our
communities on a legal basis. Sixty-five percent of our revenue
for the city of Douglas comes from sales tax, and 80 percent of
that money comes from the Mexican consumer. We need help in
just getting people across the border, back and forth.
I have spoken to many friends on the Mexican side. Many are
proud to be Mexican. They do not want to come and live here.
They just want to come here and shop, visit our country, and
then go back home.
There is a net loss in migration currently, according to
the Pew Institute. More people are actually--Mexicans are
leaving our country versus coming into our country, and we hope
we can just leave this meeting today with the thought that we
need easier access for people and goods and services to come
across. We really need investment in the infrastructure, our
ports of entry and our roads.
Thank you for listening to me today, and I will entertain
any questions later. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ortega follows:]
Prepared Statement of Danny Ortega
May 9, 2016
Good morning and thank you for taking time for visiting our border
community. I was born and raised in a border town, Douglas, AZ. my
family first arrived in Douglas in the early 1920's and have always
been active members of the community. When you come to our town I hope
you see security through our eyes, those of us who live and work every
day miles from Mexico. I understand the need for more security away
from the ports of entry but we cannot let that affect the legal
crossing of goods and people. As I have often heard we need high fences
and wider gates we also need to talk about making it more efficient and
easier to trade goods and services with Mexico. Total U.S. goods trade
with Mexico in 2013 equaled $506.6 billion and growing at close to 5%.
Mexico is the third-ranked commercial trading partner with the United
States and the second-largest market for U.S. exports. Trade with
Mexico sustains 6 million jobs in the United States. Sales to are
larger than all U.S. exports to Brazil, Russia, India, and China
combined. Twenty-two States count Mexico as their No. 1 or 2 export
market and a top 5 market to 14 other States. For every dollar Mexico
makes from exporting to the United States, it will in turn spend 50
cents on U.S. products or services, which helps our struggling economy.
In May of 2010 the United States and Mexico signed the 21st Century
Border Management Joint Declaration recognizing the importance of
developing a modern secure border infrastructure to make us both more
competitive in the global economy. Our ports are antiquated and we do
not have the staffing to support the growing trade and border crossers
at our southern ports of entry. We have struggled and are making due
with the limited resources yet we will not be able to handle the
projected growth without more bodies and money in our ports. Border
towns have been ignored for many years even though we provide access to
one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. China is starting to
have better relations with Mexico and is one of our biggest competitors
for the burgeoning economy. We need to view the Southern Border as an
asset and not a liability.
Locally in Douglas our current port was built in 1936 with minor
upgrades done in 1993. We have outgrown the facility and put the
officers and people crossing at risk. If there is ever a chemical spill
at our port we do not have a HAZMAT facility that could control such a
spill. We have trucks waiting for extended periods of time polluting
the air with their exhaust. We do not have the modern equipment to
inspect trucks because of a lack of funding and space. Douglas is
considered a small port of entry and yet over $1.5 billion worth of
merchandise crosses our port on a yearly basis and that number is
growing at about 5% over the last 5 years. We have seen growth in the
maquiladora industry of about 40% in the past year on the Mexican side
and are starting to experience similar growth in Douglas. These are
good jobs for our community.
The cattle industry is huge in the Mexican state of Sonora, in
Douglas alone we cross about 1,500 head of cattle a day in the peak
season of November through May. These cattle are headed for States in
the Midwest for fattening and eventually to be served in our
restaurants. We currently have a dirt road providing access to the
cattle pens which is not maintained and many times washes out in the
rainy season. This equates to over $2 million a day in cattle crossing,
supporting the American appetite for beef. We could use some investment
in the infrastructure for this valuable cattle crossing.
We also need help in streamlining the process in which Mexican
citizens have the ability to obtain a B1/B2 Border Crossing Card (B1
Visitor for Business and B2 for Visitor) visa to come to the United
States to shop and visit our communities. As a community in Arizona we
rely heavily on sales tax for city services. About 65% of our general
funds come from sales tax revenue and 80% of our sales come from
Mexico. We are very fluid communities both depending on each other for
survival, meaning efficient cross-border crossings is important. Our
ports of entry are not designed for south-bound inspections which have
been enforced within the last 6 years. We put not only the inspectors
at risk but also the citizens who have to wait in line for several
hours to travel what may be a mile. We have no efficient system in
place to see who is crossing south-bound. This truly discourages people
from travelling into both our communities affecting local commerce on
both sides of the border.
There is a net loss in net migration according to the Pew
institute. I truly believe that most Mexicans want to live in Mexico
but come to the United States to earn a decent living, as the Mexican
economy is growing we are seeing more Mexican citizens staying home. We
are seeing the drug traffic increase and the number of human smugglers
is decreasing. I hope that you leave here today realizing that the
border is an asset to our country and that it needs investment in many
areas, we have contributed much to the U.S. economy and feel that we
deserve some investment. We would like to have more of a voice in
decisions being made and we thank you for taking the time to coming
here and listening.
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Mayor Ortega.
For the record, I just want to make a comment, that the
second hearing we had in Washington, DC last month was really
focusing on the infrastructure and the staffing at our ports of
entry, which has been a critical issue for us in our community,
and really across the country, and identifying what we can do
to speed up the hiring of the CBP Officers, as well as
upgrading the infrastructure project. We very much have been
working closely on that and are dialing on that. Today we are
trying to focus on the in-between the ports and the security
issues there, but it is important to have the full picture of
our witnesses as we are sort-of framing the discussion. So I
just want to highlight that we are not ignoring that issue in
this particular hearing, but I just wanted to frame that,
especially for our audience.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Del Cueto to testify.
STATEMENT OF ART DEL CUETO, PRESIDENT, LOCAL 2544, NATIONAL
BORDER PATROL COUNCIL
Mr. Del Cueto. Chairwoman McSally, Congressman Pearce,
thank you for providing me the opportunity to testify on behalf
of the National Border Patrol Council and on behalf of Local
2544, the union here in Tucson, Arizona. The National Border
Patrol Council represents the interests of 16,500 line agents
at the Border Patrol.
My name is Art Del Cueto. I am a native of Douglas, Arizona
and have been with the Border Patrol since 2003.
One of the many areas in which the Border Patrol excels is
in keeping statistics. The Border Patrol can tell you in detail
how many agents we have. They can tell you the number of
overtime hours that are worked, the number of apprehensions, or
the hours of air support delivered by CBP air and marine
operations. It is really quite impressive. If I was a Member of
Congress from a non-border State and I sat through a CBP
briefing about how the border was secure, I would be inclined
to believe them.
The primary statistic that Commissioner Kerlikowske talks
about today in support of his belief that the border is secure
is the number of apprehensions, which is down. At the height of
illegal immigration in 2000, Border Patrol apprehended 1.6
million people. In the Tucson sector alone that year, we
arrested 616,000 illegal immigrants. To put this in
perspective, the entire population of Tucson in 2000 was
486,000. That was how massive this influx was.
Back in 2000, we were facing a wave of Mexican economic
migrants in search of employment. There was little organization
and most illegal immigrants simply loaded up a backpack of
supplies, jumped the border and headed north. This lack of
organization frankly made them relatively easy to catch if you
could deploy Border Patrol manpower.
Fast-forward to 2016 and the entire border is controlled by
the Mexican drug cartels. The drug cartels control the border
in the same way that most prisons are controlled by the
inmates. Nothing moves along this border without their
permission, and illegal aliens and narcotics are simply 2 lines
of business within that same organization.
Here in Arizona, we have the Sinaloa Cartel. The 63,000
individuals that we arrested last year in this sector paid the
cartel a considerable amount of money just to cross in our
area. Only based on the individuals we arrested in this sector,
the Sinaloa Cartel made millions from illegal alien smuggling.
If there is one point that I want to make in this entire
testimony it is that the money that the cartels earn from
illegal smuggling underwrites the exact same organizations that
are flooding our streets with narcotics. Money is flowing back
to the same organizations that are responsible for the violence
in Mexico which has murdered over 150,000 people. It is going
back to the same organizations that threaten the very viability
of Mexico as a sovereign democracy. This is the nature of the
threat that we are facing.
The last time we had comprehensive immigration reform in
this country was in 1986 with the passage of the Immigration
Reform and Control Act. This legislation gave amnesty to any
illegal immigrants who had arrived before 1982, and it is
responsible for the tidal wave of illegal immigrants that we
saw in the '90s.
When the Senate was considering immigration reform 3 years
ago, many warned about what had happened after 1986. The
administration, in particular former Arizona Governor Janet
Napolitano who was then Secretary of Homeland Security,
promised the American people that it would be different this
time because the border was secure. If a wave of illegal
immigrants came, Border Patrol would handle it. It was a
terrific talking point. Too bad it was completely untrue and
ignored the emergence of the Mexican drug cartels.
Although immigration reform is a distant memory, the
administration is painted into a corner now. If the border is
secure, how do you ask Congress for more manpower? If the
border is secure, how do you ask for money for additional air
support, for technology, and for more fencing?
For the administration, the answer is real simple: You
don't. You don't talk about the Mexican drug cartels. You talk
about how apprehensions are down and how well things are going.
If we are going to get serious and solve this problem, we first
have to be honest and admit that a problem does exist.
If you are serious about confronting the drug cartels,
there are some concrete steps that need to be taken.
First, manpower. The National Border Patrol Council
believes the Border Patrol is at least 5,000 agents below where
we need to be to be effectively controlling the border.
More agents in the field. The Border Patrol is an extremely
top-heavy organization, with multiple layers of management that
are completely removed from the field. If the Border Patrol has
the same supervisory staffing ratio that Sheriff Dannels'
department has, we could return close to 2,000 agents back to
the field.
More effective deployment. Currently, almost all of our
resources are clustered too close to the border. We are
effectively playing goal line defense every single day. If an
illegal immigrant or drug smuggler gets more than 10 miles
north of the border, they will likely not be caught. We need to
have a defense-in-depth with multiple layers in order to be
effective. We also need to make rational decisions on the use
of forward operating bases. Forward operating bases had a time
and place years ago but are an incredibly inefficient use of
resources today.
End our catch-and-release program. One of the main drivers
of illegal immigration is our own immigration policy. For
example, under the current policy, if a Border Patrol Agent
does not physically see an illegal immigrant cross the border
and the illegal immigrant claims they have been here since
2014, we have been ordered to process them and let them go. In
many instances, we will be letting them go without even issuing
a Notice to Appear. This is a policy that is senseless and is
literally driving illegal immigration to our front door.
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to
testify, and I am happy to answer any questions that you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Del Cueto follows:]
Prepared Statement of Art Del Cueto
May 9, 2016
Chairwoman McSally and Ranking Member Vela, thank you for providing
me the opportunity to testify on behalf of the National Border Patrol
Council (NBPC).
The NBPC represents the interests of 16,500 Line Agents at the
Border Patrol and my name is Art Del Cueto. I am a native of Douglas,
Arizona and have been with the Border Patrol since 2003.
current situation at the border
One of the many areas in which the Border Patrol excels is keeping
statistics. Border Patrol can tell you in detail how many agents we
have, the number of overtime hours worked, the number of apprehensions,
or hours of air support delivered by CBP air and marine operations.
It's really quite impressive. If I was a Member of Congress from a non-
border State and I sat through a CBP briefing about how the border was
secure I would be inclined to believe them.
The primary statistic that Commissioner Kerlikowske talks about
today, in support of his assertion that the border is secure, is the
number of apprehensions, which is down. At the height of illegal
immigration in 2000, Border Patrol apprehended 1.6 million people. In
the Tucson sector alone that year, we arrested 616,000 illegal
immigrants. To put this in perspective, the entire population of Tucson
in 2000 was 486,000. That was how massive the influx was.
Back in 2000, we were facing a wave of Mexican economic migrants in
search of employment. There was little organization and most illegal
immigrants simply loaded up a backpack of supplies, jumped the border
and headed north. This lack of organization frankly made them
relatively easy to catch if you could deploy Border Patrol manpower.
Fast forward to 2016 and the entire border is controlled by Mexican
drug cartels. The drug cartels control the border in the same way that
most prisons are controlled by the inmates. Nothing moves along this
border without their permission and illegal aliens and narcotics are
simply 2 lines of business within the same organization.
Here in Arizona, we have the Sinaloa Cartel. The 63,000 individuals
we arrested last year in this sector paid the cartel a considerable
amount of money to cross. Only based on the individuals we arrested in
this sector, the Sinaloa Cartel made millions from illegal alien
smuggling.
If there is one point that I want to make in this entire testimony
it is that the money that the cartels earn from illegal alien smuggling
underwrites the same organizations that are flooding our streets with
narcotics. Money is flowing back to the same organizations that are
responsible for the violence in Mexico which has murdered over 150,000
people. It is going back to the same organizations that threaten the
very viability of Mexico as a sovereign democracy. This is the nature
of the threat we are facing.
failure to admit there is a problem
The last time we had comprehensive immigration reform in this
country was 1986 with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control
Act. This legislation gave amnesty to any illegal immigrant who had
arrived before 1982 and is responsible for the tidal wave of illegal
immigrants we saw in the 1990s.
When the Senate was considering immigration reform 3 years ago,
many warned about what happened after 1986. The administration, in
particular, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano who was then
Secretary of Homeland Security, promised the American people that it
would be different this time because the border was secure. If a wave
of illegal immigrants came Border Patrol would handle it. It was a
terrific talking point. Too bad it was completely untrue and ignored
the emergence of the Mexican drug cartels.
Although immigration reform is a distant memory, the administration
is painted into a corner. If the border is secure, how do you ask
Congress for more manpower? If the border is secure, how do you ask for
money for additional air support, technology, and fencing?
For the administration, the answer is that you don't. You do not
talk about the Mexican drug cartels. You talk about how apprehensions
are down and how well things are going. If we are going to get serious
and solve this problem we first have to have the honesty to admit that
a problem exists.
solutions
If you are serious about confronting the Mexican drug cartels there
are some concrete steps that can be taken:
More manpower.--The NBPC believes the Border Patrol is at least
5,000 agents below where we need to be to effectively control
the border.
More agents in the field.--Border Patrol is an extremely top-heavy
organization with multiple layers of management that are
completely removed from the field. If the Border Patrol has the
same supervisory staffing ratio that Sheriff Dannels'
department has, we could return another 2,000 line agents to
the field.
More effective deployment.--Currently almost all of our resources
are clustered too close to the border. We are effectively
playing goal line defense every single day and if an illegal
immigrant or drug smuggler gets more than 10 miles north of the
border they will likely not be caught. We need to have a
defense-in-depth with multiple layers in order to be effective.
We also need to make rational decisions on the use of Forward
Operating Bases (FOB). FOBs had a time and place years ago but
are an incredibly inefficient use of resources today.
End our catch-and-release policy--One of the main drivers of
illegal immigration is our own immigration policy. For example,
under current policy, if a Border Patrol Agent does not
physically see an illegal immigrant cross the border and the
illegal immigrant claims they have been here since 2014, we
have been ordered to process them and let them go. In many
instances, we will let them go without even issuing a Notice to
Appear. This is policy is senseless and is literally driving
illegal immigration to our front door.
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify and I
am happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Mr. Del Cueto.
I now recognize myself for some opening questions, and then
I will provide opportunities for Mr. Pearce, and then we will
probably have a couple of rounds here.
First I want to ask really the whole panel a 2-part
question. The first one is, what do you think is the biggest
misperception in Washington, DC on what is really going on in
the border? The second part of that is in a little over 8
months we are going to have a new Commander-in-Chief. We are
going to have a new Secretary of Homeland Security. If you were
asked--you are the new Secretary or you were asked by the new
Secretary what is it that we need to do in order to secure the
border, you were resource-unconstrained, what would your answer
be to that question?
I will start with Sheriff Dannels.
Sheriff Dannels. Thank you. The first thing is take off the
myth. Mr. Del Cueto states it clearly. You have to identify
there is a problem, and that has been a myth through media,
through different chains, different avenues. But the bottom
line is they need to identify there is a problem so you can fix
the problem, and that the border is not secure. This plan needs
redefinition, like I said in my brief, in my verbal statement
today. We have to identify that.
No. 2 is you have all layers of Government working
together, starting at the local. Community problems have been
addressed for years and years, have been successfully addressed
in communities first, not in Washington, DC. You have to start
with your local law enforcement, your citizens that live it and
breathe it, along with our State partners, and then our Federal
partners. That is why we take the oath of office. That is why
we are leaders, to work together in partnership.
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Sheriff Dannels.
Mayor Ortega.
Mr. Ortega. I guess I have a little different perspective.
I think our border communities are very safe on both sides of
the border. The sister cities Agua Prieta and Douglas are very
safe communities, and there is a lot of trade that goes back
and forth between our communities.
Unfortunately, I disagree with Mr. Del Cueto. I think, in
talking to some of the outlying areas, they want more agents
closer to the border to try to stop the people illegally coming
across, primarily drugs at this time. But as far as our
community goes, our community is safe, but I think the outlying
areas are not, and I think they would like to see more agents
closer to the border.
I wish there were some incentives to have the Border Patrol
actually live within our communities. It seems as though we
don't have agents living within our communities, getting to
know who we are as a community, who the good people and who the
bad people are. I think that would ease a lot of the relations
between the Border Patrol and the communities that they serve.
Ms. McSally. Okay. Thanks, Mayor Ortega.
Mr. Del Cueto.
Mr. Del Cueto. I would outline what I have stated previous.
The border is not secure. There are many communities within
Mexico where the drug cartels and the people who work for these
cartels run rampant. Just in the sister city of Douglas, I
believe a year ago they declared some kind of law where they
had to close down the streets at 10:00 p.m. because people were
getting randomly murdered. I think we need to pay attention to
the boots on the ground and get away from this dog-and-pony
show that the District of Columbia brings down here to the
border and explains that everything is nice and happy. It is
not. It is a war zone out there.
In the Tucson sector alone, I believe within these last 2
weeks we have had 3 shootings already. It is not secure. There
are individuals that, once they get past the agents that are
near the border, they pretty much are home free and it is
harder for us to find them and detect them.
Thank you.
Ms. McSally. Great. Thank you.
So, I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but do
all of you agree that--and again, I think this is the second-
order consequences of the strategy over the years, right? It
has been populated areas first. Again, we saw in California
addressing it and then pushing the activity into Arizona, and
then within Arizona addressing trying to deal with the urban
areas first, pushing the illegal activities into the rural
areas.
So the consequence of that is the rural areas is where the
high propensity of this, especially cartel activity, is
happening, which is increasing danger and security for those
who are living out in the rural areas. Is that a fair statement
to make that the whole panel agrees upon?
Sheriff Dannels. I would agree.
If I could say something, Mayor Ortega, when he speaks
about the security of his city, he is a direct product of that
plan from the '90s, and he is exactly right. Douglas is safer
than it ever has been, but that illegal activity, as you are
describing, is in Cochise County in the rural parts, and those
folks who live out there don't deserve that.
Ms. McSally. Do you agree?
Mr. Ortega. Yes, I do.
Mr. Del Cueto. Yes.
Ms. McSally. Okay, thank you. So given that now we are
dealing with a public safety issue to these rural communities
that are often miles and miles away from another individual,
out there kind-of on their own dealing with this cartel
activity, what do we do to change that? We have differences of
opinion on at the border/away from the border. We can continue
to talk about that. But what about the combination of barriers,
technology, air assets, manpower? Does anybody have a comment
on the strategy as it relates to the mix of these types of
tools and where there needs to be a change, a new strategy,
more resources related to the types of tools that are not just
the number of agents and where the agents are but the larger
strategy? I just want to hear from everybody on that.
Sheriff Dannels. I can start with that. You know, there was
a bill that was attempted to be passed several years ago. The
Gang of Eight wanted to add 20,000 more agents, and I know the
Southwest Border Sheriffs, the Arizona Sheriffs Association, we
took a large stand on that because there was no strategic plan
to place those 20,000 agents. Show me a business that can hire
20,000 more employees and not have a plan.
I think we need to take an assessment of the current plan,
put that forward. As you said, 5,000 more agents, whatever the
number is, but strategically know what you are going to do with
those agents, and bring that plan back to the border where you
know the problem is beginning, not downtown Phoenix but at the
border, and then take it backwards from there.
The other thing is, and I think it is something that needs
to be said, is what does get through that border is not just
Cochise County's problem. It is America's problem. The heroin
is coming through, as we know. I have testified on that before.
The methamphetamine, the marijuana that goes into these
communities throughout the United States is an epidemic. There
is a cultural mindset that needs to be educated, that needs
prevention. The fact is that if we don't change our social
ways, our cultural ways, because the United States folks here
have a healthy appetite for those drugs, if we didn't have that
appetite, we wouldn't have the demand and they wouldn't be able
to ship it across. We need to take a real hard look at that and
take a comprehensive look at how we are doing business, and
listen to the line agents. They know.
I teach at one of the universities. I hear in my classes
the frustration that they see it, they live it, they breathe it
too. They have to have a voice at this table beside somebody
who doesn't work the border, is disconnected. We have to have
that voice there.
Then you have the economic side, like the mayor is
addressing today. I took an oath for public safety, not for
economics. That is my oath of office is to protect my citizens.
As he is looking for legal trade, legal immigration, I have no
issue with it. It is the illegal aspect I am after.
Ms. McSally. Mayor Ortega.
Mr. Ortega. I also think we need some investment in not
only the infrastructure of our ports but the technology within
our ports. As you have seen, our areas are very rugged. It
would be hard to get a vehicle in there, even with roads. I
have heard from some ranchers that when you build a road, you
build a road also for illegal drug traffic to come across. I
think we need to be careful with that one.
But there is technology out there, whether it is drones or
that type of equipment, to survey the outlying areas, but also
the increased technology at our ports of entry. I think we are
going to start seeing more drug trade crossing through our
ports unless we invest in some infrastructure to check not only
the trucks but the passenger vehicles as well.
Ms. McSally. Thanks.
Mr. Del Cueto.
Mr. Del Cueto. One of the big things we need to focus on is
these policies. We need to change and start enforcing some of
these policies that we have on the books. Currently, like other
people have noted, the illegal immigrants that enter in
Arizona, the numbers have gone down. But like I stated earlier,
those numbers have gone down because the drug cartels are the
ones that are running everything on the south side.
The Tucson sector currently still sits well over 50 percent
of all the drug seizures in the entire country. That is an
outstanding number. We need to take care of that.
What I mean by some of these policies is, first of all, the
catch-and-release program that has been so much talked about.
There is no disincentive for Central Americans currently to
enter the United States. Currently we can have a group, a
family--and I am going to give you an example. You can have a
family of people from Central America that come. They turn
themselves in, which is what is happening in Texas. The numbers
in Texas are going up because they are turning themselves in.
We are not catching these individuals.
So we have these Central Americans who are turning
themselves in. They come to the Border Patrol, we take them
into our facilities. We do the proper checks to see if they
have any prior criminal history within the United States, but
we are not aware of any history that they might have in Central
America. So what happens with these individuals is they are
turned over to ICE, and ICE then releases them into our
communities. They are going to all different parts of the
United States. They tell them that they have to come back and
report to an immigration office. These people are never
reporting back to the immigration office.
So what we have done with these policies is we have
facilitated an open door for these Central Americans, and we
have no idea what crimes they have committed in their country.
We have no idea if they can be rapists, murderers, ax
murderers. We just don't know who these people are, and we have
facilitated a way for them to remain in this country. They have
ties with who knows who back in Central America.
That is where we need to start, with these policies that
are on the books that are being pushed. They need to stop. We
don't know how many people they have released. I think that is
a number that should be asked of ICE. We don't know how many of
these Central Americans with possible criminal backgrounds in
their own country that we have no idea where they are at.
Ms. McSally. Okay, thanks.
Back to those who are trying to evade, the cartels that are
bringing drugs across the border, I want to hear your comments
on, do we need additional barriers, additional technology or
assets? You have mentioned the agents, but what else do you
think would address those who are trying to evade you?
Mr. Del Cueto. You hear so much talk publicly about this
wall, and some people say the wall works, some people say that
the wall doesn't work. Well, it is not just the wall that we
need. Obviously, a wall is a huge deterrent. We would see how
it was back in the mid-'90s in the Douglas area alone, where it
was easier to cross the border because there was less of a wall
there, less of a barrier. The barrier works.
We need, obviously, more agents on the ground. We need
agents to be able to move back and forth, not just stay on the
border, on the line itself.
We do need more technology.
We need more vehicles. The vehicles get treated really
rough at times, but it is because that is just the nature of
the job. We definitely need more vehicles.
There is just a lot of different things that we would need,
vehicles, night vision goggles, sensors. It is a mass amount
that we need out there.
Ms. McSally. Okay, great. Thank you.
Mr. Pearce.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of your
testimony.
Mr. Del Cueto, I really appreciate the straightforwardness.
That is something that I think we in Washington hunger for. But
when you talk to those people up the chains of command,
frankly, it gets muddled, and outright untruths are told. So
having you sit here and tell the truth as you see it from the
ground level is extremely valuable.
I am going to come back with some hardball questions in a
minute for you, but they are not directed at you. It is the
decisions made somewhere above you and, frankly, I can't get
answers. So I will come back, but don't take them personally
because I really do appreciate that you are saying things that
we all believe, that the cartels own the border. That is very
powerful for someone inside an agency to say that, the agency
that is charged with it.
Mr. Ortega, I want to do a little housekeeping on you. You
were saying that you would disagree with the other two, that
the border is secure and that you feel safe. Now, when the
Sheriff said, well, the city is safe but it is not in the rural
areas, you are shaking your head.
The headshakes don't show up in the transcript, frankly. So
in Washington, they are going to quote you, ``No, this man says
it is okay.'' So could you confirm just verbally that you would
agree that the rural areas are struggling for feeling safe
while your area feels okay as it is?
Mr. Del Cueto. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. All right. So we got you on the record.
Because people will take your one sentence and that will be the
only thing they will extract out of this entire hearing. So
again, I appreciate the recognition.
Now, Mr. Del Cueto, you say that you would use 5,000 more
people. I was there--and keep in mind that we had to fight the
Bush administration equally as hard as this one. It is not a
Republican/Democrat issue. It is Washington saying everything
is okay and we are going to do it this way, and the people out
in the field are going to say they are lying or cheating or
stealing or something.
So I watched as we put 10,000 more agents--we doubled the
patrol, from 10,000-something, 12,000, up to about 23,000. Yet,
the general consensus of people who live on the Mexico side of
the border said it didn't change things a bit.
Tell me how 5,000 people would solve that or why that
10,000 didn't, if you can. Again, I know this should be coming
from way high up, but they just refuse to answer the question,
frankly, in the hearings up there.
Mr. Del Cueto. So, it is a 2-part question. I will first
start with the mass amounts of hirings that we did, with the
extra 10,000 that you mentioned. A lot of this issue is the
Border Patrol grew but other agencies didn't grow. So what
happened many times is these same agents that we hired within
the Patrol were farmed out to other agencies. There were agents
farmed out to prosecutions within the States. There were also
agents that were farmed out to the ports of entry. Some of our
canines were sent to the ports of entry. So a lot of the new
agents that came in were farmed out to other agencies, and at
the same time they developed other programs. So I believe that
is where the top-heaviness comes in. They put too many agents
in other programs that aren't really line agents.
So when we ask for these additional 5,000 agents, that is
why it is a mixture of the policies and the internal business
within the Border Patrol where they need to know how to deploy
these agents and do away with some of these programs and maybe
some of these top-heavy agency programs that we do have.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. Now, from your testimony--and you don't
have to answer the next question. Feel free to just say, hey, I
am not touching that. But from your testimony, it seems that
you were critical of the amnesty program back under Reagan
because we did not do anything to secure the border. So my
question is--and keep in mind that Washington, from our side of
the table, only talks big issues. They don't ever get down and
really discuss what we are discussing here today.
So amnesty versus not amnesty. Is amnesty productive, or is
it simply an encouragement of other people, that if I get there
illegally, they will fix it? You don't have to answer if you
don't want to.
Mr. Del Cueto. To help you out, you did tell me I didn't
have to answer it, but unfortunately I am going to go ahead and
answer it.
Mr. Pearce. Nice.
Mr. Del Cueto. It does not help. I lived in Douglas, like I
said before, and I saw many people that would cross into
Douglas that never lived here, that never worked here, and they
would pay different business owners not just in Douglas I would
say, but business owners within the United States so they can
get paperwork stating that they had been here, and then those
individuals, a lot of them were able to obtain amnesty. Some of
the individuals that were actually here and fit in the mold for
the amnesty program never did because they couldn't get the
$5,000 to whoever employed them at that point to give them
documentation.
Mr. Pearce. So in your estimation, the great resource from
the cartels came from drug smuggling. Now it sounds like human
smuggling probably eclipses that and drugs are a secondary
revenue producer. What is your opinion of that?
Mr. Del Cueto. Well, I think it is both. Like I said,
through intel that we acquire when we catch different
individuals in these areas, the Border Patrol has received
information and we know that a lot of these individuals, they
run the drug smuggling and the people smuggling.
So, yes, the drugs are the ones that are making most of the
money.
Mr. Pearce. The next question is not meant to trick you. I
will come over to you, Sheriff. But it is intended instead, I
think, to reflect the culture that ties the hands of our Border
Patrol Agents. I have sat out there on the border in the night.
I think that our agents could and would do the deal, but I
think people above them give them policies like the catch-and-
release policy. So again, these are not very easy questions.
You can dodge it if you want to.
I read somewhere that there are approximately 1,300 Border
Patrol Agents in Cochise County, more or less?
Sheriff Dannels. That is correct.
Mr. Pearce. That is correct.
Sheriff Dannels. We have 1,300 Border Patrol Agents----
Mr. Pearce. I didn't get to my question yet. You were going
to take the easy road. I am not going to let you. Excuse me.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. If you had 1,300 people under your command,
could you secure the border there in Cochise County?
Sheriff Dannels. Yes.
Mr. Pearce. All right. So just to repeat what we did,
because you are getting counseled there--that's good. It is
trying to protect us all. I will probably need counsel at this
stage myself.
But what I ask is if he could secure the border with 1,300
people, and he says yes. Now, I tend to agree that if--and it
is not your people. Again, it is the process and it is the
system. If you had your 1,300 people and we turned you loose
and said secure the border, I think you could. I don't know
that the process, I don't know that the system is ever going to
let you do it.
So many times I say the only solution is to take the
resources and let them work for local elected law officials.
Right now, local citizens have no recourse at all. They get
frustrated. They get angry. They speak to people like us. They
get us stirred up. We come out and we make you all angry, and
it is because nobody is accountable.
I sincerely believe because, again, I have been on the
border with the agents out there with their boots on the
ground, and I know the heart they have to do it, and they talk
the same way that you talk here today. So I have a great
appreciation and a great love I have for those agents is
dispelled because the system is plain keeping it from working.
So always I just say if a local sheriff had the responsibility
and he had your resources, he could do it, and if he didn't,
they could un-elect him. But right now, the system cannot
respond. So somewhere a solution has to reach that level.
A couple more questions on process, Mr. Del Cueto. So I
have heard--I don't know if it is just scuttlebutt or
whatever--that if people are headed south, if the footprints
are headed south, somebody that has created a crime, they just
don't pursue them because they are headed south and they are
probably going to get there before we get them. That is
something we hear a lot in New Mexico. Maybe it is true, maybe
it is not. Maybe it is just those guys over in El Paso.
Mr. Del Cueto. I can't testify to that one. I can tell you
that here, I myself work the field and I have followed
footprints all the way south. Some of the issues that we have
is we don't know how many are in the footprint. So what you do
is you chase a group, whether it be headed north or be headed
south, and these individuals walk in a line. So if you can
count 5 footprints, you would say 5 to 10 people.
I remember chasing a group where I counted 15 footprints,
and I called back and I said we have 20-plus. We continued
chasing this group, and when we finally apprehended it, it was
a group of 60 people. So when you are saying 20 plus 60, that
is a big difference between 20-plus. Most people say 20-plus
and it is 23, 24 people. In this instance it was 60
individuals, and that is a huge deal.
To touch back on having more agents and Mr. Dannels said
that he could control it with 1,300 agents, a lot of the thing
is some of these agents are put in VCO positions, so they need
to take care of the vehicles. A lot of these agents are put in
processing; they need to process. We have different agents that
are detailed to different positions.
I will state down in Cochise County there are agents that,
before we used to work on different areas of the border--I
understand the ranchers' concerns. I understand that there are
ranchers who need more agents in their area. So what that has
caused, it has caused a lot of the agents to not work certain
areas, and you have some agents bunched up near the ranchers.
So now what has happened is you have left other areas more
porous.
It was just recently in the news, in Cochise County alone 2
vehicles came through. We never apprehended those vehicles. We
don't know what was in those vehicles. We don't know where
those vehicles are. At that point it was limited resources that
were available in that area. The majority of these agents were
stationed over near the ranchers.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. I just have 1 follow-up to that and I
will put you back. If you go to a second round, I will
obviously have a couple more questions here.
So the idea has also been pitched out in New Mexico and
local sheriffs have said it is true, I don't know that it is
true, but the idea that Border Patrol just doesn't seek out or
prosecute or hold people with less than a certain amount of
drugs, and that number usually varies somewhere between 120 and
150 pounds, maybe more. Is that the thing that you find in your
directives, or is that something you don't want to comment on?
Again, feel free not to comment. I am not trying to do anything
to your career.
Mr. Del Cueto. Well, I have been doing this for quite some
time, so I think my career and moving up in the Border Patrol
is pretty much shot already.
Mr. Pearce. It sounds like we both started the same.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Del Cueto. I appreciate you putting the nail in the
coffin on this one.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. No sweat.
Mr. Del Cueto. There is many times when we do arrest
individuals, and we do call the prosecutor, and the prosecutor
says it fails to meet prosecution guidelines. I will say that.
Mr. Pearce. All right.
Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. I appreciate this.
This is very good information, and I yield back.
Ms. McSally. Great, thanks.
Okay, we are going to do another round here.
Sheriff Dannels, it was in your written testimony. I want
to allow you an opportunity to elaborate on the use of
spotters; and, actually, Mr. Del Cueto as well. This is
something we have heard from the community, from multiple law
enforcement agencies, that the cartels are using spotters on
hilltops with often better communications than our guys have,
encrypted, solar panels, and sometimes they are up there for 30
days at a time. If we can get them, it is very difficult to
prosecute them because you can't connect them to a specific
drug load, and so they are often just processed as somebody who
is just here illegally.
This was brought to our attention. We actually introduced a
bill related to spotter activity, simply making it a Federal
crime to be a spotter, and aiding and abetting cartel
operations in this way. So I just want to highlight your
thoughts, and also Mr. Del Cueto, on the trends that you have
seen related to spotters.
Sheriff Dannels. Representative McSally, you are exactly
right. When it comes to catching them, that is the biggest
obstacle. Our helicopter sees them up on the top of the
mountains. It is very difficult to see them. When you do see
them, just catch them is the other half of it. They run off and
it is very, very hard to catch them. I have one rancher down
there that actually has a camera that looks onto the Mexico
side. It is a border ranch. There is a house on top of the
mountain, and that scouter watches everything on that Southwest
Border in that area and directs that traffic around. We watch
them all the time with that camera.
But we know they are in Cochise. Our ranch patrol deputies
ride their horses, ride right up on them, and they run, and we
get them. It is tough, very tough. I will say this, though, as
a solution-based thought, that our new border team that was put
together, in the first 2 years they had 400 apprehensions. This
is a team of about 4 Border Patrol Agents and about 4 deputies
that work part-time that have been tremendous in their efforts
to get these smugglers, to get these scouts off these
mountains, out of these ranchlands. So, 400. About half of that
was just pure illegals that were turned over to Border Patrol.
The other half were smugglers, burglar suspects, had broke into
homes, you name it. We have 100 percent prosecution at the
State level.
One thing that we did here a few months ago, the county
attorney and I, we sat down with Arizona's attorney general and
said you have to step up the game here, you have to help us. I
mean, our juvenile prosecutions are financially hurting us,
straining us. The answer was I can't, there are no teeth in the
law on the Federal side, which obviously puts the burden back
onto local, where there is no financial support for that.
But it is the right thing to do. In the last few months I
believe it has been, we have had 51 go through my jail,
juvenile backpackers. That is sad, it is very sad, but it is
real in our county. I know Yuma County, Pima, Santa Cruz, they
are dealing with the same thing I am. That is where the local
government has to be supported.
Or the other thing we were talking about with the Arizona
attorney was you have to hire more prosecutors. I mean, you
can't put just the enforcement component, support that and not
the jails, the defense, the prosecution. It all has to be a
balanced approach in the criminal justice system, and then the
education and prevention side of it too.
Ms. McSally. Thank you.
Mr. Del Cueto.
Mr. Del Cueto. Can you repeat the question, please?
Ms. McSally. Yes, sure, related to scouts and spotters, are
you seeing any trends?
Mr. Del Cueto. Yes. Working this job since 2003, I would
like to use examples. I am going to give you an example.
Approximately 3 years ago we apprehended a few individuals, and
they had 1,600 pounds of marijuana. When we apprehended these
individuals, they were about 20 miles into the United States.
We debriefed, we spoke to them, and they did admit that there
was close to 15 different spotters along that area. So in a 20-
mile span, there were 15 different spotters. I think 1 spotter
is too many. Fifteen spotters? That is just ridiculous.
These spotters, they do stay up there for months at a time.
They have different individuals both from the Mexican side and
citizens of this country that go up these hills, and they
provide them with food, they provide them with drugs, and we
have information that at times they even provide them with
women who go up there and take care of them while they are
waiting for the drugs to come through. That is just amazing,
and I think it is unacceptable as a Border Patrol Agent. It is
unacceptable as a union leader for the agents that I represent,
and frankly it should be unacceptable by any citizen of this
country.
Ms. McSally. Are you guys told not to go when you know they
are up there, not to go up there and get them? Or when you get
them, your hands are tied as to what to do with them?
Mr. Del Cueto. It is just hard to determine where they are
at. That is the problem. It is hard to determine exactly where
they are at. Many times when we go to these areas, by the time
we hump up the hill, they hear us coming and they are humping
down the other side. So it is cat and mouse every day.
Ms. McSally. It sounds like a little air support may be
helpful for situational awareness during operations like that.
Mr. Del Cueto. That would be nice. We understand it is
limited on air support in certain areas also. We need a lot of
help out there.
Ms. McSally. Thanks.
I want to get everybody's opinions on interior checkpoints.
I know there are going to be differences of opinion within this
panel and with the next panel, but I want to give everybody the
opportunity to share their perspectives on how those impact the
security operations or any other impacts related to your roles.
Sheriff Dannels.
Sheriff Dannels. Well, it has become a cultural norm in our
county to have to go through a checkpoint and claim your
citizenship as an American, and I hear that all the time from
the citizens, how that is. Though it is real to us, it may not
be real to downtown Maricopa County or other parts of this
country. It is real to us.
The other thing to a local sheriff that is important is the
fact that every time you establish an international port away
from the border--I will give you an example, the Wet Stone
area, which is north of Sierra Vista. That is the international
port of Wet Stone. What happens is the smugglers know when the
checkpoint is open based on scouting reports. When it is open,
they drop their smuggling product, whether it be humans or
dope, and they go around the checkpoint into these communities,
and guess who gets called on? We do. Again, another burden on
us, and it is tough for us. We work closely with the Border
Patrol trying to get out there. We have air support that helps
us. But again, it is tough, challenging.
The biggest complaint I hear is that since the border is
not secure in the rural parts, and then we have secondary
checkpoints, it is kind of counterproductive. The primary focus
should be on the border. Once that is secured to a point where
the stakeholders are satisfied--I don't know if it will ever be
perfect. I have never seen perfect on our border. I don't know
if it ever will be. But then we can work on secondary.
So it is a big challenge, a lot of complaints on it, to be
honest with you.
Ms. McSally. Mayor Ortega.
Mr. Ortega. I agree with Sheriff Dannels. First, they are
not open 24/7. If it is raining or if sometimes the weather is
inclement, they close the checkpoints. But it does put a burden
on the communities surrounding the checkpoints. So I agree with
Sheriff Dannels, and I would rather see the agents closer to
the border and stopping the problems at the border, versus 25
or 40 miles out.
Ms. McSally. Mr. Del Cueto.
Mr. Del Cueto. If members of this panel and different
members of law enforcement have said before that they do not
believe that the border will ever be secure, and you bring all
the agents down to the border, if this border is never going to
be secure, what do you do with the people who do go around us?
That is why these checkpoints are important. You want to
sacrifice having a checkpoint in these communities, send all
the agents to the border. What happens if something gets
through us? What happens when they go through these roads,
through these main roads down on 90, on the main roads over
here off of Wilcox and the Tombstone area, Nogales? They serve
a purpose. They serve a good purpose. They help derail. They
help deter some of the traffic that comes through. There was a
time when we would see an astronomical amount of vehicles up on
I-10 headed towards Phoenix. They serve a purpose.
Ms. McSally. I would like to follow up on that, and then I
will hand it over to Mr. Pearce. My understanding from talking
to individuals within Border Patrol and the community, this
defense-in-depth, which includes the interior checkpoints in
both of our districts, because you have them in New Mexico as
well, was based originally on the strategy of pushing the
activity into the rural areas, like we talked about, but then
not having enough resources to be able to really intercept it
very quickly. With limited resources, the best way to address
that is to figure out how to funnel the illegal activity into a
place that we can monitor and intercept at a time and place of
our choosing. That is the way the strategy has been described
to me.
I may not be parroting it back perfectly, but I have heard
again from individuals from leadership positions in CBP that
they feel they have seconds to minutes to intercept activity in
urban areas, and they say hours to days to intercept it in
rural areas. So therefore this defense-in-depth strategy, which
includes the interior checkpoints, what was described to me is
that the primary role of the interior checkpoints is to make
the cartels go around them. I mean, the low-level criminals and
others are going to get the Darwin award by coming through a
known law enforcement checkpoint with drugs, which I still
don't totally understand. But those who are actually the
serious traffickers are going to go around, which then again
pushes the activity into maybe more difficult terrain, which
might be easier for you all to corner them.
The challenge with all that that we will hear--we have
heard from some of this panel, and we will hear from the second
panel. I know we won't have the interaction, but that all might
sound reasonable if we didn't have people living in those areas
between where they cross and where you can eventually intercept
them, 50 or 100 miles inland. So it is that public safety
threat to those that are living in those areas that are then
having the traffic funneled into them which is the main point
of feedback that I am getting really across the board.
So I guess I hear what you are saying, that if you don't
have enough resources, that maybe you do need to fall back and
have--sorry to use the football analogy you all hate, but
everybody is playing safety instead of being at the line of
scrimmage. But if you had the resources that you needed, if we
were using intelligence-driven operations, if we were detecting
the cartel activity and knowing their lines of activity, and
being nimble, because as soon as you squeeze them they move
somewhere else, they become much more nimble than we are
generally because we are more bureaucratic.
So if you had all those resources and you had the ability,
the vehicles, the ATVs, the horses, the air assets to be able
to quickly intercept them right at the border, would you then
agree--I am not trying to get you to agree, but I am trying to
find areas of common ground. If we had the resources, would you
agree that it is better to intercept them at the border with
maybe a couple of safeties, as opposed to our fallback, where
we are right now, which is based on a lack of resources? Can
you understand the concerns that we have as law enforcement in
the community that the public safety challenge happens because
of all that space is ceded, and that is what creates the
threats to individuals in our community, if we are focused on
intercepting so far inland?
Mr. Del Cueto. I agree with what you say, but I think one
of the big things that you did say is you still need the safety
to catch that pass, and that is the big deal.
Ms. McSally. A couple of them. I think you have 2 on a
team, right?
Mr. Del Cueto. You still need those.
Ms. McSally. Right.
Mr. Del Cueto. I mean, honestly, that is what you still
need.
Ms. McSally. Okay. Would you consider the checkpoints to be
those if we had the resources to intercept quickly and have you
guys be able to nimbly intercept at the border? Would you still
think we would need these interior checkpoints?
Mr. Del Cueto. Yes, because things are still going to get
through, and these checkpoints help with a lot of that. We have
noticed that with the checkpoints there, our apprehensions have
helped considerably in those areas. Yes, they move to more
rural areas, but the agents are out there to intercept those
spots. I mean, pretty much what we are saying is if we get
enough people at the border, then we don't need the
checkpoints. But we are still going to have things that go
through. So if you were to tell me get rid of some of these
checkpoints, first and foremost, it is not up to me to get rid
of. Second of all, we still need some of these checkpoints.
So I am not going to sit here and agree we need to get rid
of them. We still need some of them. Which ones they are, that
would be up to the agency to decide on that. But I can tell you
that some of the issues we have at these checkpoints, as I
understand it, the people that live in these areas are fed up
with the checkpoints. A lot of times when they come through
these checkpoints it would make it so much easier both on them
and on the agent. It is a simple ``Are you a United States
citizen?'' ``Yes, I am.'' ``Have a good day.'' A lot of times
they will refuse to roll down their window, they will get
confrontational with the agent, there is a lot of back and
forth.
These agents, like we said earlier, they live within the
communities too. These agents are just out there doing their
job, and that is what a lot of the people need to understand.
They are not here to give anyone a hard time. They are here to
do their job, that is it. They are here to protect our borders.
They are here to make sure that whatever gets through the
border is properly intercepted, it is properly screened, and
that our communities are not just safer along the border but
throughout the United States. That is the agents' job at these
checkpoints.
Ms. McSally. Thanks.
Mr. Pearce.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you.
I thought I was going to move off of Mr. Del Cueto, but no
such luck, because you are saying such stimulating things. I
might listen or might not listen to the words you are saying
because, frankly, I had a much different opinion about the
interior checkpoints. But I can hear the passion and the
intensity, and when I see someone who has established the
credibility here today that you have established with this
group, then I pay attention when people are invested in
something. So we might not agree on it, but we would sit at the
table if it were just this group trying to solve the problem.
I am going to switch over to the sheriff. So people who
want to push the argument that the border is secure, and there
are a lot in Washington who want to push that, I have a simple
question: Is the price of drugs going up dramatically on the
street? Because really, drugs are like everything else. They
are a commodity, and if the supply is being squeezed off as
dramatically as is being talked about in Washington, then the
price would be skyrocketing. So are you seeing a skyrocketing
price in drugs?
Sheriff Dannels. Or not. Actually with heroin, it has
actually gone down.
Mr. Pearce. So there is too much supply. It is coming in
too readily and the price is going down.
Sheriff Dannels. Correct.
Mr. Pearce. Now, the access through public lands is, again,
a heated debate. The President just drew an Executive Order
declaring much of the border area and New Mexico as a monument,
wilderness, whatever. They are all the same. Is the Organ Pipe
National Monument, has that still got the signs up there
requesting people not to go in there, American citizens, saying
you should not go in there because it is too dangerous?
Sheriff Dannels. I haven't been on that.
Mr. Pearce. Mr. Del Cueto, do you happen to know that? So
we are getting a head shake out from the audience. Are these
guys respectable behind you? I am just joking, but I am getting
head shakes out there.
Mr. Del Cueto. I don't know who those people are.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. You are not identifying them, and they
can't identify you at this stage.
Mr. Del Cueto. I don't know if it is still there yet. I
mean, I honestly don't know.
Mr. Pearce. But the idea is it is still very dangerous in
the Organ Pipes.
Mr. Del Cueto. Correct. Somebody forgot to tell the drug
smugglers and the illegal aliens that you are not supposed to
walk on that land.
Mr. Pearce. Yes, they can't get on the wilderness area.
When I was the Chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks,
we toured a lot of these. When we went out to the redwood
forest, whatever that is out there, they actually are planting
marijuana back in the forest, in the Sequoia National Forest so
far that they just tell backpackers that you can't go beyond
here because you are going to hit a tripwire and the shotgun
they have laying out there on the trail is going to blow your
head off. So they actually stop the traffic because we grow so
much marijuana in our National forest that the law enforcement
officers can't get there. You, Sheriff, you don't have free
access to chase people who are doing illegal stuff. You have to
go through some bureaucratic process to go in and check illegal
activity.
Sheriff Dannels. Well, in our forest lands, we don't ask.
If there is a crime, we go, we go, whether it be an accident,
whether it be a search-and-rescue.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. But say there is not a crime. Say you
have a suspicion that they are making methamphetamine out there
in the middle of nowhere. Can you just go out?
Sheriff Dannels. We do, yes.
Mr. Pearce. Okay.
Sheriff Dannels. It is part of Cochise County. I think
every sheriff you ask would say the same thing, that if there
is a crime within his county, in the middle of a military
reservation, we go, we go.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. But I am asking if you don't know there
is a crime, can you go out there just to investigate?
Sheriff Dannels. If we don't know there is a crime?
Mr. Pearce. If you suspect, if you have somebody coming
north out of the area and you suspect that there is probably
something out there that needs to be looked at, do you just go
on out there, or do you have to clear it with an agency?
Sheriff Dannels. We go out there.
Mr. Pearce. Okay. That is a different story than I hear
most of the time.
Sheriff Dannels. Yes, we do. This is where it is important
where the locals, working with their Federal partners and their
Federal leaders within the county boundaries, we all know each
other very well and there is enough respect that we just go. We
work close with them. If we need to get them involved, we will.
But we don't let that stop us, is my point to this whole
conversation.
Mr. Pearce. Okay.
Mr. Del Cueto, just an observation. I am working my way
through the list, so I am bouncing around a little bit here.
But I was in the hearing when the Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Napolitano testified in Congress, and we had
probably 8 border sheriffs disputing her testimony, and she
simply said they are lying. I mean, that was really, really,
really not a good position for her to establish because I keep
hearing the truth out here, and I am hearing the truth from
here. But that is what makes it very difficult in Washington,
that people get to a certain level and they have the
established things that they are going to say regardless of
what the truth is.
Sheriff Sam Yago, I remember him. He was probably 90 at
that point. He was there to testify he was in law enforcement
for 50 years and was dramatic, dramatic to hear that exchange
where she just said you can't trust him. It was not good.
Would drones help you out when you are going up the side of
the hill and they are going down the other side? The drone
could be sitting up here so you would have somebody waiting on
the other side and could see where they are going? I mean, that
is what we are doing in Afghanistan, right?
Mr. Del Cueto. Right. The bottom line, though, is we could
have the drones up there, we could have drones in certain
areas, but it is getting the manpower to go out there and
arrest these individuals that the drones are seeing. That seems
to be a big problem.
Mr. Pearce. Okay.
Mr. Del Cueto. Like I said earlier, a lot of our agents are
farmed out.
Mr. Pearce. So those farm-outs, we discussed that a minute
ago. We went from 10,000, 12,000, up to 23,000 more or less.
Are those productive farm-outs, or would they be better off
brought back and put on the border, like I would recommend? But
it might not be a good idea. What is your internal view?
Mr. Del Cueto. On that, you would have to speak to the
agencies, speak to the other agencies and the agencies we are
farming them out to. So I know there are agents that are farmed
out at the ports. There are some agents that are farmed out for
DEA. There are agents that are farmed out at the prosecutor's
office.
Mr. Pearce. Right. So again, as I would visit with agents
out in the field they said, okay, I spend about 3 hours a day
on the border, the rest of the time is in paperwork. If I catch
somebody, it takes me 6 or 7 hours to do the paperwork. Is that
more or less accurate even if the numbers change pretty
dramatically, that you catch them and you have to go in and do
the paperwork?
Mr. Del Cueto. It depends on the individuals we catch. On
the average, you never know. It just depends on if they have
priors. Obviously with some of these catch-and-release, you are
not spending much time doing paperwork.
Mr. Pearce. Because it seems like it takes a very special
person to be there on the border, and then we put you on
paperwork, which is not so special. I mean, I could do
paperwork. I couldn't do your job, but I could do the
paperwork. We take you with valuable, valuable capabilities and
put you in doing what a clerk could do, frankly. I know you
have to do some legal things, but----
Mr. Del Cueto. Right.
Mr. Pearce. So is that a possibility that we could
redirect?
Mr. Del Cueto. That is one of the reasons I spoke about the
FOBs. I know a lot of money has been spent on these FOBs. They
are in remote areas. Many times when these agents apprehend
individuals in these remote areas, it would be easily
accessible to go to these FOBs and do the processing from the
FOB and do all the paperwork there. That way you are still
close to the border and are able to move around. I think that
would be a huge asset.
Mr. Pearce. Do you ever have the top managers in the
department come down and ask you if you all had to solve the
problems of assets and how to secure the border? Do you ever
have the Secretary of Homeland Security come down here and ask
you all sitting right there?
Mr. Del Cueto. Commissioner Kerlikowske was here last week
and it was the first time I had ever seen him in the Tucson
sector since he has been in that position.
Mr. Pearce. Does he ask you what it would take? I mean, if
I was there, I guarantee you, if I was running a business that
required securing the border, I would be out here talking to
people every day and making adjustments and putting the
linebackers in or whatever the Chairwoman said.
Mr. Del Cueto. Honestly, he spoke and he answered 3
questions, and that was it.
Mr. Pearce. That is again what I find. The system is broken
from Congress all the way across. Every system in Washington is
absolutely broken because they don't ask the people who are
there.
I want to wrap up with 1 additional question. Mayor, I have
2 questions actually. I am thinking about spending a little bit
of money before I fly back to Washington this evening, and I
may run out and get a haircut, so I need to know who you get
your haircuts from.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. I will do that in Douglas.
Mr. Ortega. My wife gives me mine.
Mr. Pearce. Oh, then I guess I won't do that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. I will go to the airport and get a shoe shine
instead.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. So you hear the push. I know that business is a
big deal, and I am a business guy, and I really respect that
and appreciate that, and I appreciate your voice here today. Do
you find that you are a little bit alarmed by the testimony
coming around you that their testimony might influence people
that they want to secure the border too much and they begin to
interrupt the economic activity, or do you see that all can be
done, we can have those wide-open gates and still secure the
border? Is that a thing that you get alarmed about? Do you see
where I am coming from? Because if they dominate the
discussions and yours is left off on the side, then we begin to
squeeze down business for security. So tell me a little bit
about where you are there, and that will be the last question I
have, Madam Chair.
Mr. Ortega. Yes. Actually, I am concerned with this,
because I think a lot of times, especially election years, the
border is painted in a very negative tone. There are a lot of
good things that happen within our own communities culturally,
with sports, with so many events, with the goods that are
crossing on a daily basis that support our economy locally but
also the economy of the United States of America. We are
Americans. I think this is payback a bit for protecting the
Phoenixes, the Tucsons, but there are a lot of us that live at
the border, have lived there for generations, and sometimes I
don't think we feel quite like Americans because we are kind-
of-like ignored in many cases and we will deal with the problem
behind us, but what about on the front line?
But we worry about commerce. We worry about people coming
to visit. We are losing population in Cochise County, and we
encourage people to come visit. Congressman McSally has been to
Douglas many times. I don't think she has ever had any issues.
We have gone out to many fine Mexican restaurants and never
worry about things.
But I do understand the issues of the outlying areas as
well.
Mr. Pearce. Yes, you don't disregard them.
Mr. Ortega. No, not at all.
Mr. Pearce. It is just that you want an equal seat at the
table saying, fine, let's solve the problem, but also remember
that commerce has got to occur.
Mr. Ortega. Yes, sir. That is why I appreciate being
invited here today, so you hear the other side of the story.
Thank you.
Mr. Pearce. I grew up in 4-H and made my way through
college showing pigs, and all I have to say is if you move
1,500 cows a day across that border, you are doing something
right. So keep moving those cows.
Mr. Ortega. Thank you.
Ms. McSally. Thanks. As a follow-up, that is why you are
here, why all of you are here, and I appreciate it.
One last quick question, Mr. Del Cueto, before we go to the
second panel. I just want to give you the opportunity. You
mentioned agents moving into places in order to protect
ranchers. Can you just give your perspective on the
relationship between the Border Patrol Agents and ranchers
right now, anything that could improve those relationships and
the communication?
Mr. Del Cueto. Well, you know, I work on the Tohono O'odham
Reservation, so I work with some of the ranchers down there.
But like I said, a lot of my constituents work in that area and
throughout Cochise County, and it is really not banging heads
with the ranchers. The agents are out there doing their jobs--
--
Ms. McSally. It is not, or it is?
Mr. Del Cueto. It is not a banging their heads is what I am
getting from the agents. But there are certain areas that are
closed off to Border Patrol Agents. That is the message that is
being sent to them, that they can't work certain areas. So if
you track a group near the border into these individuals'
lands, you can't go in their land. So what you have to do is
you have to drive around the entire area of their land and try
to intercept them on the northern part. By the time you get
there, a lot of these individuals are already gone, and that is
a serious problem.
Another thing is if we encounter some of these individuals
and we go on their land because we are actively following this
group, and God forbid something would happen on this land where
we would need air support or we would need medical attention,
not just for ourselves but also to the individuals we would
apprehend, it would be very limited and it would be very
difficult to get the emergency vehicles on this land to assist
any kind of injured individual.
Ms. McSally. Great. Thank you.
Okay, we are done with Panel 1. Thanks for everybody's
patience. I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony
today and for the good discussion and questions. There may be
some follow-up questions, I don't know. If you think of some,
per procedures, they will submit them in writing, and then we
will ask you guys to respond in writing if we have those.
So, with that, I will dismiss the first panel. Thanks for
your testimony and your time.
I request that the Clerk prepare the witness table for our
second panel, and then we will start again.
[Recess.]
Ms. McSally. All right, we are going to get started again.
I am pleased to welcome 5 distinguished witnesses for our
second panel at today's hearing.
First, Mr. Dan Bell. He is the president of ZZ Cattle
Corporation in Nogales, Arizona. Mr. Bell and his family work
on his ranch. The ranch has been in his family since 1938, and
they share a 10-mile boundary line with the U.S.-Mexico border.
He has also served as the president of the Southern Arizona
Cattleman's Protective Association and is currently serving as
past president of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association.
Mr. Mark Adams is the coordinator of Frontera De Cristo, a
Presbyterian border ministry located in the sister cities of
Agua Prieta, Sonora, and Douglas, Arizona. Mr. Adams is a
native of--I should be calling you Pastor Adams, shouldn't I?--
of Clover, South Carolina, and a graduate of Columbia
Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. He was ordained in
1998 and has served as the U.S. coordinator of Frontera De
Cristo since that time.
Mr. Jaime Chamberlain is the president of Nogales, Arizona-
based J-C Distributing, Inc., an importer of Mexican fruits and
vegetables. Jaime is the past-chairman of the board of
directors of the Fresh Produce Association of America and is a
sponsor member of the Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority.
He was recently appointed by Governor Ducey to the Arizona
Rural Economic Development Advisory Council and the board of
directors of the Arizona Mexico Commission, where he serves as
co-chairman of the Ports and Transportation Infrastructure
Committee.
Mrs. Nan Stockholm-Walden serves as the vice president and
counsel at Farmers Investment Company, the largest pecan
growing and processing farm in the world, located in Sahuarita,
Arizona. During her career Nan served as counsel to the U.S.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Counsel for
Senator Dan Patrick Moynihan on the Water Resources
Subcommittee. She was chief of staff for Senator Bill Bradley,
who served on the Senate Finance and Energy and Natural
Resources Committees. She has also been an associate vice
president for Federal relations at the University of Arizona in
Tucson.
Mr. Frank Krentz is the son of Rob Krentz, who was
tragically gunned down as he was trying to help an immigrant in
2010. Mr. Krentz has been working on the family ranch in
Cochise County since his graduation from New Mexico State
University. He is involved with the Apache School Board, the
Borderlands Group, Arizona Cattle Growers, Brightwater Water
Conservation District, and the vice president of the Arizona
Association of Conservation Districts.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Bell.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL G. BELL, PRESIDENT, ZZ CATTLE CORPORATION
Mr. Bell. Good morning, Chairwoman McSally, Congressman
Pearce. Thank you for coming down and thank you for holding
this subcommittee hearing. It is an issue that is very
important to ranchers who live along the border or even near
the border.
Again, my name is Daniel Bell. I am a third-generation
rancher from Nogales, Arizona. Our family has been ranching the
same piece of country since the late 1930s. We are located just
west of the city of Nogales, and we have 10 miles of border
that we share with Mexico. Of that, 2 miles of that border has
a bollard-style fence or what you call a border wall. The
remaining 8 miles is a 4-strand barbed-wire cattle fence.
Our ranch is subject to the impacts of illegal immigration
and drug smuggling on a daily basis. In the 1990s, border
operations in California and Texas essentially forced the
illegal border traffic into Arizona. As a result, Arizona
border cities were fortified, forcing the illegal activity onto
the adjacent ranches, and we began seeing the UDA groups
increase from groups of 1 or 2 to groups of 50 or more at that
time.
As a result of these increases, the ranches were heavily
impacted. We have damage being done to our fences. Our watering
facilities were damaged and drained very often. Vehicles are
stolen, homes are broken into, and valuables are taken. Also
since then, the frequency of fire has increased on the ranches
along the border as a result of warming fires that have been
let go, fires lit by UDAs in distress, and fires lit by drug
smugglers to create a distraction or diversion.
We have had a house burned to the ground, and in 2011
approximately two-thirds of our ranch was burned from 13
different fires that year. In fact, just this past Tuesday
there was a fire started by illegals on the western portion of
our ranch. Border Patrol was able to apprehend the individuals
and called in the fire. The Forest Service was able to get on
it rapidly and get it put out.
Violence in the border region was also on an increase. In
1998, while apprehending drug smugglers, Border Patrol Agent
Alexander Kirpnick was murdered in one of our grazing pastures.
A decade later border agents were taking fire, and some agents
were even wounded in sniper-style shootings near the border. In
March 2010, my friend Rob Krentz was murdered on his ranch in
Cochise County doing what Frank and I still do to this day,
checking our pastures and checking our cattle.
One month later, the foreman of the ranch neighboring us in
Mexico was found murdered and buried in a shallow grave, and he
had been missing for over a month. Later that year, Border
Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered on our neighbor's ranch
just to the north of us while he and his team were working to
rid the area of violent rip crews that were targeting illegal
aliens and drug smugglers.
The facts I have just stated were the breaking points that
caused ranchers along the border to demand more border security
resources and more boots on the ground. It has been my
experience that improvement can happen with better access and
by establishing roads along the international boundary with
Mexico. Being able to get to the border is paramount if one
expects to defend it. With better access, a good border road
system in place, and next-generation technologies like a remote
video surveillance system and towers that are capable of
detecting movement within their field of view, as well as radar
equipment, mobile surveillance-capable vehicles, as well as
integrated fixed towers that could be put into place, this
technology can detect movement and focus in on that movement to
maximize efficiency by verifying if a response is necessary
and, if so, providing the critical situational awareness
needed.
Better access and roads along the border would place law
enforcement efforts closer to the line of scrimmage and reduce
the footprint of the illegal activity, which is a positive for
the environment. Where access is limited and roads are non-
existent, it is extremely important that air assets like
helicopters are available to insert agents into rugged and
remote areas and provide support for agents on the ground.
Fixed-wing aircraft and drones must also be readily available
to detect and respond to illegal activity and direct law
enforcement to intercept points and provide a much-needed
situational awareness.
Of course, having more boots on the ground in the right
place at the right time in order to intercept the illegal
activity is critical.
Some of the other measures include increasing horse patrols
in the rugged and remote areas where access is limited; the use
of military personnel in the border security mission; establish
better communications and technology not only for law
enforcement but for the civilians that are out there as well;
and establish more forward operating bases to cut travel and
response times to incidents.
Fund State and Federal attorney offices to ensure timely
prosecution of border-related offenses, and ensure that the
judicial resources are in place to provide consequences to
offenders.
We need to figure out a set of metrics that will maintain
resource levels even after we see improvement, because what
tends to happen is that when you get improvement, we tend to
pull resources away, and then we are stuck with the same
problem.
One of the things that has worked very well for us in the
Nogales area is the citizen advisory boards and the ranch
liaison programs, and I also see that as a valuable metric
because we can see what is happening and we can relay that
information to law enforcement.
Over time I have witnessed improvement in certain areas,
and it has coincided with the implementation of some of the
measures that I mentioned to you today. It is only on a small
portion of our ranch, but we need to keep working and keep
bringing those measures into place.
I thank you for allowing me the time to come and address
you today. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daniel G. Bell
May 9, 2016
Good morning my name is Daniel Bell. I am a third-generation
rancher from Nogales Arizona and president of the ZZ Cattle
Corporation. Our family has been ranching on the same piece of country
since the late 1930s, just west of the city of Nogales along the border
with Mexico. Our ranch has approximately 10 miles of actual border with
Mexico and with the exception of a 2-mile stretch of bollard fence and
a few hundred yards of vehicle barrier, the remainder of the
international boundary with Mexico is comprised of a 4-strand barb-wire
cattle fence. Our ranch consists primarily of Federal grazing permits
with the USDA Forest Service, private lands, and State trust land all
of which are subject to impacts revolving around illegal immigration
and drug smuggling.
As far back as we can remember we have always had impacts with
regard to illegal immigration and drug smuggling. However, in the 1990s
things changed drastically! The implementation of Operation Gatekeeper
in California and Operation Hold the Line in Texas essentially forced
illegal border traffic into Arizona. As a result of increased illegal
border traffic, fortified fencing of cities along border began to
occur, forcing the illegal activity on to the adjacent ranch lands. In
areas where it was common to see 1 or 2 undocumented aliens, were now
seeing groups sometimes ranging in the number of 50 or more. With those
increases in numbers, also came increases in property damage, theft,
fire frequency, and violence. Our fences were being cut, watering
facilities were being tampered with and drained, our houses were being
broken into and valuables were taken, we even had vehicles stolen. On
one occasion the wife of one of our employees was forced at knife point
to prepare meals for a few individuals. Upon arriving home our employee
tracked the group and lead authorities to their location.
Over the years violence in the border region had been on the
increase. Nogales Station agents had been fired upon and in a few
incidents agents were wounded by apparent sniper-style shootings. In
1998, Border Patrol Agent Alexander Kirpnick was murdered as he was
apprehending drug smugglers in one of our grazing pastures. On March
27, 2010 while checking livestock, watering facilities, and fences, my
friend Rob Krentz was murdered on his ranch in Cochise County. On May
12, 2010, the ranch foreman from one of the ranches in Mexico that
neighbors us along the border was found murdered and buried in a
shallow grave after he had gone missing a month earlier. On December
17, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, a member BORTAC, the elite
tactical unit of the Border Patrol, was murdered on the ranch that
neighbors us to the North. His team was in the area to rid the area of
violent rip-off crews that were targeting undocumented aliens and drug
carriers.
Also, over the years the fire frequency has increased on the
ranches along the border as a result of warming fires not being
extinguished, fires lit by undocumented aliens in distress, and fires
lit by smugglers to create diversions. In the mid-2000's, an unoccupied
house on the Bear Valley portion of our ranch was set ablaze by
undocumented aliens when they attempted to light the propane powered
lights. In 2011, we witnessed one of the worst fire seasons ever. I
believe there were 13 different fires that year that burned
approximately two-thirds of the entire ranch. Only one of those fires
was considered to be a naturally caused fire, all the others were
either diversion fires or distress fires. In fact just this past
Tuesday, May 3, 2016 there was a fire started on the western portion of
the ranch, by illegal aliens. Border Patrol was able to apprehend them
and report the fire to the Forest Service who responded quickly and
contained the fire to about 30 acres.
The issues I have touched on have caused ranchers along the border
to be very vocal about increasing border security resources and placing
more boots on the ground.
My main focus here today is to highlight what I consider to be
useful and positive measures to help secure the border and the lands we
work on. Measures like creating access and establishing roads along the
international boundary with Mexico. Being able to get to the border is
paramount if one expects to defend it. The areas of the border that are
more secure are the areas that were less difficult to secure. What
remains is probably some of the most rugged terrain encountered along
the border, most of which is inaccessible by vehicles. Not only is it
rugged, but much of it is Federal land, which brings with it other
obstacles and restrictions for border security. Delays due to lengthy
Environmental Impact Studies, operational restrictions due to
Wilderness Designations and concerns for so-called threatened and
endangered species all stand in the way securing the border.
Access and infrastructure in the form of roads is drastically
needed along the border, otherwise the area of operation remains
unwieldy. Roads also allow for faster response times when a threat
approaches the border. With a good road system in place, implementation
of technology in the form of Remote Video Surveillance Systems,
Integrated Fixed Towers, and Mobile Surveillance Capable Vehicles can
be facilitated. In order to secure the border, law enforcement must be
nimble as to address shifts in patterns of illegal activity and also
have situational awareness. Again the reality of gaining access and
constructing infrastructure along the border on Federal lands is a
lengthy process and it needs to be streamlined.
For over a decade I have witnessed the implementation these
measures, including the construction of 2 miles of a bollard fence. The
Coronado National Forest, Nogales Ranger Station, and the Border Patrol
are to be commended for these accomplishments. I can attest to the
effectiveness of these measures and how illegal traffic has been
reduced in these areas and has given law enforcement more focus along
that portion of the border. That focus reduces the footprint of the
illegal activity as well as the footprint required for law enforcement
which is a positive for the environment. More of the Federal and State
land management agencies need to adopt this strategy.
Unfortunately, some of the traffic shifted to the areas that are
more remote and rugged where these measures do not exist. Until access
and roads can be implemented in these areas, it is extremely important
that air assets like helicopters, and fixed-wing air craft, as well as,
drones are available to detect illegal activity, direct law enforcement
to intercept points, provide the much-needed situatonal awareness, and
even insert agents into these problem areas.
In the past military personnel were used in the remote areas as
Entry Identification Teams with the purpose of calling out illegal
activity, allowing agents to respond directly and again providing
agents with that situational awareness. In fact, many if not most of
the Remote Video Surveillance System Towers were constructed on the
very sites that were previously occupied by the entry identification
teams.
As these areas are remote and rugged, they often lack the necessary
communications technology for both law enforcement and civilians. This
is important as there are citizens out recreating in the forest despite
the travel caution signage warnings of smuggling and illegal
immigration in the area.
Of course the most important factor is having boots on the ground,
in the right place, at the right time in order to intercept the illegal
activity. Border Patrol must increase horse patrols in the rugged and
remote areas where access is limited. Also, Forward Operating Bases
have been used in the past and were effective, cutting response times
and travel times to areas of deployment by several hours.
There is a need to maintain the morale of the men and women working
to secure the border. Funding State and Federal Attorneys' Offices must
be adequate to assure timely prosecution of border-related offenses. As
part of that, ensuring that there are judicial resources in place to
provide consequences to offenders is imperative.
It is also important to ensure that metrics are in place that
account for the reductions in illegal activity and maintain resources
as border conditions improve. I am fortunate to be a part of the
Citizens Advisory Boards and the Rancher Liaison Group for the Nogales
Border Patrol Station. It gives me the opportunity to address security
issues in areas of our operation and allows Border Patrol the ability
to communicate with the public and the folks most effected by illegal
activity. I view these groups as another sort of metric.
As I have stated before. I have witnessed improvement over the past
few years in certain areas and it has coincided with the implementation
of the measures that I have mentioned to you here today.
Thank you for your time and allowing me to come before you today!
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Mr. Bell.
The Chair now recognizes Pastor Adams.
STATEMENT OF MARK STEPHEN ADAMS, COORDINATOR, FRONTERA DE
CRISTO
Mr. Adams. Thank you, Chair McSally and Representative
Pearce, for the opportunity to be here. As I push the button, I
see that I am talking with a Shure microphone. Twenty-some
years ago my wife, Miriam Maldonado Escobar, migrated from
Chiapas, Mexico after her family could no longer farm on corn
farms there because of the price of corn dropping and came to
the border to work for Shure. They had a factory on the U.S.-
Mexico border in Agua Prieta Sonora. Shure was part of the
reason that I got the love of my life.
For me, I have been living on the border of the United
States and Mexico for 18 years. For the first 18 years of my
life, I lived on the border between South Carolina and North
Carolina, quite different borders. But also, the border between
the United States and Mexico is also quite different now than
it was 20 years ago, 25 years ago, 30 years ago. It is very
different. It has changed dramatically.
What is the border for me? The border is home. The border
is a place that I love. The border is a place where 12 million
other folks live and, I imagine, love as well. So the border is
home. So as you all undertake the task of making walls and
trying to oversee the policies that make our border secure, I
really want to encourage you to always remember that the border
is home. It is home to me and it is home to millions of others.
Too often, the border has been seen as a place to defend, to be
afraid of, as opposed to a place to revitalize, a place to see
as an asset, a place of encounter. For me, that is what the
border is.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that at times our attempts to
secure the border for whatever fear we might have has
negatively impacted the local communities on the border. As Mr.
Pearce saw with Mayor Danny Ortega, the town of Douglas is
secure in the sense of crossings and crime, but also at times
for us to have a secure border we also have to have the secure
and safe and efficient flow of people through our borders. For
many, many years we have neglected that part.
So as we have secured our border between ports of entry, or
tried to, we have neglected securing our communities' security
and our economic security. So I want to encourage you to think
about the importance of that aspect of border security as you
go about your task there.
Also, as you seek to do your task to secure our border,
please do not sacrifice the civil rights of our home, of our
community, of our people. I was serving with a group of folks
who came down from the Border Action Network. They wanted to
meet some of the folks from the community in Douglas to see
what it was their relationship was with increased enforcement
in our community and if there were any problems. So I said,
sure, I will go around the community with you. As we were
going, someone asked me, well, Mark, have you had any problems
with your local Border Patrol? No. I said we meet on a regular
basis; they are very helpful.
You have never had any problems, he said? I said, well,
there was that time where I was driving the Frontera de Cristo
van and got stopped 3 times within 45 minutes. That was a
little strange. Then there was the time where I picked up a
friend of mine from the Philippines at the shuttle and I got
followed back to our office and the car sat in front of our
office. When I went out and said excuse me but can I help you,
they said we heard that there is a smuggling ring going on
here, and I said no, that is all right. That was kind of
strange.
Then there was the time--and I went off and rattled off 5
times where I experienced something very different than I would
ever have experienced in South Carolina or North Carolina. I
say that as a white man who has 20 years of education, formal
education, who is a U.S. citizen, who speaks English, who has a
national church at his back. The reality is many of our
community who don't have those same privileges that I have--
there is no reason I should have them and others not--face
realities that are dangerous for our community security, and we
need to improve our relationship with our local law
enforcement.
Finally, I want to say that we need to take death out of
the immigration equation. Too many people have died in our
deserts because we have used deserts and mountains as a lethal
deterrent. They have been lethal but not deterrents, and that
doesn't uphold who we are as a Nation. We need to always
remember that you have the challenge of securing our borders
but also upholding the legacy of us as a Nation of immigrants.
So I want to please ask you to think about the security of
the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe
free, take them out of the drug equation, take them out and
allow for a safe and efficient flow of people through ports of
entry to decrease the suffering and the death that occurs
because of policies that are harming folks who can no longer
make a living or are trying to be reunited with family.
Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adams follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Stephen Adams
May 9, 2016
introduction
Chair McSally and Members of the committee, I am Mark Adams, a
Presbyterian pastor serving with the bi-national ministry Frontera de
Cristo, based in Douglas, AZ/Agua Prieta, Sonora. I lived the first 18
years of my life on the South Carolina/North Carolina border and for
the past 18 years I have lived on the U.S./Mexico border in Douglas,
AZ/Agua Prieta, Sonora. While I crossed the South Carolina/North
Carolina border at frequently growing up, I cross the U.S./Mexico
border almost daily and sometimes up to 4 times a day. I am grateful
for the opportunity to address the committee about life on the border.
In 1998, I migrated to the Douglas/Agua Prieta to serve with the
church. I did not realize before coming that political and economic
forces had converted our towns and surrounding areas into the primary
crossing point for persons entering the United States without proper
documentation.
The church of the U.S./Mexico borderlands has been in a unique
position to witness to the growing division, fear, and death occurring
on our shared border as well as in the interiors of our nations. It is
in this context of tension and suffering that I and all those who are
Christian are called to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ
who ``is our peace who has made the two one and who has broken down the
dividing wall of hostility.'' (Ephesians 2:14).
Being part of the church that crosses national, political, social,
linguistic, and cultural borders has enabled us to experience the
suffering on both sides of the border--whether it is crying with family
members in Mexico who have lost loved ones in the deserts or listening
to the frustration of property owners in the United States who have
lost a sense of physical and financial security because of persons
crossing through their property; whether celebrating in worship with
migrants who give witness to how God saved their lives again or praying
with Border Patrol Agents who sometimes fear for their safety; or
grieving with families on both sides of the border as they struggle
with the violence of an underground drug culture. Because we are in
relationship with people on multiple sides of the ``issues'' and have
become familiar with the realities and complexity of the situation, it
has become impossible for us to scapegoat any group of people.
As Christians we are called to work together across national
boundaries and to address our common concerns as sisters and brothers
equally created in the Divine image. We are not adversaries.
Furthermore, we are called to resist the temptation to demonize or
dehumanize any individual or group of individuals. By building
relationships and understanding across borders, those most affected by
the brokenness of current policies can unite to struggle for change
that is beneficial to people on both sides of the border.
the importance of remembering our history
Each year we host around 500 people from churches, seminaries,
universities, schools, and leadership organizations as part of our
mission education ministry. Over the last year, we have hosted:
young and old;
progressive, liberal, conservative, libertarian, and a mixture of
political philosophies;
Presbyterian, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Agonostic, Atheist,
Mennonite, Episcopalian;
Methodist, Inquiring, and Skeptical.
One of our main goals in our ministry in general and specifically
in our mission education ministry is to build relationships and
understanding across borders. As part of our orientation, we go to a
spot just north of the U.S./Mexico border and stand in the shadow of
the tall multi-million dollar rusted steel fence that we as a
Government built in 2012 as part of the border infrastructure after the
original ``aesthetic'' fence initially erected in 1997 was torn down.
While standing there, we ask folks to share a part of who they are:
Their names, where they were born, where they live now, and where their
ancestors came from before they came to what is now the United States
of America and why their ancestors came. It is an exercise of
rememberence . . . remembering our own immigrant stories, because we
are a people who so easily forget.
It hardly ever ceases to amaze me the diversity that emerges. As we
remember our origins: Ireland, Italy, the West Coast of Africa, China,
Germany, Poland, Japan, I simultaneously rejoice in the reality that we
are a nation of immigrants with the Statue of Liberty as one of our
enduring symbols and remember that many of our ancestors were welcomed
not with the sentiment of the Emma Lazurus poem ``give me the tired,
the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . '' that
forms one of the highest ideals of our who we are as a Nation, but
rather with the crass xenophobia that also has strong currents within
our National identity.
Roy Goodman is a colleague on the border shocked me one day with a
t-shirt he was wearing. On the t-shirt it had two proud symbols of our
country: The U.S. flag and the Statue of Liberty. Underneath these
symbols: There was a quote that said:
```Few of their Children in the Country learn English . . . The Signs
in our Streets have Inscriptions in both Languages, and in some places
only [their language] . . . In short, unless the Stream of their
Importation could be turned . . . they will soon so outnumber us, that
all the advantages we have, will not in my Opinion be able to preserve
our Language, and even our Government will become precarious.''\1\
\1\ Excerpt from a letter to Peter Collinson from Benjamin Franklin
written May 9, 1753.
``Roy, how could you wear that horrible t-shirt?'' I asked in
disbelief, feeling as if he was betraying our work of building bridges
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
between peoples.
``You know who said that?'' he responded. ``Benjamin Franklin. He
was talking about the Germans in Pennsylvania.''
The 15% of the U.S. population that can trace part of its lineage
back to Germany \2\ is probably very glad that neither the Native
Americans, nor the colonies nor the young U.S. Government later had a
quota in the eighteenth century of deporting 400,000 people a year that
some of our founders and I imagine many of the populace thought did not
belong in our Nation. In hindsight it is easy to see the misguided
nature of the parts of our history that include the oppression,
exclusion, and/or fear of immigrant peoples because of their racial,
ethnic, cultural, or national origin: Whether forced immigrants brought
to our shores as slaves, or the Irish who ``needed not to apply''
(ironically I have often heard the vehicles used by our Border Patrol
to Transport people who have been apprehended as Paddy Wagons), or the
Chinese who were the first group of people legally targeted by the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, but the cliche often is true: History
repeats itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ According to U.S. Census Data http://factfinder.census.gov/
faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/
productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_00_SF3_PCT018&prodType=table.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you seek to fulfill your responsibilities as members of the
Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee, I urge you, to remember,
remember not to be guided by the basest of our nature which often fears
the other, remember that we are a Nation of immigrants, that when we
are at our best we believe that ``all men [and women] are created
equal'', and that E Pluribus Unum. I urge you to help us on the border
and throughout the Nation to secure a legacy of truly being a Nation of
immigrants that respects the human rights of all; help us to live into
the reality that we can be a city on a hill.
meaning of borders
What Do Borders Mean to You?
While still standing in the shadow of the twenty-foot tall multi-
million dollar rusted fence that has come to define much of our border
with Mexico, I ask our visiting delegations: ``What do borders mean to
you?''
I intentionally make borders plural, because borders exist in their
own communities: The border between property, or neighborhoods, or town
and county or States. However, standing in the shadow of what Pete
Vogel, an immigrant from Germany and good friend of Frontera de Cristo,
calls our ``Berlin Wall'', people's responses are almost always focused
on the meaning of the U.S./Mexico border. Some common themes are: A
division of hostility; a separation of us from them; an effort of the
rich to keep from the poor.
One of our visitors said: ``There is something that I really don't
like about the wall . . . but what if it did not exist, wouldn't
everyone just come to the United States?''
For some it is hard to remember that for almost 150 years between
the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe and the beginning of the massive
border infrastructure build-up during the Clinton administration in the
mid-1990's, there was no multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded steel
fence between us and our neighbors to the south, nor was there massive
camera surveillance, nor drones, nor miles of multi-million dollar
high-speed all-purpose roads paralleling the border, nor the over
21,000 Border Patrol Agents that we have today.\3\ It is amazing for me
to hear some politicians speak today as if we as a Nation have done
nothing to ``secure our border''.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ According to CBP website https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/
along-us-borders/overview.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am often invited to speak in different venues in the interior of
the United States and almost always ask people what they think of when
they think of the border. Much like the majority of the visitors with
us, the border has negative connotations for most of the people on the
interior with whom I talk. I have people who question why I would ever
choose to live on the border and others who ask if I am afraid.
The meaning and implications of borders change and mean different
things to different people. The political, cultural, demographic, and
economic context of our Nation always determines the meaning and
implications of our borders. The border between the United States and
Mexico has a very different meaning with starkly different implications
in 2016 than it did when its most recent demarcation was set by the
Gadsden Purchase over 150 years ago.
When the border between the United States and Mexico was finalized
in the 1850s, it was a political border that marked where the spheres
of influence and power of the United States and Mexico began and ended,
not the heavily-fortified border that divides communities and families
today.
So what does the border mean to me?
It means home.
With all of its joys and suffering, its opportunities and
challenges, the border is my home and it is home to over 12 million
people along the U.S./Mexico border. I think that those who have made
the laws and policies regarding border security have often forgotten
that the border is home to millions of people. Too often the voice of a
few border residents claiming that the border is ``out of control'' and
needs to be secured is given more importance than the voices of the
broad spectrum of our community who understand that cross-border
economic, cultural, and social cooperation is our life-blood and the
safe and efficient flow of people through our ports of entry is
essential.
Our efforts at ``border security'' have often impeded our community
security and have had a detrimental impact on the poor as well as
people of color.
I urge you as you go about the tasks of your committee to please
remember that the border is our home, it is not a place to be
militarized, but rather a place to be revitalized.
increased border security and its broad consequences
For 150 years there had been a pretty fluid border between United
States and Mexico. For most of our history, crossing the U.S./Mexico
border was not too unlike crossing the North Carolina/South Carolina
border. Beginning in the 1990s, things changed dramatically for us on
the border and the border began to be more robustly enforced through
efforts like Operation Hold The Line, Operation Gatekeeper, and
Operation Safeguard. Our change in border policy corresponded with
economic forces that were pulling people north to the United States
(low unemployment and demand for labor) and pushing people north from
Mexico (dramatic loss of agricultural jobs). People were forced to
cross through the desert areas of Agua Prieta/Douglas, Arizona in the
late 1990s and early 2000s, but by the mid- and late-2000s the flow of
migration was pushed to even more remote and deadly areas like the
deserts and mountains east of Yuma and the Altar Valley southwest of
Tucson.
With the signing of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996, President Clinton began a massive increase
in the budget for border protection. Under the Bush and Obama
administrations, we have continued the policy of increasing the budget
and the number of Border Patrol Agents.
Unlike the Immigration Reform and Control Act signed by President
Reagan in 1986 that provided a pathway to legalization for persons who
were in the United States without authorization prior to the Act,
Clinton's ``reform'' provided no such relief and only focused on the
removal of persons in the United States without authorization and the
deterrence of future undocumented immigrants.
Has the strategy been effective? Despite our attempts to ``secure''
the border, the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United
States is millions more now than it was when we began Operation
Gatekeeper in 1994.
In 1994, I was teaching Spanish in my hometown of Clover, South
Carolina just south of the North Carolina border. Other than myself and
one other non-native Spanish-speaking teacher, there were no other
Spanish-speaking persons in town. I went back there 10 years later, in
2004. Ten years after we started beefing up our border security
programs and implementing Operation Gatekeeper, there was a large
banner decorated with Mexican and Guatemalan flags hanging from the
roof of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store, with the words: ``Tenemos
productos hispanos''--we have Hispanic products. The First Baptist
church was offering free English as a Second Language classes. At the
bank, a sign asked if you wanted service in English or Spanish. In 10
years, Clover, South Carolina had gone from having 2 non-native
Spanish-speaking people to having a sizeable enough population that
grocery stores and banks were marketing to them and churches were
reaching out to them.
And this anecdote could be repeated in many towns, suburbs, and
cities throughout the United States, precisely at a time when our
Government decided to get serious about enforcing the border.
In 1994, there were 4.5 million undocumented persons in the United
States. Now, after spending billions of dollars to ``secure'' the
border, there are more than 11 million--the number had increased to
over 12 million prior to the recession that began in 2008.
There has been other serious and even deadly consequences to our
decision to pursue a border enforcement strategy that uses the deserts
and mountains as lethal deterrents without considering the power of the
economic and family push and pull factors.
Increased Death and Injury
Since the inception of Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, more than 3
times more people have died in the deserts of the southwest while
seeking to reach the ``American Dream'' than the number of persons who
died in the attacks of 9/11. More people have died crossing the U.S./
Mexico border trying to provide a livelihood for their families than
the combined number of U.S. soldiers who have died in the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars. Since 1994, over 7,000 bodies have been found. That
doesn't include the deaths of persons whose bodies have never been
found.
Each Tuesday at 5:15 pm, a group gathers 5 blocks north of the
border for the Healing Our Borders Vigil in which we remember the
persons by name who have died in Cochise County while crossing, we pray
for their families, we pray for an end to deaths in the desert, we pray
for our Government and the government of Mexico and we recommit
ourselves to work for healthier relationships among our peoples and
countries.
Our policy of using the deserts and mountains as lethal deterrents
and increasing height of fencing have also resulted in a significant
increase in the number of persons sustaining traumatic physical
injuries while crossing the border. In addition to the intense
suffering experienced by the migrants who have not been deterred by our
policies that intentionally increase the risk for their crossing,
border hospitals have experienced financial and emotional stress as
they receive more patients with broken bones or severe complications
from hypothermia and hyperthermia. The increasing number of life-
threatening and life-altering injuries also has a psychological impact
on our agents who are tasked with securing our borders, as they are
often the first responders to migrants with compound fractures, severe
dehydration, and other painful physical conditions.
One of our ministries is the Migrant Resource Center, which is the
first non-governmental building that you arrive to when you enter Agua
Prieta by foot. In June we will celebrate our 10th Anniversary of
providing a safe place for men, women, and children who have been
returned to Mexico by our Border Patrol. In that time, we have welcomed
over 86,000 men, women, and children. Together with our partners at the
Kino Initiative in Nogales who have welcomed many more people and
especially now that almost all repatriation is happening through
Nogales we can testify about the physical and emotional trauma of our
broken border and immigration system.
I met Guillerma in the Migrant Resource Center.
``Hey Marcos, she's from South Carolina!''
Adrian Gonzalez one of the volunteers pulled on my shoulder and
announced excitedly the news that another one of my ``paisanos'' was
less than 7 feet away from me. We were both in the Migrant Resource
Center, yet we were miles apart in the reasons for finding ourselves in
the center.
I turned and saw a woman not too much younger than me standing in
dark clothes and a baseball cap shading a hint of deep sadness in her
face. 60% of the skin on her hands had been scrapped off as she slid
down the posts of our border fence.
``Buenos dias! Me llamo Marcos, como se llama Ud.?'', I asked,
assuming that this fellow Sandlapper's first language was Spanish.
``My name is Guillermina,'' she responded in perfect English.
Guillermina, had moved to South Carolina about the time I moved to Agua
Prieta. She had been living in Myrtle Beach for 10 years, working in a
hotels and restaurants--the irony of her working in the hospitality
industry is a painful reality. She loves living in South Carolina
despite not always feeling welcome, she has had work to help feed her
family--Jose, her husband, and Kevin, her 6-year-old son.
She had not seen her dad in more than 16 years and had crossed back
to Mexico because her dad had had a heart attack. Tears welled up in
her eyes and in the eyes of most of us gathered in that humbled
building.
With her voice trembling, she said, ``When I left, he said,
`Hija this will probably be the last time we see each other. Be a
good mother to my grandson. I love you.'
My world is torn in two--my dad is on this side of the border and
my son and husband are over on the other side.''
Pastor Brandi Casto Waters of First PC Greer, SC, who was visiting
us that day led us all in prayer with and for Guillermina and we joined
together in the hope for the day when the border would be a place of
encounter and peace and not a place of division and conflict.
As I left, I let Guillermina know that I had a son Kevin's age and
that I would keep them in my prayers, I also let her know that I and
the ministry with whom I serve are committed to continue the hard work
of changing laws that tears worlds apart. I asked her if she would like
me to share her story with you--``please ask them to pray for us.''
On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced an Executive Order
that will provide an opportunity for almost 4 million parents like
Guillermina to come out of the shadows and not have to live in fear of
being separated from their children. I know that most on the committee
disagree with the policy and that it is being challenged in court. I
also know that it is an imperfect solution, and Congress needs to act
to align our laws more with the gospel's call to radical hospitality
and with Emma Lazuras' words on one of the iconic symbols of our
Nation: ``give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free.''
Use of Force
In addition to the deaths and injury due to the increased physical
challenges of crossing in more remote and perilous places, there has
also been an increase of deaths and injury due to use of force. We urge
you to advocate for the full implementation of the February 2013 PERF
report and that this committee demand that CBP become more transparent
and accountable and implement a complaint filing process that is
accessible and effective.
Boon to the Smuggling Industry
An irony of our increased border enforcement is that it has been
accompanied by an increase in the size, sophistication, and wealth of
smuggling operations on both sides of the border. Smuggling of drugs
and people is a growth industry. In its working paper ``Analysis of
Migrant Smuggling Costs Along the Southwest Border,'' the Department of
Homeland Security \4\ provides data tracking the increased costs of
smuggling with the increase of border enforcement. The data presented
in the DHS paper corresponds closely with the information of the local
residents in Agua Prieta with whom I have talked over the years.
According to them, the cost to get across the border has risen from $50
to $100 prior to 1994, if a smuggler was needed at all, to $800 in 1998
when I first arrived on the border, to $2,000 or more today--with a
much higher risk of being caught, injured, or killed. The DHS's working
paper states that the increased costs for smuggling are only a
``potential deterrent.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-
smuggling-wp.pdf.
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Strained Relationships Between Federal Law Enforcement and Local
Communities
I believe that it is essential for both community security and
border security that there be a good relationship between the Federal
law enforcement and local community--more than 85% of the population of
Douglas is of Mexican descent and while most are U.S. citizens there
are families of mixed legal statuses. Racial profiling is a fear and
lived experience for many of our community. Rosie Mendoza, a
naturalized citizen originally from Mexico and a member of the board of
Frontera de Cristo, shared in a community listening session with Chair
McSally in February of 2015 about the experience of her U.S.-born sons,
who have dark complexions being stopped dozens of times while walking
on the street. She said their ``crime'' is ``walking in Douglas while
brown.''
In a gathering we arranged for local Douglas business persons and
the chief of staff of former Representative Barber, the business owners
expressed concern about how they are treated as ``guilty until proven
innocent'' when they are returning to the United States from Mexico.
Their concern was not only for their persons, but also for business in
Douglas in general. If they as business owners feel more apprehension
coming back into the United States than going into Mexico, how must
non-citizens feel and how many people might that feeling prevent from
crossing the border to shop in the United States?
In my own family, we experience the tension of experiencing the
reality of the border in very different ways. In a recent conversation
with a church, my wife, Miriam, and I were asked us a seemingly simple
question: ``Is it easy for you to cross the border?'' Miriam is a
permanent resident of the United States and citizen of Mexico of
indigenous descent.
We looked at each other knowingly and I asked her to answer the
question. ``It depends if it's him or me.'' Our children even
experience a difference--our oldest daughter who is 20 has a dark
complexion and our youngest 2 children have lighter complexions. Our
oldest daughter has had experiences crossing the border in which she
has been yelled at and humiliated, so much that I do not like her to
cross the border (north) without me. I will not have the same concern
for my 2 youngest children who are 12 and 8 when they become old enough
to cross the border alone.
When we drive through the checkpoint outside of Tombstone, we make
sure the I am driving and not my wife--and not because I am a better
driver. Almost always when I am driving, we get waved through the
checkpoint with ``have a good day''. When Miriam is driving we almost
always get asked citizenship status. Febe, my sister-in-law who has
driven through the checkpoint alone, was amazed to see how easy it was
when I was driving. ``That's white privilege'' she chimed in from the
back seat.
I was recently in a new local restaurant in Douglas when I heard a
Border Patrol Agent comment to the waitress that he was glad that there
was a new restaurant in Douglas. The waitress asked the agent: ``How
many restaurants can Border Patrol Agents eat at in Douglas?'' While I
had known about the reality that Border Patrol Agents did not feel
welcome at many of restaurants and had unofficially but actively
boycotted a couple, I was surprised to her the Agent's response:
``Three.''
I think it is incumbent upon us (both we as local residents and our
Federal law enforcement) to work on strengthening our relationship and
growing trust among us. I am proud to have worked with Mayor Ortega,
the Douglas City Council and other organizations to have a resolution
passed to make Douglas ``A Welcoming Community''. Initially it was in
response to the negative impacts that Arizona's law SB1070 had on
relationships with our neighbors to the south. We wanted them to know
that Douglas welcomed them. However, as we continued our conversations
we realized that we needed to expand our understand of welcome to
include the Federal law enforcement in our midst.
Currently less than 25% of Federal agents stationed in Douglas live
in Douglas. Most live in the Sierra Vista area. There are many reasons:
Lack of housing attractive for agents; of jobs for spouses; of shopping
options etc. I believe we both as a local community and as the Federal
Government look for ways to make living in the communities where our
agents work a more chosen option. By increasing the percentage of
agents living locally, we are more likely to increase our understanding
of and trust for one another. When we participate in civic groups
together, when our children go to school together or play on the soccer
team or take swim lessons, when we worship together, when we celebrate
the fourth of July or Douglas Days together, when we get to know one
another, it becomes harder to treat one another as enemies.
comprehensive immigration reform is essential to border security
Many politicians have argued that there can be no immigration
reform until the border is secure. This is a false dichotomy.
Comprehensive immigration reform is actually integral to helping make
the border more secure.
The Presbyterian Church has joined the majority of faith traditions
advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. The basic elements of
the resolution passed at our 216th General Assembly \5\ are:
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\5\ To see complete resolution and study guide go to http://
www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/acswp/pdf/immigration-
resolution.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
a. an opportunity for hard-working immigrants who are already
contributing to this country to come out of the shadows,
regularize their status upon satisfaction of reasonable
criteria, and, over time, pursue an option to become lawful
permanent residents and eventually United States citizens;
b. reforms in our family-based immigration system to significantly
reduce waiting times for separated families who currently wait
many years to be reunited;
c. the creation of legal avenues for workers and their families who
wish to migrate to the United States to enter our country and
work in a safe, legal, and orderly manner with their rights
fully protected; and
d. border protection policies that are consistent with humanitarian
values and with the need to treat all individuals with respect,
while allowing the authorities to carry out the critical task
of identifying and preventing entry of terrorists and dangerous
criminals, as well as pursuing the legitimate task of
implementing American immigration policy.
e. a call for living wages and safe working conditions for workers
of United States-owned companies in other countries;
f. a call for greater economic development in poor countries to
decrease the economic desperation,which forces the division of
families and migration.
Most of the Border Patrol Agents that I have talked to have
struggled emotionally with the part of their job that requires them to
apprehend men and women who are migrating for economic reasons or to be
reunited with family. The persons that they really want to apprehend
are the people who are coming into the country with ill intent,
smuggling drugs, or with criminal backgrounds.
By creating a system that would allow for the orderly, safe, and
efficient flow of persons who are migrating for economic or family
reasons through ports of entry and removing them from between ports of
entry, we will not only reduce the emotional stress for many of our
agents which will increase their job satisfaction and their
effectiveness, but also enable them to focus on the real threats to our
security.
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Pastor Adams.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Chamberlain.
STATEMENT OF JAIME CHAMBERLAIN, PRESIDENT, JC DISTRIBUTING INC.
Mr. Chamberlain. Chairwoman McSally and Representative
Pearce, my name is Jaime Chamberlain. I am president of JC
Distributing, a Nogales, Arizona-based company with a 46-year
history of importing and distributing fresh produce from Mexico
throughout the United States and Canada. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak about my community and my industry as it
pertains to border security.
For the last 29 years I have worked alongside with my
family, our dedicated employees, and our grower partners to
feed North America. This is a bold statement, but this is our
mission and this is our passion. As a Nogales resident and as
an American businessman, I believe that I bring a background
and close to 3 decades of professional experience that allows
me to assure you that my comments before you today are based on
the realities of the border and the realities of North American
trade and investment.
I am a big proponent of efforts and initiatives to promote
trade and tourism in Southern Arizona for the benefit of my
State and for my country. I am also an ardent proponent of
enhanced security at our border's rural areas, as well as at
our ports of entry. Let me assure you that these two positions
are not contradictory but, in fact, they are essential and
complementary.
The more effective and efficient that our enforcement
agencies are at the border, the faster our produce, our
manufactured goods, our cattle, our mining equipment, and our
Mexican consumers can cross the border. With enhanced security
our enforcement officials can, with greater certainty, secure
our communities and bolster our economic productivity.
As a life-long border citizen, I feel it is my
responsibility to articulate the truth about life on the
border. We have distinct and unique physical security
challenges all along our State, as many before me have
testified to. But our businesses also require a safe and secure
environment so that we may focus on the future of our economic
viability. The stability of economic competitiveness
strengthens our homeland against those who may want to disrupt
our way of life.
Nogales, a community of 24,000 people, is the principal
gateway for Arizona's trade and tourism with Mexico. As
reported by the Federal Government, in 2015 Nogales processed
319,000 trucks, 3.5 million cars, and 10.5 million people. But
I want to make sure that everyone understands that these are
only northbound crossing statistics. When we add our southbound
crossings, our numbers are staggering considering our small
population. The reality is that our ports of entry at Nogales
processed 640,000 trucks, 7 million cars, and 21 million people
this past year alone.
These numbers represent more than $25 billion worth of
imports and exports flowing through Nogales each year. And once
you include Douglas and San Luis, these numbers easily exceed
$30 billion worth of cross-border trade. It is also estimated
that Mexican visitors spend over $7.3 million per day in
Arizona. What happens at Nogales is important to Arizona and to
the Nation.
Thanks to the efforts of many stakeholders in our
community, among them the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County
Port Authority and the Fresh Produce Association of the
Americas, close to $300 million have been invested in our
community. Our commercial crossing has some of the shortest
wait times of any comparable port of entry on the borders of
Canada and Mexico. We have improved our situation in many ways
over the last 10 years, but we still have much more that needs
to be done.
These volumes can continue to grow but only if we provide
Customs and Border Protection the necessary staffing, the
newest technology for our equipment, and state-of-the-art
facilities in order to do their job effectively and
efficiently. Currently, CBP is doing the best they can
protecting our interests with what they have. This is not
acceptable for the citizens of Arizona, nor for the citizens of
the United States of America. We can do better for those brave
men and women in green and blue uniforms. We can do better for
the businessmen and women working in our communities. We
certainly can do better for our future citizens. This is the
paradigm that I am asking you to change. The U.S. Government,
combined with your leadership in Congress, needs to commit the
necessary resources for our ports of entry. This is an urgent
matter for our physical and for our economic security.
Securing the border at the border should be the strategy
for our country. Unfortunately, many times when we ask for
resources for our border, we are seen as a cost burden to the
Nation. I don't know of a better use of our scarce Federal
funds than investing in our sea ports, our land ports, and our
air ports of entry. It needs to be seen, it must be seen as our
best return on our investment for our Nation. By ensuring that
our ports of entry are of the highest service standards for our
foreign and domestic consumers, we would assure a more
prosperous economic future for North America.
A new report from the research arm of the University of
Southern California links Customs and Border Protection Officer
staffing to both revenue generation and job creation. The
National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism
Events report released on April 8, 2013, estimates the impact
of wait times at major ports of entry on the U.S. economy due
to changes in CBP Officer staffing. The study concludes that
adding one CBP Officer at one of the study's land or airport
locations would inject $2 million into the economy and produce
33 new jobs. Yet our Nogales ports of entry are understaffed by
almost 300 agents and over 20 canine units. We must keep our
ports working at the speed of business. We have not done so in
many years.
Efficient and well-staffed ports of entry mean foreign
direct investment, it means job creation, it means higher-
paying export-related jobs, and it means we can feel safe while
conducting our business with our northern, our southern, and
our global trade partners.
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the committee, I thank you
for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you. Be
assured of my personal commitment to working with you and the
other stakeholders in this room to make our border a true asset
for our economic and physical security. I think you can tell
how passionate I am about these issues. There is simply too
much at stake to approach this in any other way. I look forward
to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chamberlain follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jaime Chamberlain
May 9, 2016
Chairwoman McSally and Members of the committee. My name is Jaime
Chamberlain. I am president of JC Distributing Inc, a Nogales, Arizona
based company with a 46-year history of importing and distributing
fresh produce from Mexico throughout the United States and Canada. I
appreciate the opportunity to speak about my community and my industry
as it pertains to border security.
For the last 29 years I have worked alongside my family, our
dedicated employees, and our grower partners to feed North America.
This is a bold statement, but this our mission and our passion. As a
Nogales resident and as an American businessman I believe that I bring
a background, and close to 3 decades of professional experience, that
allows me to assure you that my comments before you today are based on
the realities of the border and the realities of North American trade
and investment.
I am a big proponent of efforts and initiatives to promote trade
and tourism in Southern Arizona for the benefit of my State and my
country. I am also an ardent proponent of enhanced security at our
borders rural areas as well as at our border ports of entry. Let me
assure you that these 2 positions are not contradictory but in fact
they are essential and complimentary.
The more effective and efficient that our enforcement agencies are
at the border, the faster our produce, our manufactured goods, our
cattle, our mining equipment, and our Mexican consumers can cross the
border. With enhanced security our enforcement officials can, with
greater certainty, secure our communities and bolster our economic
productivity.
As a life-long Border Citizen, I feel it is my responsibility to
articulate the truth about life on the border. We have distinct and
unique physical security challenges all along our State as many before
me have testified to. But our businesses also require a safe and secure
environment so that we may focus on the future of our economic
viability. The stability of economic competitiveness strengthens our
homeland against those who may want to disrupt our way of life.
Nogales, a community of 24,000 people is the principal gateway for
Arizona's trade and tourism with Mexico. As reported by the U.S.
Federal Government, in 2015 Nogales processed 319,000 trucks, 3.5
million cars, and 10.5 million people. But I want to make sure that
everyone understands that these are only north-bound crossing
statistics. When we add our south-bound crossings, our numbers are
staggering considering our small population. The reality is that our
ports of entry at Nogales processed 640,000 trucks, 7 million cars, and
21 million people this past year.
These numbers represent more than $25 billion worth of imports and
exports flowing through Nogales each year. And once you include Douglas
and San Luis, these numbers easily exceed $30 billion worth of cross
border trade. It is also estimated that Mexican visitors spend over
$7.3 million per day in Arizona. What happens at Nogales is important
to Arizona and the Nation.
Thanks to the efforts of many stakeholders in our community, among
them the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority and the Fresh
Produce Association of the Americas, close to $300 million have been
invested in our community. Our commercial crossing has some of the
shortest wait times of any comparable port of entry on the borders with
Canada or Mexico. We have improved our situation in many ways in the
past 10 years, but we still have much more that needs to be done.
These volumes can continue to grow but ONLY IF we provide Customs
and Border Protection the necessary staffing, the newest technology for
our equipment, and state-of-the-art facilities in order to do their job
effectively and efficiently. Currently CBP is doing the best they can
protecting our interests with what they have. This is not acceptable
for the Citizens of Arizona, nor for the United States of America. We
can do better for those brave men and women in green and blue uniforms.
We can do better for the businessmen and women working in our
communities. And we certainly should be better for our future citizens.
This is the paradigm that I am asking you to change. The U.S.
Government, combined with your leadership in Congress, needs to commit
the necessary resources for our ports of entry. This is an urgent
matter for our physical and our economic security.
Securing the border at the border should be the strategy for our
country.
Unfortunately, many times when we ask for resources for our border,
we are seen as a cost burden to the Nation. I don't know of a better
use of our scarce Federal funds than investing in our sea ports, our
land ports, and our air ports of entry. It needs to be seen, it must be
seen as our best return on our investment for our Nation. By ensuring
that our ports of entry are of the highest service standards for our
foreign and domestic consumers, we would assure a more prosperous
economic future for North America. Efficient and well-staffed ports of
entry mean foreign direct investment, it means job creation, it means
higher-paying export-related jobs, it means we can feel safe while
conducting our business with our northern, our southern, and our global
trade partners.
Madame Chair and Members of the committee, I thank you for the
opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you. Be assured of my
personal commitment of working with you and the other stakeholders in
this room to make our border a true asset for our economic and physical
security.
I think you can tell how passionate I am about these issues. There
is simply too much at stake to approach this in any other way. I look
forward to your questions.
Ms. McSally. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain.
The Chair now recognizes Mrs. Stockholm Walden, please.
STATEMENT OF NAN STOCKHOLM WALDEN, VICE PRESIDENT AND LEGAL
COUNSEL, FARMERS INVESTMENT CO. (FICO)
Ms. Stockholm Walden. Thank you, Chair McSally and
Representative Pearce. On behalf of Farmers Investment Company
and the Green Valley Pecan Company, I am very grateful to be
here this morning.
Just under 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to testify in
Washington before the Oversight Subcommittee of the House
Natural Resources Committee on a similar topic, border security
and Federal lands. My presence here today underscores how
seriously we take these issues. My husband is in California
today, but he certainly joins me in these remarks.
We were there with friends and local neighbors Sue and Jim
Chilton, and our hearts go out to the Krentz family and to the
Bell family, whom we know very well also, as to what they are
undergoing on a daily basis.
Two percent of our population are farmers and ranchers, and
they feed the world, not only this country but the world. You
are part of that too, Jaime, and we are grateful and share many
of your observations.
FICO is a major agricultural company founded almost 75
years ago by my father-in-law. Today, my husband and our 2
children are forming the third generation of Waldens, and we
have many second- and third-generation workers, most of whom
are of Mexican-American descent. We employ 260 full-time
workers with full-time benefits, plus 50 to 60 seasonal workers
during the harvest, which makes us one of the larger employers
in Pima County.
We also have major farms in Cochise County at San Simone,
about 3,500 acres of pecans for planting, a warehouse in Las
Cruces, New Mexico. So I guess I represent several
constituencies here. We are the largest integrated grower and
processor of pecans in the world, and our pecans are known
globally for their quality and value.
The FICO headquarters is located just over 40 miles north
of the border off of I-19, and our home ranch is just less than
30 miles. We have a horse and cattle operation with 160 acres
of private land and a 6,000-acre State grazing lease that
straddles the southern part of Pima County and the northern
part of the Santa Cruz County line just north of the checkpoint
at I-19.
Our proximity to the border gives us first-hand experience
with border security challenges, and we know the difficult job
the Border Patrol is tasked to undertake. I have served on
former Representative Gabby Giffords' Citizens Advisory Group
on the I-19 checkpoint, and I would like to request that their
recommendations be made part of the record because I think they
are very apropos for today as well.
We would concur that we should secure the border at the
border, and this is not because of some romantic notion we have
about the difficulties that we are all facing but because we
believe that too many alternate routes exist to get around the
checkpoints. You gave the football analogy. Another one of my
friends who played football, Gary Brasher, says it is sort of
like standing in the middle of the field if you are the defense
and hoping the quarterback will run into your arms.
We have a gas line and we have a dry riverbed. We have
different transmission lines and a railroad that are all
excellent routes to go around the checkpoint. So what happens
is these people are flushed into our neighborhoods and ranches
and communities, and the Border Patrol itself admits that 94
percent of the apprehensions are not made at the checkpoint but
around it. So it is a serious concern.
I believe you have a military background. My husband was a
pilot in Vietnam, flew the OV-1 Mohawk. This is a fanciful
example, but if Mexico declared war on America, the Marines
would not hold the line in Tucson or Phoenix. They would defend
the border at the border, at our sovereign border. They would
go into Mexico if necessary to push them back, and that is the
same approach that we feel we need today.
We believe that comprehensive immigration reform is also
essential for border security. This must be a multi-layered
approach. We have to be smart about this, and I think Mayor
Ortega and others that you heard on the first panel all
mentioned this. Our visa system, our temporary worker system is
broken. Agriculture, ranching, the hospitality industry, health
care, construction, many of these industries depend upon a
supply of entry-level and younger workers who will then be
upwardly mobile, just as our ancestors were.
We also need seasonal workers. That benefits both of our
countries.
I have personal experience and I have put in my longer
testimony many, many episodes of high-speed chases by Border
Patrol through, in one case, my front driveway, which I have
detailed. Sharing some of these stories does not at all
undermine the efforts of the Border Patrol. We are grateful for
their service. Our ranch liaison, Jake Stukenberg, is doing a
wonderful job, and I have called him at 11 o'clock at night
when we had an incident on our ranch, and he is right there,
and we really appreciate that.
However, following the recommendations that were part of
the
9/11 report, we understand some of these have still not been
implemented about communications, the ports of entry, and
cracking down on employers, may I say, that hire people
illegally. We were one of the first employers in Arizona to
voluntarily use the e-Verify program, and we continue to do
that with good results to this day. We don't appreciate other
employers hiring people illegally because they undercut our
wages and our benefits. We have had health benefits for our
workers since the '50s. They are competing unfairly. We also
drug-test all of our employees, including our management and
including Dick and myself, on a random basis to cut down on the
demand, which is what the sheriff was talking about in Cochise
County.
It has to be a multi-layered strategy. It can't just be one
thing.
The SCAP funding is also very important.
So again, I would be happy to go into this more with some
specific recommendations that we have made. I also serve on the
National Immigration Forum Board, which is a non-partisan group
of people interested in a humane and enforceable immigration
reform. We really appreciate your efforts to work together on a
bipartisan basis. This is too important for any of us to play
politics with. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Stockholm Walden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nan Stockholm Walden
May 9, 2016
introduction
Chair McSally, I am Nan Stockholm Walden, vice president and
counsel for Farmers Investment Co., (FICO), Farmers Water Co. (FWC) and
The Green Valley Pecan Company here in Sahuarita, Arizona. I appreciate
the opportunity to address you today on border security affecting our
communities. A little over a week ago, I had to the opportunity to
testify in Washington before the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations of the House Committee on Natural Resources on border
security and my presence here today underscores how seriously we take
these issues.
FICO is a major agricultural enterprise founded by my husband's
father R. Keith Walden almost 75 years ago. Today, my husband, Dick
Walden, who is the president and CEO of the company, and the third
generation of Waldens, including daughter Deborah and son Rich, are
active in the company.
We employ 260 permanent workers, many of whom also are second- and
third-generation FICO employees, whom we consider family, as well.
During harvest season, we hire an additional 50 to 60 workers, making
us one of the larger employers in Pima County.
FICO is the largest integrated grower and processor of pecans in
the world. We are also the largest producer of organic pecans. Research
has shown that pecans are rich in antioxidants, can lower harmful LDL
cholesterol, and contain 19 essential vitamins and minerals, as well as
being an excellent source of protein. FICO sells pecans to food
manufacturers including makers of cereals, health bars, ice creams,
candies, and bakery goods, to retail chains that package our nuts under
their label, and directly to customers--both here and abroad. We also
buy pecans from other growers in the United States and Mexico.
FICO owns approximately 11,000 acres in Southern Arizona, of which
about 7,500 acres are irrigated and under cultivation for pecan nuts, a
tree native to North America.
The FICO headquarters is located here in Sahuarita just over 40
miles north of the border, and our home ranch is just less than 30
miles. Our property in Amado is a horse and cattle operation that
includes 160 acres of private land and a 6,000-acre State grazing
lease.
Consequently, we have the first-hand experience with border
security challenges, and we know the difficult job the Border Patrol is
tasked to undertake. The Border Patrol has responded to calls on both
our farm and our ranch. I might add that our Border Patrol Tucson
Sector Ranch Liaison, Jake Stukenberg, does an excellent job helping us
cooperate with Border Patrol.
I also serve on the board of directors of the National Immigration
Forum, a non-partisan organization that works with diverse
constituencies especially business, faith, and law enforcement leaders
advocating for immigrants and responsible immigration policy. This
policy must reflect immigrants' contributions to our Nation's history,
culture, and growth, and their continuing contributions to our
country's economy, especially in the agriculture and ranching sectors
in rural communities.
The views I am offering today are informed by this context.
impact of permanent border checkpoints on our communities
FICO has long-standing concerns about the effectiveness of
permanent Border Patrol checkpoints and their impacts on the
surrounding community including nearby public lands. We met often with
your predecessors including former Rep. Jim Kolbe, and I served on Rep.
Gabrielle Giffords' Citizens' Advisory Committee on Checkpoints.
Those of us that live in areas surrounding the checkpoint have, for
years, been exposed to the degradation of our public safety because of
them--high-speed car chases through our neighborhoods, gunshot victims,
and the like. I have experienced a high-speed chase by Border Patrol
through my front driveway in Sahuarita, AZ that I am sure would have
killed an employee or me had I not been in my home office at the time.
The result was that a couple and 2 young terrified kids were
apprehended, but there were no weapons or drugs found in their car.
My neighbor at the Agua Linda Ranch was pushed down on the ground
by Border Patrol Agents around 10 p.m., one night when he was near his
ranch house, changing the irrigation set on his vegetables, dressed in
his pajamas, despite the fact that he identified himself as the owner
of the property.
Our neighbors and ourselves have had many similar experiences of
livestock buzzed by helicopters flying too low over pastures, gates
left open, fences cut, and crossers asked to dump all their belongings
on our property, which were left there, not confiscated. We have had
numerous examples of Border Patrol Agents being unfamiliar or lost on
our ranch property, which is within a quarter mile of the major North/
South Interstate, I-19.
A senior member of our team who happens to be Mexican-American was
stopped by the Border Patrol 40 miles north of the border on her way
from her home to work. She was driving a late model SUV with 2 young
daughters in the back in car seats. When she asked why she was stopped,
the Border Patrol Officer replied, ``You fit the profile.''
``What profile is that?'' she asked.
``Driving a late model SUV and obeying the traffic laws and speed
limit,'' was the reply.
Sharing these stories with you does not at all mean we do not
appreciate the efforts of the Border Patrol. Rather, proper training is
crucial to Border Patrol Agents working successfully with rural
communities. We have noted that because Border Patrol has significantly
increased staffing levels in recent years, there is a lot of
transferring agents from one sector to another, high rates of turnover,
and lack of uniform training.
The Border Patrol strategy, ``Defense-in-Depth,'' calls for
retreating 30 or so miles from the border with fixed checkpoints. This
strategy has us living in a no man's land and underestimates the
intelligence of the enemy we are fighting--the drug and human
smugglers. The assumption that these criminals will not circumvent
fixed checkpoints and traverse through our neighborhoods, our ranches,
our communities, and our public lands is not based in reality.
There have been several in-depth examinations of the effectiveness
and impacts of the Border Patrols checkpoint strategy.
GAO, August 2009\1\.--This GAO report confirmed that the Border
Patrol was proceeding without adequate information on the
effectiveness of fixed checkpoints and their adverse impacts on
the public safety and quality of life of southern Arizona. GAO
found that there were ``information gaps and reporting issues''
because of insufficient data, the agency was unable to compare
the cost-effectiveness of checkpoints to other strategies, and
the Border Patrol had misrepresented its checkpoint
performance. It also found that of all the apprehensions of
illegal immigrants in the vicinity of the I-19 checkpoint in a
certain fiscal year, ``94% occurred in the areas surrounding
the checkpoint, while only 6% took place at the checkpoint
itself.'' In other words, these statistics make it clear that
the checkpoint was driving criminal activities into the areas
surrounding the checkpoint.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ United States, Government Accountability Office (GAO). (2009).
Checkpoints Contribute to Border Patrol's Mission, but More Consistent
Data Collection and Performance Measurement Could Improve Effectiveness
(GAO-09-824). Washington, District of Columbia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, the University of
Arizona, December 2012 \2\.--After undertaking a detailed
statistical analysis this study found that the I-19 checkpoint
is having a significant impact on the property values of the
community surrounding this facility. This means that rural
communities in the vicinity of the checkpoint, like Tubac,
Arizona, are bearing a disproportionate economic burden for
this border security tactic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Gans, J., M.S., M.P. (December 2012). The Border Patrol
Checkpoint on Interstate 19 in Southern Arizona: A Case Study of
Impacts on Residential Real Estate (Rep.). Udall Center for Studies in
Public Policy, The University of Arizona.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tubac is in a rural area 20 miles from the border. It has become a
major draw for tourists and businesses due to its historical,
cultural, artistic, and recreational facilities. Yet we know of
many visitors and potential residents who have cancelled
vacations or real estate purchases due to concerns about the
permanent checkpoint and appearance of extreme militarism in
the area. According to the Arizona Office of Tourism, tourism
spending generates $3.6 billion in economic activity annually
and employs over 30,000 individuals in southern Arizona.\3\ The
economic impacts of border security measures must be carefully
considered.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Arizona Travel Impacts 1998-2014p. (2015, June). Retrieved from
https://tourism.az.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/
AZImp14pFinal_1.pdf. Report prepared by Dean Runyon & Associates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
GAO, December 2012 \4\.--This report found, among other things,
that because of data limitations the Border Patrol is unable to
compare the effectiveness how resources are deployed among
sectors. Each sector collects and reports the data differently
thus precluding comparison. Policymakers and Border Patrol
leadership are unable to effectively assess the effectiveness
of tactics such as the checkpoint.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Government Accountability Office (GAO). (2012). Key Elements of
New Strategic Plan Not Yet in Place to Inform Border Security Status
and Resource Needs (GAO-13-25). Washington, District of Columbia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The information in a report issued last month by the Congressional
Research Service (CRS) is also worth considering. In it, CRS
noted discussed unintended and secondary consequences of border
enforcement on border-area crime, migrant flow and migrants
deaths, environmental impacts, effects on border communities,
and U.S. foreign relations. Importantly, the report explains
that an ``unintended consequence of enhanced border enforcement
between ports of entry may have been an increase in
unauthorized entries through ports of entry and other means.''
Specifically, the report found that ``based on three different
surveys conducted between 2008 and 2010, UCSD researchers found
that the probability of being apprehended while passing through
a port of entry without authorization was about half as high as
the probability of being apprehended while crossing between the
ports.''\5\ While the report does not specifically address
interior checkpoints, its findings raise yet again the question
of whether resources would be better shifted to border ports of
entry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Border Security: Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of
Entry'', Carla N. Argueta, Congressional Research Service, April 19,
2016.
FICO believes that fixed permanent checkpoints threaten public
safety in addition to resulting in significant economic consequences.
It is clear in our view that they drive illegal activities away from
the checkpoint into surrounding areas including Federal public lands.
We strongly believe that the border should be secured at the border.
comprehensive immigration reform
As long-time business owners who live and work within 30 to 40
miles of the border, I cannot emphasize enough the inexorable link
between border security and comprehensive immigration reform.
We understand the gravity of the border situation--the drug-
associated violence, human smuggling, and environmental impacts--as
well as the impacts of some enforcement activities on our commerce and
property values.
We also know the effects of poorly crafted or implemented Federal
or State policies that create a climate of fear and discrimination
among the civilian population--business and commerce decline and
families suffer.
That makes your job all the more challenging and important--and we
thank you for hearing from the people like us who live this situation
daily, and for those of you who have visited the border and talked to
residents and those who work and travel on both sides of the line.
In 2008, I testified before the House Subcommittee on Homeland
Security, regarding the importance of comprehensive immigration reform.
Much of what I said in 2008 remains a problem today.
We must remember and appreciate the contributions of our legal
immigrants and those in our area who are of Mexican-American descent,
without whom agriculture and ranching could not flourish in the United
States. The health care industry, restaurant and hospitality industry,
construction, mining, and many other sectors depend on continued
renewal of both entry-level and skilled labor from other countries.
Mexico is our third-largest trading partner, behind Canada and
China. The United States and Mexican economies are interdependent. As
Mexico strengthens its institutions and economy, the benefits flow into
our country, and there is less pressure for illegal migration.
In our experience, the paths for both permanent and temporary legal
workers in the United States are long, crooked, and in some cases dead-
ends. Since 1986 we have not uniformly enforced immigration laws, nor
have we adequately dealt with ways to efficiently permit temporary
workers, and provide a timely path to citizenship for those who merit
it. Agricultural and other visa programs are impractical and
unworkable.
Polls show that most Americans favor comprehensive immigration
reform, including a path to citizenship and that these levels of
support have remained constant for more than a decade.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ In United States, 65% Favor Path to Citizenship for Illegal
Immigrants. (2015, August 12). Retrieved April 26, 2016, from http://
www.gallup.com/poll/184577/favor-path-citizenship-illegal-
immigrants.aspx.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
National security experts under both Republican and Democratic
administrations,\7\ assert that the most effective border security
strategy is comprehensive immigration reform. We must fix the
immigration system by providing legal avenues for workers to enter the
United States when needed and allow families to reunify. The 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act, which resolved the status of most
undocumented immigrants at the time, did not adequately address the
demand for legal immigrant labor. Because there continues to be a
demand for immigrant labor, individuals from other countries who seek a
better life are drawn to our Nation that is full of opportunity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Molnar, P. (2013, April 8). Panetta Lecture Series: Border
security experts say immigration reform is vital. Retrieved April 26,
2016, from http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/zz/20130408/NEWS/
130408557.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By providing more avenues for these individuals to come to the
United States through legal means, law enforcement and border officials
will be able to spend fewer resources toward immigrants migrating for
economic reasons and more resources toward genuine criminal and
terrorist threats that could harm our communities. Smart enforcement
and border security, coupled with comprehensive immigration reforms,
can improve border security.
conclusion
We appreciate the professional efforts of the Border Patrol and we
certainly believe in securing our Nation's borders, preferably at the
border or in the immediate vicinity.
Congress should also enact comprehensive immigration reform that
addresses our society's need for lawful immigrants, and, at the same
time protects and enhances the public lands our growing population
needs for recreational, economic, and spiritual needs.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Ms. Walden.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Krentz.
STATEMENT OF FRANK KRENTZ, RANCHER
Mr. Krentz. Chairwoman McSally and Mr. Pearce, thank you
for coming down here today. My name is Frank Krentz. I am a
fifth-generation rancher in Cochise County on the same piece of
ground that my forefathers started 109 years ago.
Almost 6 years ago one morning my cousin, my uncle, my
father, and myself sat down for breakfast and talked about what
we were going to do for the day. When we finished my cousin and
I went to move cows while my father went to check a motor and
my other uncle went to look at other waters on the ranch. That
was the last time I saw my father. Rob Krentz was on his way to
check the motor when he called his brother on the cell phone
and said there was someone walking across the pasture and was
going to go see what was going on.
Friends and neighbors came to help us look for my father
when we couldn't get a hold of him for hours. A neighbor called
the sheriff's search and rescue team and they started looking
as well. The news came in late that night that they had found
my father.
Rob was a great and caring man, helpful to others and
dedicated to the way of life that he loved. He worked to help
others, volunteering his time to help the local school,
community, family, and friends.
To understand where I am coming from, you need to know the
people that live in this area. Most of the people in this part
of the world have had at least one incident that has involved
problems with people trespassing across from the Southern
Border illegally. When I was younger we would see people
crossing the border and knew that they were running from
problems worse than getting caught on the northern side.
Knowing that the Arizona desert can be dangerous to cross, we
would make sure that there would be Border Patrol on the way to
help them. I can remember a time in 1999 I saw two different
groups of people crossing the ranch that numbered larger than
100. We used to approach these people as Christians to make
sure that there were no injuries and tell them that Border
Patrol would be here shortly to help them. We would always do
this even after we had had our houses broken into, our vehicles
stolen, trash left in the country, and water lines broken.
There have been many times when we would go and check storage
tanks that we would spend a week's worth of time to make full
be drained because illegals would break water lines or floats
to get a drink of water and draining thousands of gallons of
water out on the ground. We would still try our best to give
these people help.
After losing my father, all of that changed. Now we don't
go near these people. Not knowing what the situation holds, we
don't put ourselves in a position that would get us into
trouble. The people we see now are not the large groups fleeing
but the small groups packing drugs. There have been pictures
taken of these small groups armed as well.
I was told once by a U.S. Congressman that the people along
the border have become numb to the whole border issue, that we
have gotten used to the idea that this is the new normal if we
want to live here. I wouldn't say that we have become numb, but
we have become resilient, that we want to live in this part of
the world, that many of the families around have been here for
many years and generations and hope to have many more
generations in this part of the country they have carved out
for themselves.
People who aren't from here get shocked when I tell them
the problems we face on a daily basis. They ask why don't you
move away from there? It is hard for some people to know what
100 years of working in one place can look like. I am a fifth-
generation rancher and feel a sense of pride of what I am
doing, raising livestock for our Nation, being out in the
country and working in a business sector that less than 2
percent of the country are able to do.
As our guests leave here today, I would like you to take
with you the gratitude from me and my friends and family for
hearing what we have gone through, to go back and say that
there is a problem that needs more attention.
Before I close and I have a little bit of time, I would
like noted in the record some other issues that need to be held
up. Ever since I was a little kid, one of our family friends,
Gary Thrasher, the local in the area, and I am sure you all
have met him before, he has always voiced to me that one of the
major issues that is seen in rural agriculture is disease that
can be easily transported across the border. My great uncle in
the '40s and '50s fought back tuberculosis and hoof and mouth
out of the United States, and fought it into Sonora, Mexico,
into Chihuahua, Mexico, and fought it deep down south. The
Mexican government has been doing good work trying to regulate
that disease and the health of the animals to keep it away from
our borders, because once that does get into our Nation's food
supply, it can be very detrimental. It can eradicate whole
herds in whole counties. It can be that fast-spreading.
Another issue that I would like you to be aware of is what
Mr. Ortega was saying about how the population has decreased
over the last number of years. It has also affected the land
values. I have had a neighboring rancher that has recently had
to have his ranch appraised for a business organization, and he
says in the last 15 years his ranch has lost half of its value
just because of the location to the border.
When you go back, I would like you to heed that there are
issues that are addressed and that securing the border is not
just not allowing anybody in but it is controlling what can
come in and making it a manageable factor because, with a
simple ranching analogy, if you run too many cows, you are
going to run out of grass, and then you are not going to be
able to run any. So I would like you to go back and thank you
for listening to us today. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Krentz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Frank Krentz
May 9, 2016
Almost 6 years ago one morning my cousin, my uncle, my father, and
myself sat down for breakfast and talked about what we were going to do
for the day. When we finished my cousin and I went to move cows while
my father went to check a motor and my uncle went to check other waters
on the ranch. That was the last time I saw my father. Rob Krentz was on
his way to check the motor when he called his brother on the cell phone
and said there was someone walking across the pasture and was going to
see what was going on.
Friend and neighbors came to help us look for my father when we
couldn't get a hold of him for hours. A neighbor called the sheriff's
search-and-rescue team and they started looking. The news came in late
that night that they had found my father.
Rob was a great and caring man. Helpful to others and dedicated to
the way of life that he loved. He worked to help others volunteering
his time to help the local school, his community, and friends and
family.
To understand where I am coming from you need to know the people
that live in this area. Most of the people in this part of the world
has had at least one incident that involved problems with people
trespassing across the Southern Border illegally. When I was younger we
would see people crossing the border and knew that they were running
from problems worse than getting caught on the northern side. Knowing
that the Arizona desert can be dangerous to cross we would make sure
there would be Border Patrol on the way to help them. I can remember a
time in 1999 I saw 2 different groups of people crossing the ranch that
numbered larger than 100. We used to approach these people as
Christians to make sure there were no injuries and tell them that
Border Patrol would be here shortly to help them. We would always do
this even after we have had our houses broken into, vehicles stolen,
trash left in the country, and waters broken. There have been many
times when we would go and check storage tanks that we would spent a
week's worth of time to make full be drained because illegals would
break water lines or floats to get a drink of water and draining
thousands of gallons of water out on the ground. And we would still try
our best to get these people help.
After losing my father all of that changed. Now we don't go near
these people. Not knowing what the situation holds we don't put
ourselves in a position that would get us into trouble. The people that
we see now are not the large groups of people fleeing but small groups
packing drugs. There have been pictures taken of some of these small
groups armed as well.
I was told once by a U.S. Congressman that the people along the
border has become ``NUMB'' to the whole border issue. They have gotten
used to the idea that this is the new normal if they want to live here.
I wouldn't say that we have become ``NUMB'' but we have become
resilient; that we want to live in this part of the world, that many of
the families here have been here for many years and generations and
hope to have many more on this part of the world they have carved out
for themselves.
People who aren't from here get shocked when I tell them the
problems we face on a daily basis. They ask why don't you move away
from there? It is hard for some people to know what 100 years of
working in one place can look like. I am fifth generation on the ranch
and feel a sense of pride of what I am doing raising livestock for our
Nation. Being out in the country and working in a business sector that
is less than 1% of the country are able to do.
As our guest leave here today I would like you to take with you the
gratitude from me and my friends and family for hearing what we are
going through. To go back and say that there is a problem that needs
more attention than what is given to it. Finally, that we work hard to
stay in this country that we live in and we want to be able to continue
to live and work free of fear of what would happen if we were to leave
our house to go to work.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Krentz. I have to say for
myself and Mr. Pearce, our hearts continue to be with your
family. You know personally the price that you paid every day,
the loss of your dad from an unsecure border. I really
appreciate you coming and sharing your perspective today.
I want to thank you for the diversity and the perspectives
of the whole panel.
I want to start with a similar question I asked the first
panel, which is--well, part of it is what trends have you seen
over the last decade, shifting really from potentially more
people coming to find work versus hardened cartels that are now
controlling traffic that have become far more dangerous?
What do you want Washington, DC and others--what do you
want in the record besides what you just said, the trends that
have changed over the years? What do you need them to hear from
you and your perspectives about what is going on in our
communities? If the President were standing before you today
and you are the new Secretary of Homeland Security and you are
in charge of now securing the border, it is your strategy, it
is your ideas, you are resource unconstrained, from each of
your perspectives what would that look like? What would you do
in order to address these issues that you have all very
eloquently brought to our attention today?
Starting with Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell. Well, I think I would start with what my main
point was, actually getting access to the border. The previous
panel talked about the wilderness areas and things of that
nature that prevent access and prevent sometimes the ability to
patrol the border if there is an actual pursuit going on. There
are MOUs in place.
But a lot of our ranch is on Federal land, and there is a
big process that needs to be gone through to get roads put in.
We just had a 2-mile stretch of road put in along the border,
as close to the border as you could get it, because the terrain
is very, very difficult. So they were able to get it as close
to the border as possible, but that process took more than a
decade to get done, and most of it, because of the required
permitting and everything else to get it okayed, to get it
done, it took about 4 years to construct, and they are just
finishing it up right now, and it is 2 miles. But it has made a
difference.
Technology has made a difference, but it is only in a
limited space, like I told you. We need to keep that progress
and keep it going.
So for me, it is getting the access, getting to a place
where we can defend, and then having the resources to back it
up, because there is no silver bullet. It is not just that one
thing. We need everything. We need boots on the ground. We need
consequences. We need air support. We need everything to get it
done because there is not one key you can stick in that is
going to stop it. You need to have a myriad of things to do
that.
Ms. McSally. Thanks.
Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams. Thank you. One of the huge trends that has
changed are the types of folks that we encounter in the Migrant
Resource Center. Our ministry began 10 years ago having what is
called the Migrant Resource Center on the south side of the
border, and we have received over 86,000 men, women, and
children who have been returned to Mexico from the United
States by our U.S. Border Patrol.
Early in that time, there were lots of folks who were
crossing for the first time, going for job purposes, things
like that. One of the things we have seen dramatically in the
last piece is the number of people who are returning to the
United States, not going for the first time, usually going to
be reunited with families in the United States. There is 1
woman I mentioned in my written testimony, Hermina, who has
lived in South Carolina for over 10 years, and she ended up in
the Center, has a 6-year-old son who was born in South
Carolina, and she returned to Mexico to see her dying father.
She talked about being caught between two worlds. She said just
pray for us, pray.
So that is a reality that we are seeing, is more folks,
especially from Mexico--there is not as much economic
migration, but the folks who are returning from Mexico tend to
be folks returning. So that is a big trend.
The other trend that we saw at our prayer vigil--every
Tuesday we have a prayer vigil for those who died crossing into
the United States, and one of the things that we began seeing
in the early 2000s is more and more women showing up on the
crosses that were there. This is going back a little bit
historically, but there was a shift from mainly young men
crossing the border to women crossing the border.
One of our partners in Colorado, we were up visiting there
and they took us to a place where they just have migrant
housing. It had been a big kind of bunkhouse, and it had been
changed into townhouses. So we asked them what has changed, and
they said now families are coming, women are coming.
So one of the ironies of our border security policy of the
'90s is that in many ways we did a better job of keeping people
in the country as opposed to out of the country, because it
changed historic patterns of migrating for 5 years or so, going
back every year. As it became harder and more expensive and
more dangerous to return home between seasons, people stayed.
Once that happened, and I have personally had families struggle
with this, what do you do with separated families? So more
women have gone.
Unfortunately, there is a higher percentage of women dying
as opposed to their numbers than men, and that is something we
have seen as well there.
A trend that we haven't seen change is the percentage of
death happening in crossing, even as the number of people
crossing has gone down. The percentage per crossing of people
dying has actually maintained the same or increased a little
bit. So that is a disturbing change that has not changed and
needs to change.
Then the second piece that hasn't changed that needs to
change is the dichotomy between security and immigration
reform. I think that is a very false dichotomy, and it is a
very dangerous dichotomy, because we have been hearing it for
20 years. It seems like a simple thing to me, and maybe it is
not, but it seems like if we take folks who are coming for
economic reasons or for family reasons, like many of our
ancestors had come in the past, and look at the economic
realities on both sides of our borders, and we provide for safe
and efficient ways for folks to come through ports of entry,
then it would be a lot easier for our law enforcement to be
able to detect folks who are coming with ill intent.
So I think we need to change that trend, and you can be one
of the persons to change that trend, to say that is a false
dichotomy and it needs to change, because if it doesn't change,
we are not going to have a secure border and we are going to
continue to increase the number of people who die trying to
reach the American Dream.
Ms. McSally. Thank you.
Mr. Chamberlain. Chairwoman McSally, if I had an unlimited
amount of resources, there are a ton of things I would do, and
if I had the President in front of me I would say a whole lot
of things. One of the things that is most important to us and
what I testified to is toward the efficient and expedient flow
of commerce between the ports of entry. That is extremely
important for us in Nogales, Arizona.
One of the things that is bothersome is that within the
Department of Homeland Security structure you have Border
Patrol, which is funded by direct appropriations, and you have
Customs that is partially funded by user fees and direct
appropriations. I think that is an issue that needs to be
addressed. It shouldn't be an either/or issue. I think commerce
is just as important as what happens in the rural areas of the
United States. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the
ranchers and for the rural areas of Arizona. I have a great
relationship with Dan Bell. We happen to be neighbors and
growing up as kids, and I understand their issues. Even the
agent Del Cueto said the agencies did not grow in the same way
in the last 10 years, 10 to 15 years.
I think that as we strengthened between our ports of entry
in the rural areas where we grew the Border Patrol, I think we
had a tough time growing Customs, and therefore many more ports
of entry became porous. As you can see from the terrorists from
9/11, they all came through a port of entry, whether it was a
sea port, a land port, or an airport. They didn't come through
the desert. That doesn't mean that that can't happen in the
future. But our ports of entry, I believe, are just as
important, and they are just as dangerous.
You have the Port of Nogales that catches as much drugs as
any 5 ports on the southern border of Texas. So that is
extremely dangerous, and it is only escalating. It is also
dangerous to have an understaffed port of entry. You have
agents on the border that are working 16-hour shifts and they
have very, very little time to determine what is in front of
them. When they have a car that comes in front of them or a
pedestrian that crosses right in front of them, they have very
little time to examine them and figure out exactly if they are
coming for legitimate trade and legitimate purposes or for
illegal purposes.
So I think that that is one of the things that I would ask
you all to change. When I ask you to change the paradigm, that
is one of them.
Mr. Del Cueto also says that the metrics in which the
statistics are given are probably not true. I tend to believe
him. I think that we should be able to have a much better
metrics. But that also applies to our ports of entry. It is not
only in our rural areas where we have figures and statistics
that are not correct but it is also at our ports of entry.
When we say in Washington that our ports of entry are
secure, that is not correct. If we are getting the amount of
drugs and illegal contraband, whether it is counterfeit money
or counterfeit Levi's or counterfeit shoes or whatever it may
be, or even southbound with illegal proceeds or weapons and
bullets that are found in our southbound inspections, then we
have just as much of a danger there as we do in the rural
areas.
But let me be clear: This is not an either/or thing. I
believe the Federal Government can do both things at the same
time. Securing Danny Bell's ranch and securing Jaime
Chamberlain's port of entry are extremely important, but they
are not just our situations. They are all our country's
situation, and they are definitely an issue for the State of
Arizona.
We tend to be looked over when the strategy comes into
place. I really, really thank you all for allowing us to
testify in front of you, to have a voice in Washington, DC so
that you can convey what we feel every single day. This is
something that has been lacking for the State of Arizona for
many, many years. Finally, we have a seat at the table.
Hopefully we are going to be heard. Thank you.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain.
Before we go on to Ms. Walden, I just want to reiterate the
importance of many of the issues that you raised at our ports
of entry. Again, we were focusing on the rural areas between
the ports, but we have to chew gum and walk at the same time.
We have to be able to do both of these. These are vitally
important. For those who are in the audience and didn't tune in
to our last hearing, this is something that is impacting us
from a security and an economic point of view in Arizona and
across the country.
I am proud to say my first bill passed into law is the
Border Jobs for Veterans Act, which is intended to address some
of these shortage issues. It takes 18 months for someone to be
hired for one of these critical positions at our ports of
entry, 18 months. You said we should be moving at the speed of
business. It is moving at the speed of bureaucracy, and nobody
can wait for 18 months to get a job. While we need to vet them,
this is just unsatisfactory, and we are going to continue to
hammer and do what we can in order to speed up this time line
for those that are veterans and others that are looking for
these jobs that are critical.
This next week in Congress we are going to be voting on a
number of bills related to the opioid tragedy that is happening
across our country. We have an epidemic of those that are
addicted and dying from opioid abuse. This is like we have not
seen in my lifetime, these last few years, and the price of
drugs, the price of opioids is still cheap. So we have a long
way to go to be able to address this issue, and it is literally
causing the deaths of the sons and daughters in our community,
and we have to address this in a very holistic approach as
well.
So I just wanted to comment on that and hand it to Ms.
Walden.
Ms. Stockholm Walden. Thank you. As you can see, there is
more that we agree on than we disagree on, and sometimes we
find it very hard to understand why our representatives in
Washington can't sit down and reason together on such vital
issues.
I would like to echo really what everyone has said so far.
You know, we are confusing Juan, or Juanita as the pastor
pointed out, who just wants to come here and work, maybe
seasonally or maybe earn a legal path to citizenship, with Juan
the drug smuggler, and that is the big problem. Border Patrol,
speaking off the record when we talk to them on our ranches and
farms they will say, you know, right now I am looking for a
needle in a haystack. My haystack is too big. I have all these
people lumped into the same category. If there could be a way
to differentiate so I could really focus on the terrorists and
the drug smugglers and the human smugglers and the people that
mean our country harm and, frankly, harm to Mexico as well,
that would make my job so much easier. Which is why, again, I
agree so much with what Jaime Chamberlain just said about the
need to do immigration reform hand-in-hand.
If we had an I.D. card with a biometric marker, if we had a
reasonable path to citizenship, or at least a temporary worker
permit so they could work here while they are trying to become
citizens if they are eligible, it would cut out the underground
economy. They would pay taxes. They would pay into Social
Security. We would eliminate the employers who are abusing
them. We would eliminate people being afraid to report criminal
activity or domestic violence. We would eliminate all these
hardships on these families who might have some members who are
legal. The children might be legal but maybe the grandfather or
one of the parents is not legal.
It is just tearing this country apart. Let's remember for a
minute, this was Mexico where we are sitting up until recent
times, and we still have families that live and work on both
sides of the line, that own ranches and farms on both sides of
the line. We source pecans from Mexico. Our countries and our
cultures are so integrated here, and this is true of the Native
American people too, by the way, who live on both sides of what
is currently the border.
So we also, I think, need to realize that the Border Patrol
and this new organization under Homeland Security is relatively
new. It doesn't have the checks and balances of our military.
Frankly, I don't believe it has the strategic capabilities of
our military in many ways. The training, the lack of metrics--I
think both GAO and the University of Arizona Udall Center and
some other studies that have been done show that the Border
Patrol isn't keeping statistics correctly and accurately, the
way that we do in the Armed Forces, for example, and I think
this is very important.
So I think anything that can be done organizationally,
anything that can be done to increase the training of a lot of
these young agents--frankly, it is not just more boots on the
ground, but it is the training and the coordination and their
work with local law enforcement. That is really what is going
to make them successful in their missions in the field.
Then from all standpoints, one of the groups--I serve on
the board of the National Immigration Forum. It has formed the
Bibles, Badges, and Business Coalition. These are people from
the faith community, from law enforcement, and from the
business community. We all agree on the problems here, and at
least on some of the solutions.
So again, we are grateful for you being here today and
gathering the information first-hand, and certainly also your
efforts on the drug treatment. We have to have on-demand
treatment. We have to recognize that this drug pandemic is like
a war. It is wiping out a generation of Americans. It is
leaving others impaired forever. They are going to be a huge
burden on our society, and it is a huge loss of the best and
the brightest that are going to be our future leaders. So we
commend you on your work on that as well.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Ms. Walden.
Mr. Krentz.
Mr. Krentz. Being the last one on the panel, I could say I
concur and I would be fine.
[Laughter.]
Ms. McSally. We will start with you on the next round.
Mr. Krentz. Right.
You build a 12-foot wall, somebody is going to build a 13-
foot ladder. You build a 50-foot-wide wall, somebody is going
to dig a half-mile tunnel. I don't think a wall is the end-all
answer. Half the border isn't secured with a wall because of
terrain. It is just that difficult to put in.
There are current laws and regulations on the books that
are very valid and very feasible. The people that are on the
ground, the Border Patrol, the sheriff departments--the sheriff
departments are a lot more agile on accessing their laws so
that they can prosecute perpetrators than the Border Patrol
has. If there was a better way for the Border Patrol to be able
to do what they are able to do and capable of but not able to
do, that would solve a lot of the situation.
An easier way for people to get a direct visa. If somebody
wants to come to this country--my grandfather, prior to the
Vecera Program, worked people and helped them into citizenship,
and if you want to find somebody that is more aggravated with
illegal immigration, go talk to those gentlemen that are now
productive members of society in America and are proud to be
here that worked through the proper system. They are very
aggravated with people who are taking advantage of the system.
If there was an easier way for them, for the people that
want to be in here to be in here, that would make our illegal
crossing and the deaths across the arid Arizona and New Mexico
regions a lot less of an issue.
One of the other things is the circuit courts. Why do we
hear of people who are crossing the border ask, when they get
caught by Border Patrol, where am I at? Am I in Arizona in the
9th Circuit, or am I in New Mexico in the 8th Circuit? That is
all on the leniency of the court system. The further west you
go, the more lenient you are on issues like that. I know those
are kind of taboo types of subjects, but that is what is
happening out here.
If you could address some of those issues, you could
probably get ahead. If you add unlimited funds to solve the
situation, a simple rancher analogy: Make that side of the
fence better than your side so that people want to stay home.
You have to get rid of the hierarchy that is entrenched into
the society. But that is something that has been that way for
many, many, many, many, many years.
But I believe if you could start letting the Border Patrol
do what they are capable of, and then the way the judicial
system is set up, you would have a pretty good start. There is
no reason to start new laws when some of the ones that are here
already work. Thank you.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Krentz.
Before I hand it over to Mr. Pearce, I am always trying to
look for where we can find agreement, so I just want to
rephrase what I think I heard, although there are some
different perspectives from the whole panel. This is not
intended to be about immigration reform as its main focus, but
I think everyone on the panel--there may be great disagreement
on what to do with those who are here illegally, and we could
debate that for the rest of the day, but I think everybody here
agrees that we need a legal immigration system that actually
allows for people to come over and spend money for the day,
come shop at our malls and come through the ports of entry in a
way that they are vetted and able to either shop or work
temporarily in positions that are going to grow our economy.
We can't accept everybody. We can't. But there has to be a
better system right now. It is cumbersome. It takes too long.
It is confusing. It is based on random country quotas that
allow people to come through the turnstile that are actually
going to help our economy, not hurt our economy. So there needs
to be a revamping and a modernizing of the legal immigration
system. Is that a fair statement that everyone on the panel
agrees to? I just want to hear a yes out of everybody.
Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell. Yes.
Mr. Adams. Pastor Adams.
Mr. Adams. Yes.
Ms. Stockholm Walden. Yes.
Ms. McSally. Jaime.
Mr. Chamberlain. Yes.
Ms. McSally. Okay. Great. We found another area that
generally, again--how that happens is a lot of devils in the
details, but addressing that particular issue so that we can
focus on the transnational criminal organizations. Again, there
are still some challenges moving forward with all of this, but
I just wanted to find those areas of agreement.
Now I will hand it over to Mr. Pearce.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just following up on that agreement, there is actually down
in the trenches in the back rows much more agreement between
the parties. The differences come as it moves towards
leadership. The leadership in both parties have agreements and
hooks or whatever. That is just the truth of the matter.
Beto O'Rourke out of El Paso, he and I worked on a couple
of bills, and we felt like we should show that Democrats and
Republicans are working together. Then we said we ought to go
at the hardest issue, and that is immigration. So we have a
couple of bills that are very limited, but I think if we would
start taking limited solutions to pieces of the problem, we
could start unraveling it. But many in Washington just refuse
any single attempts and efforts. That is one reason the system
bogs down.
Mr. Chamberlain, I appreciate your passion about business.
Again as a business person, that is something I can identify
with. But I will tell you from my perspective on this side of
the table that when we increase the assets, we don't usually
see much change, and it gets very frustrating. So we increased
the Border Patrol by double back under President Bush, but in
the last 10 years, from 2005 to 2015, Customs has gone up
double, from about $5 billion to $10 billion, and I am hearing
that it hasn't changed any.
So, did you want to say something? Then to the whole idea
of technology, right now we have towers and cameras going up.
Mr. Bell, you mentioned those. But a decade ago we put $200
million into a system that was supposed to be computers,
towers, and cameras, and we did not, the whole border did not
get one functioning system. Some have towers and no computers,
some had cameras and no towers, some had computers and no
towers or cameras, and you get very frustrated with an agency
that will squander $200 million, that will squander everything
you put in.
So it is a very frustrating thing to hear that the money we
are channeling into Customs--not Border Patrol; that is
different. So the money we are channeling to Customs, it never
feeds down to here. We lobbied and got a new border crossing at
one of the towns in our district, and then again they started
saying the day after they built it, well, it should have had a
truck lane and it doesn't.
You know, you just sit here and you say you built the thing
from new and you designed it, not Congress.
Go ahead, sir.
Mr. Chamberlain. You are correct, and I am very frustrated.
We worked very diligently in Nogales, Arizona, and there were
many stakeholders that worked diligently on the building and
the remodeling of the Mariposa port of entry. It was a
tremendous feat and we were extremely fortunate that there was
stimulus money and that our project was shovel-ready at the
time that funding became available.
Even with that said, Customs changed their processes and
asked that once we were almost done with the remodeling, that
they were going to start checking all of the southbound trucks,
and they would have random checks of southbound cars also. So
with no more Federal funding available, Customs was very, very
creative in coming up with and changing their budget to include
2 southbound lanes which were absolutely necessary. Those
southbound lanes and that southbound inspection has--I don't
know how many weapons and ammunition caches they have gotten, I
don't know how much money they have gotten, but it has been in
the millions of dollars' worth, and it has been extremely
essential.
But with that said, we still don't have a port of entry. We
have a brand-new port of entry, but it is understaffed by 300
agents. To be understaffed by 300 agents is absolutely not
acceptable for the State of Arizona or for our country. The
canine units, which to me would have been a little bit easier,
we are at 20 canine units below what we should be.
So the funding may be getting to somewhere, but it is not
getting to the border, and it is not getting to the line. We
are losing more agents to attrition than we are in how fast we
are hiring. We are not hiring fast enough.
Now, Congresswoman McSally has made changes in the billet
so that the hiring process is a little bit more streamlined.
That is a start. That is definitely a start. But the
recognition, I think, is even more important that our ports are
not adequate, whether they are in Long Beach in a sea port, or
the Houston airport, or a Nogales port of entry. They are not
efficient, not one bit whatsoever. If we were to have more
efficient ports of entry, our economy would be booming. That is
part of it.
Mr. Pearce. I think that is probably my point when I said
earlier that the systems are broken completely in Washington,
because we are dedicating the resources, but they don't have
enough internal discipline or process to see that the resources
get where they need. So it gets very frustrating, and I
appreciate your input.
Ms. Walden, you said that you all use the e-Verify now. As
an employer in the oil field, my wife and I had a small
business. We were frightened every day that we didn't have it
and they would start charging us $10,000 a day.
Ms. Stockholm Walden. Right, right.
Mr. Pearce. Is the e-Verify actually working now?
Ms. Stockholm Walden. You know, it has been very good. We
were a little bit worried because we started very, very early,
around the time of SB 1070, the State law, which we had
problems with major provisions of, but we were a little worried
that with the tremendous demand, as more and more employers
used it, that it might break down. But, actually, it takes a
couple of hours of training for your personnel or HR person,
and we have a couple trained in it, and the one problem we have
had occasionally, as you know, in the Hispanic culture there
are often multiple names, and the maiden name as well as the
surname of the father. So sometimes with multiple names and
depending on how many they use, it might kick back somebody who
is legal, but we usually just put it back through again and it
works out, or it doesn't. But it really has helped
tremendously, and we think that employers should be required to
use that.
I think to Mr. Krentz' point earlier, the problem is when
our grandparents came across, it didn't take 10 years to go
through the process to be made legal. There is a problem. You
weren't penalized for working during that time and forced into
an underground economy while you were trying to get your
paperwork for either temporary or permanent citizenship. So
again, it goes to the efficiencies. You are absolutely right.
But it definitely has an impact on business.
Mr. Pearce. Again, I will re-look at that because I have
been one of the ones who has been reluctant to have
consequences for employers, because if your Government can't
tell you who is legal and who is not illegal, how can you then
push the responsibility down to employers? But if the e-Verify
is starting to tighten up the process, then I will re-look at
that.
Mr. Adams, I appreciate your heart for the human situation.
I was left with a question as you testified. Would you contend
for an open border? You compared it to North Carolina/South
Carolina, and then the huddled masses wanting to come here. So
I am just trying to clarify for myself that that would be your
position, that you would favor just a plain open border?
Mr. Adams. I am here as a representative of the
Presbyterian Church, as well as just as an individual.
Mr. Pearce. Just you as an individual. I am not asking
their position.
Mr. Adams. I can't separate that right now. The policy of
the Presbyterian Church is in the written testimony. That would
state that nations have the right to determine who enters and
doesn't. My contention would agree with that and to make that a
safe and efficient way that folks can come through ports of
entry and not go through deserts.
Mr. Pearce. I would ask Mr. Bell, but I think I know the
answer. Is the barbed-wire fence more effective than the 12-
foot-high fence?
Mr. Bell. Just to answer a previous question that you asked
to the other panel, yes, we do have those smuggler signs,
smuggler and illegal activity in the area. So we have that on
our ranch, actually. As people go in and recreate, they get to
see those.
But it will be interesting to find out because we got the
2-mile border wall that had a road constructed alongside of it.
They just completed that extension road of 2 miles along the
barbed-wire section, which there is no funding to do a border
wall. So it will be interesting to see what happens. But the
technology has been placed in the area.
I will tell you, even before the things were turned on, we
were seeing differences in patterns of folks coming through.
Granted, it was getting pushed over to the western portion of
the ranch onto some of our neighbors, but it was coming, people
could see it. They could see the road systems coming, and they
are looking to stay away. That is not to say they are not
coming through, but they are being detected.
So we have had a couple of drug seizures and vehicles due
to the cameras picking things up. Some people who are crossing
illegally are getting picked up along the way. So it has
definitely made a difference.
Time is going to tell, but it is my contention that if you
can get down there and patrol the border, regardless of whether
it is the 18-foot fence, the south fence, or the barbed-wire
fence, being able to patrol the border is going to make the
difference. That is what is going to make the difference.
Mr. Pearce. Okay.
Madam Chair, I just have a couple of quick questions, and
they don't need very long answers.
Mr. Chamberlain, the X-ray units that are there, do you
have them here in Nogales, and are they working? They are
supposed to X-ray the entire truck and just see in a second if
they need to pull it out of the line and then tear it apart.
Are those working? Do you have them here?
Mr. Chamberlain. We do have them here. At the new port of
entry we do. They do about 7 trucks in about 90 seconds,
something like that. So they are much more efficient. We
process during our peak season anywhere between 1,600 and 1,800
trucks a day. We have the capability at the brand-new port of
entry to process over 4,000 trucks a day. Hopefully, as a
businessman, that is my goal, to get to that, to get to max
capacity for our port of entry. But if we don't have the
staffing for it, there is no use. You can have all the
technology you want and at the end of the day you still need
the staffing for it. There is a human instinct about
contraband, and you still need that. Machines can't do
everything.
Mr. Pearce. I would ask where the doubling of funding went
and how come it didn't go to the Nogales port. Anyway, you got
that out of the way at least.
Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Pearce. Mr. Krentz, your father helped people who were
coming across, gave them water, gave them food. Is that more or
less correct?
Mr. Krentz. Yes.
Mr. Pearce. They knew that, the people on the other side of
the border. They know who is over here.
Mr. Krentz. Yes. We also, growing up, even when my dad was
growing up, we had dealings with the ranchers on the other
side. We would trade cattle across, bought cattle at the
Mexican border there in Agua Prieta. We have been in the area a
long time. But just like you said earlier, with the cartels
coming in, the whole mentality of who is there and what their
morals are has changed as well.
Mr. Pearce. That is right. So did you all have a feeling
that was retaliatory for turning in groups or whatever?
Mr. Krentz. Oh, I would hope not, but I don't know. I think
it was more about----
Mr. Pearce. You don't think people on the other side said,
okay, if you are going to cooperate with law enforcement, we
are coming to get you? You don't think----
Mr. Krentz. No. I think the guy that was probably involved
was probably just not a good person.
Mr. Pearce. Just a single instance of----
Mr. Krentz. Yes. But the reason that he was there was not
because he was trying to find a hotel cleaning job.
Mr. Pearce. Right. Okay.
Madam Chair, thank you very much. I would yield back. I
appreciate the opportunity.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Pearce.
I want to highlight--you mentioned the waste, a lot of
waste of money. There has been significant waste of resources
put into a lot of good ideas. One of my 7 bills that passed the
House is called the Border Technology Accountability Act. It
is, as we speak, awaiting movement in the Senate. We could get
this thing on the President's desk, which is basically intended
to provide oversight and accountability to procurement programs
for border technology. I mean, this is common-sense stuff to
make sure we are good stewards of taxpayers' money, and it was
unanimously passed in the House. We expected it to slide
through. We thought it would be law by now, but somebody--there
is evidently a Democrat holding it up in the Senate and not
letting it go through. The intel that we were getting is a
statement along the lines of they don't want to see Republicans
get a win on anything related to border.
This is part of the dysfunction in Washington, DC. This is
something everybody could agree upon, let's be good stewards of
taxpayer resources. So I would encourage whoever is holding up
that bill that they need to get it to the President's desk
because this is an important thing for us to be able to do.
I just have one final--I want to be respectful of
everybody's time, but I do want to give this panel an
opportunity to comment on the interior checkpoints and the
defense-in-depth strategy from your perspectives, and the
implications of that and what your opinions are of that
strategy.
I will start with Mr. Krentz.
Mr. Krentz. Thank you. I live on one of the only highways
north of the border that doesn't have a checkpoint. I have been
told or heard that that is so that they can go through, get out
of the populated areas and get on their way, and then they will
catch them somewhere on the interior side.
On the fixed checkpoints, I have also heard agents say that
they know that they will unload before the checkpoints, walk
around the checkpoints, and then get picked up afterwards. Like
Del Cueto said earlier, the Darwinian people, they are the ones
who are the only ones to get caught there at the checkpoint.
Ms. McSally. Yes, that was my statement.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Krentz. So I have seen them as they--it is just kind-of
like the wall. Is it the stopping point? No. But it is a
deterrent to kind of slow them down and maybe catch them
somewhere else. But that is about all.
Ms. McSally. Ms. Walden.
Ms. Stockholm Walden. We recommended in our citizens report
roving checkpoints. We think that those are a lot more
effective, by surprise. Change them up, switch them up. Again,
Dick has shared with me the excellent infrared capabilities
they had with airplanes when he flew the OV-1 Mohawk in
Vietnam. I am sure it is light years ahead of that today. So we
should be using things like that and not spending $200 million
on Spy Net that could have been shot out, by the way, all those
towers, by a BB gun, let alone a shotgun. It was the most
ridiculous idea.
So, we are all for accountability, and congratulations to
you on furthering that in the bill.
Finally, I just want to say, having come from the recent
hearing on Federal lands, my understanding is that Border
Patrol and other Federal agencies, other Federal law
enforcement, as well as local law enforcement, have full access
to Federal lands, whether they are in hot pursuit or not, if
they have any suspicion of criminal activity. A lot of our
friends who are ranchers in the group, like Warner and Wendy
Glenn, the late Wendy Glenn, were concerned about more roads in
wilderness areas, not just for the aesthetics but because they
would be used by the traffickers.
So I think I am going to leave that to the people who have
ranches along the border. I think there are areas where it is
appropriate. But like Dan said, the train is so complex. I
mean, this is not an easy fix. So just be aware of that, that
you have to get a lot of local input as to whether you are
making the problem better or worse.
Ms. McSally. Thank you.
Mr. Chamberlain. The depth strategy for us in the produce
industry is a little bit cumbersome. The checkpoint there as
you come south to north, you can see where the trucks have
really, really done a tremendous job on the highway there. You
have the ruts in the road that are absolutely terrible. Someone
has to be able to pay for that. I don't know if that is going
to be a Federal issue or that is going to be a State issue. But
regardless, someone should have thought of that before they did
the checkpoint at that point.
Also the land values, and I completely understand the
businessmen that have suffered with the reduction of their
business values and their land values, and their home values.
That is difficult for us. You have to understand that for us,
this is a tremendous freight corridor, an extremely important
freight corridor for our country to move goods and services,
whether it is the Madora business or the cattle business or the
mining business or the produce industry. We are moving a
tremendous amount of commerce through this highway here from
Nogales to where we get to our major arteries in the Tucson and
Phoenix areas.
So I think it is extremely important to patrol these areas
just as much as we do in the rural parts of the State but in an
effective way. I don't see the checkpoints being that
effective. They are cumbersome. We have businesses from all
over the United States and chain stores and food service
companies coming to pick up our product from all over the
United States, and they don't get this in other States around
the country. They don't have to go through these checkpoints in
other States. In California you do, in Texas you do, in Arizona
and in New Mexico you do. I don't see that happening on the
Northern Border. You have occasional checkpoints on the
Northern Border, but they are nowhere as cumbersome to business
and to tourism in the way that they are here.
Ms. McSally. Thank you.
Pastor Adams.
Mr. Adams. The policy from our church says border
protection policies, we advocate the border protection policies
that are consistent with humanitarian values and with the need
to treat all individuals with respect while allowing the
authorities to carry out the critical task of identifying and
preventing entry of terrorists and dangerous criminals, as well
as pursuing the legitimate task of implementing American
immigration policy.
For me, the checkpoints have been a very effective tool for
me to realize that not everyone is treated with the same
respect as I am going through checkpoints. I think racial
profiling--growing up in South Carolina, it was easy for me to
not think about that, believe it or not. But now, with a family
who have folks who both have the same complexion I do, as well
as folks who are darker-complexioned, when we go through that
checkpoint outside of Tombstone, we make sure I am driving and
not my wife, Miriam. We were going through that checkpoint one
time with my sister-in-law, who was in the back, and we just
got waved right through. My sister-in-law said, hey, that is
white privilege.
So checkpoints, there are lots of problems that you have
heard about here, but one of the things about checkpoints is
that it highlights that we have a long way to go in this
country regarding race and treating everyone with respect.
Ms. McSally. Thanks, Pastor Adams.
Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell. Well, I would like to kind-of start out with your
defense-in-depth issue. The problem is in areas like my ranch
and some of the stuff in the borderlands area, there is no
access to the border. It is something I have been talking about
quite a bit today. So that is the only option that is out
there, unless you get horse patrols going in or helicoptering
people in. Those are basically the only options you have. That
is why it is important to be able to get that access and get
down there.
The technology piece is important in that whereas before we
had seismic sensors set out--we still do, but a sensor here
would come on, and an agent would have no idea what that sensor
hit was. Was it one of my cows? Was it a big mule deer? He has
to maybe hump in 2 hours in his day to go figure out what that
sensor hit was.
Technology is going to help in some of these areas to
identify what that sensor hit was. Focus in on those areas
where the sensor hits are happening. See what you can pick up.
If it is a legitimate reason for an agent to go in, to maybe go
in and apprehend a smuggler or a group, then they are going to
know that is what it is instead of wasting time on something
that isn't. So I think that is going to free up resources. But
again, that all comes with deploying down closer to the area.
So the defense-in-depth strategy, I would like to see that
go away, but in a lot of instances that is the only thing that
is available because some of the roads are backed up 3, 4, 5,
6, 7 miles away from the border. So that is what our focus
needs to be.
As far as the checkpoint, it is one of those deals where it
is at that chokepoint. So they can get the traffic coming off
the interstate, but they also have the mountain ranges on the
flanks that is kind of choking things in. So they have a lot of
technology on either side of that checkpoint, so they do make a
lot of apprehensions in that area.
So for now, I think it is a necessity, but let's focus on
getting down to the border, to the line of scrimmage, as you
say. I agree with you. Then see where we are with that
checkpoint at a later date.
Ms. McSally. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Pearce, do you have any more?
Mr. Pearce. Well, I just would like, again, to thank you
very much.
I would like to thank the audience. People always wonder
where a republic democracy begins. It begins right here,
really. I have heard several people today say that we need to
have the solutions coming from here towards Washington. I agree
with that totally.
So again, Madam Chair, thanks for the invitation today, and
thanks to our panelists. Both panels have just been outright
stunning. So, thank you very much. I will carry these messages
back to Washington.
Ms. McSally. Absolutely. I want to say thanks for joining
us here and I appreciate you taking your time and your interest
in these issues as our adjoining Congressional district.
I know there are other Members of the Committee that did
want to be here. They do have your testimony. It is in the
record. They may have some written questions for you, so we
will keep the record open for 10 days and ask for you to
respond in writing, if you don't mind, for that.
I do want to thank the audience for everybody's patience
and endurance to be able to listen to these important issues.
It took almost 3 hours here, but these are complex issues. They
are not going to be solved in a 15-second sound bite, so I
appreciate you all coming to listen.
I really appreciate both panels, all of you on the second
panel, for providing your unique and important perspectives.
I just want to say it is an honor to be in this position.
We have never had anybody chair this subcommittee before from
Arizona, to be in this position that we can highlight what
these issues are so we can find common ground and solutions to
these issues that are impacting our public safety, our economy,
and really all aspects of the lives that have been reflected in
our community here.
I like to make decisions based on facts. It comes from
basically serving in the military. Let's figure out what we
know, what we don't know, and then figure out how to fix the
problems that we are facing. I think we can all agree that our
border is not as secure as it needs to be, that this is a
public safety issue, that we need to make sure that as we are
securing the border we are doing it at the ports of entry and
between the ports of entry, and that we continue to have
opportunities for commerce to grow because our economic
opportunities as a border community are just as important as
security, and we need to do both of those at the same time.
So we have a lot of follow-ups to do from this, but I
really appreciate these perspectives so we can make fact-based
determinations about how to move forward in the role that
Congress has, which is a very important oversight role to the
Federal agencies responsible for keeping our country and
communities safe.
With that, let's make sure I have done all the admin here.
I want to again thank the town of Sahuarita for allowing us to
use this facility.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(e), the hearing record will be
held open for 10 days.
Without objection, the subcommittee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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