[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE OUTER RING OF BORDER SECURITY: DHS'S INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
PROGRAMS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
BORDER AND
MARITIME SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 2, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-18
__________
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/
__________
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95-682 PDF WASHINGTON : 2015
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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
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Filemon Vela, Texas
Mike Rogers, Alabama Loretta Sanchez, California
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Brian Higgins, New York
Will Hurd, Texas Norma J. Torres, California
Martha McSally, Arizona Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (ex (ex officio)
officio)
Paul L. Anstine, Subcommittee Staff Director
Deborah Jordan, Subcommittee Clerk
Alison Northrop, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Candice S. Miller, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Filemon Vela, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Border and
Maritime Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Witnesses
Mr. Alan D. Bersin, Assistant Secretary and Chief Diplomatic
Officer, Office of Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Mr. John Wagner, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field
Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Mr. Lev J. Kubiak, Assistant Director, International Operations,
Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Ms. Rebecca Gambler, Director, Homeland Security and Justice
Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 27
Prepared Statement............................................. 29
Appendix
Question From Honorable Brian Higgins for Alan D. Bersin......... 57
THE OUTER RING OF BORDER SECURITY: DHS'S INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
PROGRAMS
----------
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Candice S. Miller
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Smith, Rogers, Barletta,
Hurd, McSally, Vela, and Torres.
Mrs. Miller. I think we are expecting a few more Members,
but in the interest of time and there are a number of hearings
happening this morning, the Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, will come to
order. The subcommittee is meeting today to examine the
Department of Homeland Security's international programs.
We are pleased to be joined by Mr. Alan Bersin, who is a
frequent guest here, of the Department of Homeland Security's
Office of Policy; Mr. John Wagner, again another frequent
guest, from the Office of Field Operations at U.S. Customs and
Border Protection; Mr. Lev Kubiak of the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement--I appreciate him coming again--and, also,
Ms. Rebecca Gambler is back again of the Government
Accountability Office.
We learned on 9/11 and again with the Christmas day bomber
that we cannot wait to act until terror plots reach our shores.
Pushing our borders out gives the Nation's security
professionals the time and space to interdict plots before they
reach the homeland. For more than 10 years the Department of
Homeland Security and, in particular, its operational
components have done just that.
Today we have several programs in place to stop suspected
terrorists, foreign fighters, and others with significant
derogatory information provided by the intelligence community
from ever coming to America. No system is perfect, of course.
But the earlier in the travel and the visa process we can
begin to conduct security checks, have a CBP Officer examine
and pre-clear an individual or do a security advisory opinion
to make sure we are examining visas appropriately, the safer
the homeland will be.
The vetting these programs do has created an outer ring of
border security which has become even more important due to the
significant and growing threat that fighters from the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, pose to our Nation.
These fighters could be one flight away, bringing with them
the skills, training, ideology, and commitment to killing
Americans that they learned overseas, and that is why it is so
important that the DHS officers and attaches abroad conduct
security operations.
Today the DHS has a large footprint overseas with more than
1,800 people stationed in 77 foreign countries across the
globe. I certainly understand that the posting of DHS personnel
overseas is a cumbersome process with significant costs. In
many cases, it costs more than $500,000 per person each year.
Space is limited at many consulates and embassies overseas.
So it is incumbent on the Department to use and to
constantly update its risk-based approach so that the American
people are getting good security value for the expense. Threats
that originate overseas have evolved over time, and our
security posture should evolve with it.
DHS should constantly re-evaluate the location of their
officers to ensure that we have our men and women in the right
countries. Additionally, if we can do some of the screening and
vetting work here at home, we should.
When the security of the homeland requires the Department
to have officers overseas, we need to maximize their use to
cover multiple countries within their respective issue areas as
well as ensure their personal safety.
To that end, we are glad to see that, in many cases, the
DHS utilizes a regional model where its attaches are covering
several nearby countries to make sure the Department's
investigations are being properly supported overseas.
We are also pleased that where we have the visa security
program officers overseas we have the PATRIOT program that
examines the totality of data on ESTA and visa applications.
However, this program is limited to just those posts where visa
security units are in place.
Despite the visa security program's proven security value
and robust Congressional support, this program has not been
expanded to all high-risk posts overseas. No issue has kept CBP
leadership busier over the past few years than pre-clearance
operations.
Failure to properly consult with stakeholders and the
Congress and other process fouls on pre-clearance expansion
caused a great deal of consternation on Capitol Hill and in
this committee. I hope that the Department has looked at some
of the early missteps and will keep Congress fully abreast of
future plans, especially in light of the recent announcement of
the intention to expand pre-clearance to 10 additional
locations.
We certainly want to be clear that we support pre-clearance
where it makes sense. Pre-clearance has been used as a security
screening and trade facilitation tool since the early 1950s,
and since 9/11 the security value of these operations has only
been heightened. However, as was made clear by legislation the
House passed last year, we cannot repeat the mistakes of the
Abu Dhabi agreement.
Expansion of pre-clearance has to be done is such a way
that supports both our security and facilitation objectives and
does not disadvantage our domestic airlines at the same time.
The full committee plans on taking up pre-clearance legislation
once again later this month, actually, and I certainly look
forward to its quick passage by both the House and the Senate.
Defeating terrorists' ability to move internationally has
long been a focus area for this subcommittee. We have and will
continue to be champions for pushing the border out because our
National security demands it.
So we will be looking forward to hearing from Mr. Wagner on
CBP's plans to expand pre-clearance operations overseas. We are
also interested in hearing more about the work that the DHS led
vetted units throughout the world, including Central America,
to help better capacity of law enforcement, to build the
capacity of law enforcement, and to help lead to better
conditions to reduce migration into the United States.
Our enemies are intent on attacking our country and are
actively seeking to avoid our countermeasures. We must be one
step ahead instead of constantly reacting to their latest
attack. DHS' presence overseas is the crucial part of the outer
ring of border security and provides many opportunities to
break up plots early in the travel and visa cycle.
The purpose, again, of this hearing to make sure that DHS
and the Government as a whole are taking full advantage of
every tool in our tool kit to limit terrorist mobility as far
from our shores as possible and to ensure that limited taxpayer
funds are used as effectively as possible.
Again, I thank the witnesses for being here this morning.
We look forward to all of your testimony.
[The statement of Chairman Miller follows:]
Statement of Chairman Candice S. Miller
We learned on 9/11 and again with the Christmas day bomber that we
cannot wait to act until terror plots reach our shores. Pushing our
borders out gives the Nation's security professionals the time and
space to interdict plots before they reach the homeland.
For more than 10 years, DHS, and in particular its operational
components have done just that. Today we have several programs in place
to stop suspected terrorists, foreign fighters, and others with
significant derogatory information provided by the intelligence
community from ever coming to America.
No system is perfect, of course, but the earlier in the travel and
visa process we begin to conduct security checks, have a CBP Officer
examine and pre-clear an individual, or do a security advisory opinion
to make sure we are examining visas appropriately, the safer the
homeland will be.
The vetting these programs do has created an ``outer ring of border
security,'' which has become even more important due to the significant
and growing threat that fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) pose to our Nation.
These fighters could be just one flight away--bringing with them
the skills, training, ideology, and commitment to killing Americans
they learned overseas. This is why it is so important that DHS officers
and attaches abroad conduct security operations.
Today, DHS has a large footprint overseas with more than 1,800
people stationed in 77 foreign countries across the globe.
I understand that the posting of DHS personnel overseas is both a
cumbersome process with significant cost--in many cases costing more
than $500,000 per person each year.
Space is limited at many consulates and embassies overseas, so it
is incumbent on the Department of Homeland Security to use, and
constantly update, its risk-based approach so that the American people
are getting good security value for the expense.
Threats that originate overseas have evolved over time, and our
security posture should evolve with it. DHS should constantly
reevaluate the location of their officers to ensure that we have our
men and women in the right countries. Additionally, if we can do some
of the screening and vetting work here at home, we should. When the
security of the homeland requires the Department to have officers
overseas, we need to maximize their use to cover multiple countries
within their respective issue areas, as well ensure their personal
safety.
To that end, I am glad to see that, in many cases, DHS utilizes a
regional model, where its attaches are covering several nearby
countries to make sure the Department's investigations are being
properly supported overseas.
I am also pleased that where we have Visa Security Program officers
overseas we have the PATRIOT program that examines the totality of data
on ESTA and visa applications. However, this program is limited to just
those posts where Visa Security Units are in place. Despite the Visa
Security Program's proven security value, and robust Congressional
support, this program has not been expanded to all high-risk posts
overseas.
No issue has kept CBP leadership busier over the past few years
than pre-clearance operations.
Failure to properly consult with stakeholders and the Congress, and
other ``process fouls'' on pre-clearance expansion caused a great deal
of consternation on Capitol Hill and in this committee.
I hope that the Department has learned from some of the early
missteps and will keep Congress fully abreast of future plans,
especially in light of the recent announcement of the intension to
expand pre-clearance to ten additional locations.
I want to be clear that I support pre-clearance where it makes
sense. Pre-clearance has been used as a security screening and trade
facilitation tool since the early 1950's, and since 9/11, the security
value of these operations has only been heightened.
However, as made clear by legislation the House passed last year,
we cannot repeat the mistakes of the Abu Dhabi agreement. Expansion of
pre-clearance has to be done in such a way that supports both our
security and facilitation objectives and does not disadvantage our
domestic airlines at the same time. The full committee plans on taking
up pre-clearance legislation once again later this month, and I look
forward to its quick passage by the House and Senate.
Defeating terrorists' ability to move internationally has long been
a focus area for this subcommittee. We have, and will continue to be
champions for pushing the border out because our National security
demands it.
So we will look forward to hearing from Mr. Wagner on CBP's plans
to expand pre-clearance operations overseas.
I am also interested in hearing more about the work of DHS-led
vetted units that work throughout the world, including Central America,
to help build capacity of law enforcement, and help lead to better
conditions to reduce migration to the United States.
Our enemies are intent on attacking our country and are actively
seeking to avoid our countermeasures. We must be one step ahead,
instead of constantly reacting to their latest attack. DHS's presence
overseas is a crucial part of the ``outer ring of border security'' and
provides many opportunities to break up plots early in the travel and
visa cycle.
The purpose of this hearing is to make sure DHS and the Government
as a whole are taking full advantage of every tool in our tool kit to
limit terrorist mobility as far from our shores as possible, and ensure
that limited taxpayer funds are used as effectively as possible. I
thank the witnesses for being here today and look forward to your
testimony.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Miller. At this time the Chairman now recognizes the
Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Vela.
Mr. Vela. I would like to thank Chairman Miller for holding
today's hearing, examining the Homeland Security's
international border security program. I would like to file my
written statement for the record, if you might.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection.
[The statement of Ranking Member Vela follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Filemon Vela
June 2, 2015
Thank you, Chairman Miller, for holding today's hearing examining
the Department of Homeland Security's international border security
programs.
As you know, my Congressional district is located along our
Nation's Southwest Border, in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
While some may presume that DHS's border security activities begin
and end at our physical borders, that is not the case.
For example, a truck carrying goods from one of the hundreds of
maquiladoras across the border into my district would likely have
submitted an electronic manifest to Customs and Border Protection an
hour or more before arriving at the bridge.
Similarly, the shipper of a container arriving at the Port of
Brownsville would have transmitted information about the shipment to
CBP days before its arrival at the port.
The container may have even been shipped from a Container Security
Initiative port, where CBP has personnel stationed at overseas ports
helping to secure U.S.-bound maritime cargo.
Likewise, a traveler arriving at the local airport in Brownsville
may have started his journey at a CBP Pre-clearance airport abroad,
landing in Houston without needing to go through customs before
boarding a flight to our local airport.
Each of these is an example of DHS efforts to begin screening
people and goods before they arrive.
Their efforts not only better secure our borders, but also
facilitate legitimate travel and commerce that is the lifeblood of
border communities and so vital to our Nation's economy.
DHS has a significant global footprint, with about 1,800 personnel
at posts around the world.
Given the location of my district, I am interested in hearing from
our witnesses today about what DHS is doing in Mexico, particularly to
combat transnational criminal organizations and enhance border
security.
For instance, I hope to hear about ICE's Transnational Criminal
Investigative Units (TCIUs).
These units consist of ICE personnel working with specially vetted
foreign law enforcement personnel to fight transnational criminal
threats.
It's my understanding that ICE plans to expand the program by
establishing a TCIU in Mexico this year.
I hope to have an update today about the status of and plans for
that unit.
I am also interested in understanding about whether the new TCIU is
expected to help address the on-going security situation in Tamaulipas,
Mexico, across from my Congressional district.
The security and prosperity of my district and so many communities
like it depends in part on security and prosperity across the border,
and I want to continue to be supportive of U.S. efforts to that end.
Again, I thank the witnesses for joining us today and I look
forward to your testimony.
With that, Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Vela. I know that the focus of this hearing is our
international security programs around the country. But just
here recently--if you might indulge me just for these 5 minutes
to focus in on one particular area, which happens to be my back
yard, because just this weekend, as I was in my district,
friends, neighbors came to me with stories of gun battles that
occurred just last Friday not with 5 miles from my district
office.
It was about 2 years that Mr. Bersin and I first met in my
office, and we discussed this issue. For the last year-and-a-
half I have repeatedly had discussions and warned
administration officials about the degree of violence in
Matamoros, Mexico, which is right at the border of Brownsville.
More than 100,000 people have died in Mexico since 2006.
The most recent travel warning reads like this--the most
recent State Department travel warning for Mexico warns
visitors to the state of Tamaulipas, which includes Matamoros,
Reynosa, and Nuevo Laredo, which are right across the border
from the towns of Brownsville, McAllen, and Laredo, to defer
all nonessential travel. Throughout the state, violent crime,
including homicide, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping,
extortion, and sexual assault, pose significant safety risks.
State and municipal law enforcement capacity is limited to
nonexistent in many parts of Tamaulipas. Violent conflicts
between rival criminal elements and/or the Mexican military can
occur in all parts of the region and at all times of day.
Violent criminal activity occurs more frequently along the
Northern Border.
While no highway routes through Tamaulipas are considered
safe, the highways between Matamoros Cuidad Victoria, Reynosa
Cuidad Victoria, Cuidad Victoria and Tampico, Monterrey and
Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and Reynosa, and Monterrey and Reynosa
are more prone to criminal activity.
Organized criminal groups sometimes target public and
private passenger buses traveling through Tamaulipas. These
groups sometimes take all passengers hostage and demand ransom
payments. In Tamaulipas, U.S. Government employees are subject
to movement restrictions and a curfew between midnight and 6
a.m.
Matamoros, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, and Cuidad Victoria have
experienced numerous gun battles and attacks with explosive
devices in the past year. The number of reported kidnappings in
Tamaulipas is among the highest in Mexico. The number of U.S.
citizens reported to the consulates in Matamoros and Nuevo
Laredo as being kidnapped, abducted, or disappearing
involuntarily in 2014 has also increased.
In February, the United States Consulate in Matamoros
reported 227 separate security incidents in the U.S. border
region, including a carjacking at a supermarket frequented by
the U.S. Consulate employees. The 227 incidents represented
only a fraction of actual criminal activity due to self-
censorship by journalists.
On February 2 and February 5, the U.S. Consulate General in
Matamoros warned U.S. citizens of increased violence due to
rolling gun battles between Los Ciclones and Los Metros
factions.
U.S. Consulate staff and their families were advised to
restrict travel temporarily due to the violence. That month the
U.S. State Department warned Consulate personnel to stay
indoors to avoid the daytime convoys of cartel gunmen, some
armed with grenade launchers.
During that same week, two of my constituents, both
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, went missing, and we have not
heard or seen from them since.
What I am hoping today is to get some sort of assessment of
our diplomatic efforts to ensure that the government of Mexico
addresses the situation and, also, to get an assessment of what
can we do from the standpoint of enhancing our capability of
ensuring the safety of not just our Homeland Security employees
in Mexico, but our Department of Justice employees and
Department of State employees.
With that, I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. I want to thank the gentleman very much for
his opening statement because, as this subcommittee hearing is
about the outer ring of border security as we think about
terrorist activity, it is stopping it, as we said, before it
comes from overseas, here right on our own border, particularly
the Southern Border.
As you know, I am on the Northern Border. But listening to
you about gun battles and kidnapping and people disappearing,
some of our veterans, et cetera, in criminal activity that is
happening there, it is a very sober reminder of the challenges
that we face. All the folks that are lined up in front of us
today are helping us to face those challenges. So that we will
be something that will be interested in hearing.
Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
Let me formally introduce our four witnesses. We will start
with Mr. Bersin, who serves as the assistant secretary and
chief diplomatic officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security's Office of Policy.
In this capacity, Mr. Bersin oversees DHS' international
engagement, serves as the principal adviser to the Secretary in
all matters pertaining to international affairs, and is
responsible for leading the Department's strategic planning and
policy formulation functions. From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Bersin
served as acting commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
Mr. John Wagner became deputy assistant commissioner,
Office of Field Operations, in April 2014. He has been assigned
to U.S. Customs and Border Protection at headquarters in the
District of Columbia since 1999 and has worked on many
different policy and operational issues. He has led many of the
OFO's business transformation efforts, including the deployment
of the internationally acclaimed Global Entry program and the
Automated Passport Control kiosk for international travelers.
Mr. Lev Kubiak assumed the role of assistant director of
international operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in June 2014. In this position, Mr. Kubiak is
responsible for a budget of more than $130 million and the
operational oversight of 63 offices in 46 countries and 8
Department of Defense liaison offices, with over 400 personnel.
He began his career as a special agent in the agency's Detroit
office in 1995. In November 2001, he transferred to the U.S.
Customs Services Office of International Affairs in Washington,
DC.
Ms. Rebecca Gambler is a director in the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, Homeland Security and Justice Team,
where she leads GAO's work on border security, immigration, and
the Department of Homeland Security's management and
transformation. Prior to joining GAO, Ms. Gambler worked at the
National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for
Democratic Studies.
Their full statement will appear in the record.
The Chairman now recognizes Mr. Bersin for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF ALAN D. BERSIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY AND CHIEF
DIPLOMATIC OFFICER, OFFICE OF POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Bersin. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Miller,
Ranking Member Vela, distinguished Members of the subcommittee.
It is, as always, a privilege to appear before this
subcommittee. The title of the hearing is instructive: ``The
Outer Ring of Border Security: DHS's International Security
Programs.''
We have learned that homeland security, as the Chairman
suggested, is inherently a transnational enterprise. We
basically learned that, in a global world, the idea of waters
as lines on a map separating one country from another is an
old-fashioned idea, although it still has currency and
relevance.
Instead, we have come to see homeland security as involving
the flow globally of massive numbers of people, goods, ideas,
capital, and now electrons on a 7/24/365-day-a-year basis. This
is about massive, intensified flows of goods and people.
From this perspective, the homeland security mission is to
keep dangerous people and dangerous things away from the
American homeland. That requires, by definition, that we not
see the traditional borders--land, sea, and air--as being the
first line of defense, the 327 airports, seaports and land
ports that dot our Nation, but, rather, that we view those
ports of entry as the last line of defense and that, in fact,
we do accomplish a lot of the work of securing the flow of
goods and people, ideas, capital, and electrons toward the
homeland by engaging with foreign partners abroad and by
placing DHS employees abroad to actually start the process of
gaining advance information so that we can conduct risk
assessments and begin to differentiate between high-risk and
low-risk cargo and high-risk and low-risk passengers coming to
the homeland.
The Department learned this in two events in 2009 and 2010.
In 2009, the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
bought an airplane ticket in Africa, got on an airplane in
Africa, flew to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands and then
boarded a Northwest airliner flight headed for Detroit,
intending to blow up the airplane over Detroit. Were it not for
the actions of passengers on the plane, he would have
accomplished his terrorist aim.
In fact, on that flight, our CBP employees had identified
Abdulmutallab as a high-risk passenger and would have placed
that person in secondary at the Fort Wayne County International
Airport. But, of course, he would have completed his terrorist
act.
We learned, therefore, that the border began in the context
of air travel at the point of departure at Schiphol airport in
the Netherlands and that we needed to rework the way in which
we accomplished our work of protecting the American homeland.
What has happened in the last 5 years with advance
passenger information systems, with pre-clearance developments,
with immigration advisory programs, all of which Deputy
Assistant Commissioner Wagner will be in a position to explain,
and with the visa security program, and other programs that
Homeland Security International conducts, we have actually
moved the borders out. By placing our people abroad, working
with foreign governments can secure the flow of people toward
the homeland.
Ten months later, in October 2010, the Yemen plot from al-
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula demonstrated the same with
regard to cargo. The stuffing of PETN and explosives into the
printer cartridges, intending to blow up a UPS and FedEx
airplane, led us to look at securing cargo long before it
arrived. All of those packages were addressed to synagogues in
Chicago.
Yes, indeed we had intended to look at those packages when
they arrived at the mail depot in O'Hare. We learned that that
was not feasible. As a result, we have engaged and have
expanded the international programs.
I look forward, Madam Chairman, Members of the committee,
to discussing those programs with you, the theory behind it,
during the course of your questioning. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bersin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alan D. Bersin
June 2, 2015
introduction
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and distinguished Members of
the subcommittee, it is a privilege to appear before you today. My name
is Alan Bersin; I am the assistant secretary of international affairs
and chief diplomatic officer in the Office of Policy at the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Canada and Mexico are the United States' first- and third-largest
trade partners and the first- and second-largest destination for U.S.
goods, and are therefore a top priority for DHS activities and
resources. The Caribbean represents a third geographic border, and many
of its countries share a robust social-cultural, economic, political,
and security connection with the United States on account of strong
trade and historic immigration ties. DHS continues to work closely with
Canada to implement the Beyond the Border Declaration and Action Plan
for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness. Similarly, with
Mexico, DHS continues work through the Declaration on 21st Century
Border Management and the High-Level Economic Dialogue toward an
efficient secure border that encourages legitimate trade, travel, and
commerce, and also deters criminal activity. These efforts with Canada
and Mexico demonstrate the degree of success we can achieve when
governments collaborate to jointly address issues of common interest
based on a shared agenda.
Our close partnerships with counterparts in Canada, Mexico, and the
Caribbean have contributed to a more secure and economically prosperous
homeland. The expedited movement of lawful trade and travel through our
ports of entry is central to DHS's mission and a key component of our
Nation's economic security interests. Today, I will highlight a series
of international programs that have advanced the Department's efforts
to simultaneously enhance the security of our Nation and facilitate
legitimate trade and travel. Our efforts support the key priorities
outlined in the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review to:
(1) Prevent terrorism and enhance security;
(2) Secure and manage our borders;
(3) Enforce and administer our immigration laws;
(4) Safeguard and secure cyber space; and
(5) Strengthen National preparedness and resilience.
In addition to these goals, from the Secretary's Unity of Effort
initiative, we have developed an institutional mechanism called the DHS
International Footprint Review which establishes and achieves
international goals, such as dismantling transnational criminal
organizations and deterring illicit flows of goods and people, through
an appropriate alignment of resources.
DHS achieves these goals through coordination, cooperation, and
when appropriate, joint action with our international partners in all
domains: Land, air, and sea, as well as where applicable, public health
security and cyber space cooperation.
Land Domain
In the land domain, the Department has outlined strategies for
cooperation along both the Northern and Southern Borders. In 2012, DHS
released the Northern Border Strategy, which takes a Department-wide
look at the Northern Border, considers all of DHS's authorities,
responsibilities, and capabilities, and sets out a cross-cutting and
all-missions approach. Similarly, in early 2015, the Department
promulgated the Southern Border and Approaches Campaign Plan, which
creates three new Joint Task Forces and utilizes component assets and
resources toward a series of unified goals within the Western
Hemisphere. These task forces include:
Joint Task Force--East, which is responsible for our
Southeast Maritime approaches, led by U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)
Vice Admiral William ``Dean'' Lee;
Joint Task Force--West, which is responsible for our
Southwest land border, led by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) Commander Robert L. Harris; and
Joint Task Force for Investigations, which will support the
work of the other two Task Forces and focus on investigations
throughout the Nation and with our foreign partners, led by
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland
Security Investigations Special Agent-in-Charge David Marwell.
Additionally, we have Border Enforcement Security Task Forces
(BEST) along both borders that include investigative teams focused on
cross-border crime, with participation from foreign law enforcement
personnel. The BESTs have proven to be an effective law enforcement
mechanism to identify threats, address vulnerabilities, and identify,
disrupt, and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.
The United States also strengthens its law enforcement and
emergency management capabilities in the land domain with reciprocal
information-sharing practices, the development of cross-border
communication networks, and the sharing of best practices. Through
Beyond the Border and the 21st Century Border Initiative, the United
States partners with our Canadian and Mexican counterparts to improve
technology to increase communication among emergency management
personnel. These partnerships also extend to increasing communication
among law enforcement personnel to better dismantle the transnational
criminal organizations that threaten our citizens' security. Similarly,
the United States works with our Canadian counterparts to coordinate
research and development, acquisition, and operational activities to
maximize resources in order to protect the homeland against weapons of
mass destruction threats.
As part of the Beyond the Border Declaration and Action Plan, the
United States and Canada have developed coordinated Entry/Exit
Information Systems at their shared land border to facilitate exchanges
of biographical entry information such that an entry into one country
is considered an exit from the other. This exchange helps enhance the
integrity of the immigration system and border management practices, as
it is important for Canada and the United States to be able to
determine when individuals both enter and depart our respective
countries. Since June 2013, our countries exchange exit data for third-
country nationals, including permanent residents of Canada and the
United States, at all common automated land ports of entry. The final
phase, now anticipated to occur in 2016, will expand the program to
share information on all travelers including U.S. and Canadian
citizens.
DHS also recently implemented Criminal History Information Sharing
(CHIS) agreements with three Central American and three Caribbean
nations that share criminal history information on foreign nationals
who were convicted of certain offenses, prior to their removal from the
United States.
Air Domain
In the air domain, DHS relies heavily on its Electronic Advance
Passenger Information System (eAPIS) and Passenger Name Record (PNR)
data, along with the Secure Flight Program, to assess passengers' level
of risk and provide instructions to border officers and airlines on how
to handle inbound passengers, including identifying those who require
further inspection. DHS collaborates with Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean
nations through joint information exchange programs, including a
liaison exchange program that has Canadian and Mexican analysts co-
located at the U.S. National Targeting Center. U.S. and Caribbean
nations likewise have established information sharing and response
operations with the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).
Through the Beyond the Border Action Plan, Canada will implement an
electronic travel authorization similar to DHS's Electronic System for
Travel Authorization (ESTA) program for travelers from Visa Waiver
Program countries. The United States and Canada are seeking to enhance
the sharing of information in this domain through the on-going
implementation of automated sharing of biographic and biometric visa
and immigration information.
Additionally, CBP partners with foreign nations to share joint
technologies and information to counter multiple threats from
Transnational Criminal Organizations. The Office of Air and Marine
shares an exclusive version of the Air and Marine Operations
Surveillance System (AMOSS) with the countries of Mexico and the
Bahamas, in addition to incorporating sensor data from Mexico, Canada,
the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic to enhance Domain Awareness and
international response capability beyond their respective borders. In
addition to AMOSS, Mexico also utilizes CBP's Advanced Targeting
System--Global (ATS-G) to create rule sets which aid in identifying
potential threats.
Furthermore, CBP has pre-clearance locations in four Caribbean and
eight Canadian airports. Pre-clearance enables the Department to
simultaneously secure our borders while facilitating lawful trade and
travel by conducting in foreign airports immigration, customs, and
agriculture inspections of international air passengers that would
otherwise be performed on arrival in the United States. Currently, CBP
is considering expanding pre-clearance operations into additional
airports world-wide. Passengers are also screened in accordance with
the Transportation Security Administration's domestic standards, which
enable passengers to exit directly into the sterile area of the
destination airport. Three of the Canadian pre-clearance locations also
screen checked baggage to domestic standards per the ``No Hassle Flying
Act of 2012''. This allows baggage to be transported directly to
connecting flights. Currently, CBP is looking to expand this effort
into other countries.
Sea Domain
In the sea domain, DHS' USCG maintains high levels of cooperation
with foreign partners. The USCG engages with the Mexican navy on a
variety of issues, including: Interdictions, training exercises, search
and rescue, and environmental challenges such as oil spills. In
addition, the Canada-U.S. Shiprider program trains and cross-designates
Canadian and U.S. law enforcement officers who enforce the law on both
sides of the international boundary while riding together on the same
vessels. Through Shiprider, armed Canadian and U.S. law enforcement
officers are able to transit back and forth across the border to help
secure it from threats to National security, as well as to prevent
cross-border smuggling and trafficking. Through the North American
Maritime Security Initiative (NAMSI), the Coast Guard also works
jointly with Canadian and Mexican sea services to exercise emergency
response plans, policies, and procedures as they pertain to maritime
security and defense readiness events.
The United States likewise has had effective engagement with
Caribbean nations in the sea domain. The U.S. Government provided
Defender Class SAFE boats to several Caribbean nations. The USCG in
partnership with the Department of Defense helps maintain their mission
readiness for search-and-rescue and law-enforcement interdiction
operations with maintenance and programmatic support through the State
Department's Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI)-funded
Technical Assistance Field Teams. Additionally, in an effort to codify
and standardize a comprehensive approach to effective, consistent
international maritime security in the post-9/11 world, the
International Maritime Organization and its Member States developed the
International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code. The ISPS
Code is the principal international blueprint for the implementation of
maritime security measures and supporting infrastructure. Furthermore,
the USCG conducts the TRADEWINDS exercise, which is a maritime training
exercise for the Eastern Caribbean and regional partner nations. This
exercise brings together police and defense forces to exercise regional
information-sharing networks, improve maritime interdiction
coordination, develop regional training capacity, improve asset
sustainment and maintenance, and address illicit trafficking.
Public Health Security and Cyber Space Cooperation
In addition to engagement with our international partners in the
air, land, and sea domains, DHS also works with our neighboring
countries to strengthen our defenses against threats that are
borderless. For instance, DHS coordinates closely with our North
American partners on public health security issues. During the Ebola
outbreak, DHS worked with international partners to share information
and best practices, coordinate efforts, and align screening procedures.
Canada is following protocols similar to those of CBP with regard to
active and passive targeting of travelers from affected countries and
stationing quarantine officers at its six largest airports.
Beyond the response to Ebola, both Canada and Mexico are part of
the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza (NAPAPI). DHS
is one of four U.S. Government agencies that participate in the NAPAPI
Senior Coordinating Body and is represented by the assistant secretary
for health affairs and chief medical officer. In March 2015, DHS
participated with our health security working group partners as a
Senior Coordinating Body Member in a trilateral table-top exercise
which focused on information sharing and emergency communications,
sample sharing, and the availability of and access to medical
countermeasures.
Cyber space is a global, borderless domain that is an engine of
economic growth and social opportunity yet presents unique challenges
requiring close cooperation with our international partners. DHS works
with international partners to exchange threat and vulnerability
information, jointly address cyber crime, and build capacity to secure
cyber space for the common good. The DHS National Protection and
Programs Directorate/Cybersecurity and Communications (NPPD/CS&C)
office also works closely with Canada. NPPD/CS&C maintains a strong
partnership with Public Safety Canada (PS) on cybersecurity issues,
including the regular exchange of cyber threat and vulnerability
information, and incident response coordination between the National
Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) and the
Canadian Cyber Incident Response Center. CS&C and PS also work toward
improved collaboration on issues of mutual interest through
implementation of the Cybersecurity Action Plan, agreed to in 2012.
Also, the Cyber Security Division of DHS Science and Technology's
Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency has engaged in
several jointly-funded collaborative cybersecurity research and
development projects covering multiple areas of cybersecurity with
Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC).
DHS's bilateral cybersecurity collaboration with Mexico has focused
on incident management coordination, industrial control systems
security, and cybersecurity awareness-raising, and DHS and Mexico are
exploring ways to increase this collaboration including issues such as
cyber crime and critical infrastructure security and resilience. CS&C
and Mexico also cooperate through regional and international fora,
particularly the Organization of American States.
The United States Secret Service (USSS) and ICE likewise have
equally important relationships with Canada and Mexico on cyber. The
ICE attaches in Canada and Mexico support Canadian and Mexican law
enforcement in the investigation of cyber-related crime. These cases
include, but are not limited to: Child exploitation investigations;
mass marketing fraud; identity theft; on-line illegal marketplaces;
counter-proliferation; intellectual property rights violations; and
related money laundering via the internet. The USSS international
engagement in Mexico and Canada regarding cyber is primarily focused on
investigations of transnational cyber crime and training foreign law
enforcement on cyber crime investigations.
conclusion
Collaboration with our neighboring countries and partners is a key
element to strengthening homeland security. DHS will continue to
partner with countries around the world to most effectively carry out
our core missions. Through international collaboration--in particular
our work at our land and maritime borders with our North American
partners--we not only enhance our ability to prevent terrorism and
transnational crime, but we also leverage the resources of our
international partners to more efficiently and cost-effectively secure
global trade and travel. The successes in our partnerships with Canada,
Mexico, and the Caribbean highlight the importance of the Department's
international engagement.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I welcome the
opportunity to address your questions.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much.
The Chairman recognizes Mr. Wagner.
STATEMENT OF JOHN WAGNER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, OFFICE
OF FIELD OPERATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Wagner. Good morning, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member
Vela, and distinguished Members of the subcommittee. It is a
privilege to appear today to discuss U.S. Customs and Border
Protection's international security programs and how these
efforts support our strategy to secure America's borders and
facilitate legitimate travel.
CBP processes nearly 100 million travelers each year who
arrive via commercial aircraft at our Nation's ports of entry.
As CBP anticipates threats and develops measures to prevent
terrorists and their threats from succeeding, CBP deploys a
strategy that focuses on securing air travel by pushing our
borders outward through, first, early identification of
potential threats through targeting and information sharing;
second, the ability to address these threats overseas; and,
third, by building capacity with the global community to
improve information sharing and early enforcement capabilities.
Through this strategy, we seek to ensure that our physical
border is the last line of defense rather than the first. At
CBP, we implement this strategy through a complement of
international security programs, each with differing
authorities and capabilities, some of which are dependent on
the host country, supported by CBP's targeting capabilities and
deployed strategically based on deliberative assessments,
including National security, volume of travel, workload, and
economic benefits. This multi-layered, intelligence-driven
strategy covers different stages of the international travel
sequence starting well in advance of a traveler boarding a
plane.
So before traveling to the United States, most foreign
nationals seeking admission to the United States must obtain
either a visa or a Visa Waiver Program travel authorization
through the ESTA program. From this moment, CBP begins
deploying targeting and analytical capabilities through our
National Targeting Center to perform assessments of the
applications against law enforcement, intelligence, and
National security-related data.
Last fiscal year CBP denied over 39,000 ESTA applications,
of which over 800 were related to issues of National security.
Once travel is booked by a person, but before that flight
departs, CBP uses airline reservation data, passenger manifest,
previous border inspection information, intelligence, and law
enforcement information to identify potential areas of National
security concern or otherwise inadmissible travelers.
CBP's then able to address any potential concerns through a
suite of three international enforcement and liaison programs:
Preclearance, the Immigration Advisory Program and, finally,
our Regional Carrier Liaison Groups. Pre-clearance provides the
highest level of enforcement capability overseas with
inspection of clearance of passengers on foreign soil prior to
boarding the plane.
At these locations, CBP Officers operate with authorities
and operational capabilities similar to those in the United
States in uniform and with the legal authorities to question
travelers and inspect luggage per the negotiated agreements
with the host country.
We have over 600 CBP Officers and agriculture specialists
supporting pre-clearance in 15 locations in 6 countries. Last
year pre-clearance accounted for over 16 million travelers,
which is about 15 percent of all U.S.-bound commercial air
passengers. Over 10,000 of these travelers were found to be
inadmissible pre-clearance locations last year.
As announced by the Secretary last Friday, we plan to enter
into pre-clearance negotiations with 10 additional airports in
9 more countries. While there is much work to do, we will be
aggressively pursuing and commencing negotiations with each of
these countries in the very near future. These airports were
selected on the basis of 4 key evaluation criteria: Security,
facilitation, feasibility, and strategic impact.
The second program I would like to discuss is the
Immigration Advisory Program, where we have CBP Officers at 11
airports in 9 foreign countries. They work closely and directly
with foreign authorities and air carriers to identify and
address potential concerns, when necessary, and make
recommendations to the airlines to not board identified
individuals.
Our officers receive passenger selection information from
CBP's National Targeting Center that has identified these
individuals of concern. IAP officers also assess the potential
risk of travelers through roving- and intelligence-based
targeting. Last year the program prevented over 3,500
individuals from boarding flights to the United States, of
which about 100 had National security concerns.
The third program, the Regional Carrier Liaison Group,
under our National Targeting Center, provides coverage at
locations not staffed by pre-clearance or the Immigration
Advisory Program. This group utilizes established relationships
with the commercial airline carriers and form direct lines of
communication to prevent passengers of concern from boarding
U.S.-bound flights who may pose a security threat, have
fraudulent documents or are otherwise inadmissible.
Last fiscal year the Regional Carrier Liaison Group issued
over 7,500 no-board recommendations to prevent travel to the
United States, of which over 250 had National security
concerns.
CBP's targeting capabilities continue up to the point of
departure and even while the flight is en route to the United
States, vetting passengers and travel information, including
visas and ESTA authorizations. This continual vetting ensures,
as noted earlier, that any changes in a traveler's eligibility
are identified in real time and allows CBP to coordinate
appropriate actions, such as referring individuals for further
inspection when he or she arrives.
CBP will continue to engage with our interagency and
informational partners and commercial air carriers to improve
and expand our international security efforts.
So thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I
look forward to answering any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wagner follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Wagner
June 2, 2015
introduction
Chairwoman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and distinguished Members
of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
integral role of international programs and initiatives as part of U.S.
Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) multi-layered strategy to secure
America's borders and facilitate legitimate travel.
On a typical day, CBP welcomes to the United States nearly a
million travelers at our air, land, and sea ports of entry (POEs) with
almost 300,000 of those arriving by air. The volume of international
air travelers has increased by 22 percent from 2009 to 2014 and is
projected to increase 4 to 5 percent each year for the next 5 years. As
threats in the commercial air travel environment have evolved to
include not only aircraft and travelers present in the United States,
but also aircraft bound for the United States, we can no longer view
our border as the first line of defense, but rather as a last line of
defense.
CBP's multi-layered, intelligence-driven strategy are integrated
into every aspect of our travel security operations at every stage
along the international travel sequence--including when an individual
applies for U.S. travel documents; reserves, books or purchases an
airline ticket; checks-in at an airport; while en route; and upon
arrival at a U.S. port of entry. Accordingly, an integral part of CBP's
multi-layered strategy is CBP's pre-departure strategy. A critical
objective of this pre-departure strategy is to work closely with our
international partners in extending our zone of security to interdict
threats as far from the homeland as possible.
In concert with our international partners, CBP strives to ensure
that travelers who present a risk are appropriately interviewed or
vetted before boarding a flight bound for the United States, and that
any document deficiencies are addressed before traveling to the United
States. CBP has placed officers in strategic airports overseas to work
with carriers and host nation authorities, and has built strong
partnerships with airline representatives to improve our ability to
address threats as early as possible and effectively expand our
security efforts beyond the physical borders of the United States.
CBP continually evaluates and supplements our layered security
measures with enhancements that strengthen our ability to identify and
prevent the international travel of those individuals or groups who
wish to do us harm. The success of our security measures depends on the
ability to gather, target, analyze, share, and respond to information
in a timely manner--using both strategic intelligence to identify
existing and emerging threat streams, and tactical intelligence to
perform link analysis and targeted responses.
These efforts seek to keep our international air transportation
sectors safe and prevent threats from ever reaching the United States.
These efforts also enhance efficiency and create savings for the U.S.
Government and the private sector by preventing inadmissible travelers
from traveling to the United States.
extending the zone of security
CBP's pre-departure strategy is a risk-based, layered approach to
security that extends our border security efforts outward to detect,
assess, and mitigate, at the earliest possible point, any risk posed by
travelers before they reach the United States. Focused on identifying
and addressing potential risks long before they reach our borders,
CBP's pre-departure security efforts integrate multiple key
capabilities and programs that together form a layered strategy for
applying security capabilities at multiple points along the travel
cycle. CBP's sophisticated targeting systems at the National Targeting
Center (NTC) receive advance passenger information to identify
potential risks and CBP's overseas enforcement programs--Preclearance,
Immigration Advisory and Joint Security Programs (IAP/JSP), and
Regional Carrier Liaison Groups (RCLGs)--provide the ability to address
those risks or prevent the movement of identified threats toward the
United States at the earliest possible point.
Targeting and Detecting Risk
As part of CBP's pre-departure strategy and throughout the
international travel cycle, the NTC continuously analyzes passenger
information, including visas and Visa Waiver Program (VWP) travel
authorizations. CBP devotes its resources to identifying the highest
threats, including those who may not have been previously identified by
law enforcement or the intelligence community.
As threats evolve, CBP works in close partnership with our foreign
counterparts--including those in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle
East--to develop greater situational awareness of emerging threats,
leverage each other's capabilities to affect threat networks, and
coordinate enforcement actions. These concerns are not limited to the
United States and there is a growing international commitment to
combating this shared threat to our security.
CBP works closely with other U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) components, the Department of State (DOS), the Department of
Defense, the intelligence community, and our foreign counterparts to
leverage assets and resources to detect and address emerging terrorist
threats and identify and address any and all potential security
vulnerabilities. Staff from the NTC and CBP Office of Intelligence
interact with our foreign counterparts--including those from Five Eyes
countries,\1\ and in the Middle East--on an almost daily basis to
collaborate on efforts to meet our mutual needs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United
Kingdom.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We continually seek opportunities to foster these relationships as
a means to build a network of partners that share information and react
quickly to identify and mitigate constantly evolving threats to the
homeland. This network approach enables CBP to proactively initiate
engagement so that when a threat is identified, information flows
quickly not only to those directly involved in a particular activity,
but to all identified stakeholders.
Our networking efforts include leveraging CBP's own targeting
capabilities to provide foreign country and partnering government
officials with technical solutions for identifying risk, and provide a
platform for CBP to work with foreign partners to build and enhance
their own capabilities to use advance air passenger data to target for
counterterrorism, law enforcement, and immigration purposes. This
includes supporting law enforcement cooperation and information sharing
particularly regarding foreign fighters transiting the region through
enhanced traveler risk assessments. These efforts all work toward
establishing a foreign partner's baseline capability of vetting and
conducting risk assessments on advance information of commercial air
travelers.
In order to enhance our relationship with partner nations and to
support our mission to disrupt the movement of terrorists, criminals,
instruments of terror and contraband, CBP has developed a program to
place liaison officers with partner nation law enforcement agencies.
Their principal duty will be to facilitate the flow of law enforcement
information, specifically related to the travel of terrorists and the
flow of goods that support terrorism. However, officers assigned as
liaisons will also have the ability to exchange information related to
counter trafficking, the use of fraudulent travel documents, criminal
travel, and illicit currency smuggling.
Additionally, CBP positions Attaches and International Advisors in
multiple countries around the world. Attaches are posted in U.S.
Embassies and Consulates abroad and work in unison with the CBP
component offices to secure the border from beyond by working closely
with the host foreign government and overseas representatives of all
the U.S. Government agencies represented at post to detect and deter
transnational criminal activity. Attaches work closely with
investigative personnel of U.S. and host nation law enforcement and
intelligence agencies and advise the U.S. Ambassador or Consul General
on CBP programs and capabilities. CBP Attaches support and oversee all
CBP programs in their area of responsibility and educate stakeholders
about CBP's international programs including travel security and
various capacity-building programs. International Advisors are usually
embedded with the U.S. Department of Defense and/or host nation border
agencies and serve as CBP international advisors, liaisons, and
consultants on border management issues. The advisor represents CBP's
views on international migration issues and activities including the
safety, reliability, and efficiency of transnational borders and
provides expertise to foreign nations including infrastructure
modernization, contraband detection, and interdiction.
Our interagency and international partnerships are critical
elements of our pre-departure strategy and our international travel
security operations. We work closely with our partners at multiple
stages of the travel continuum to identify and, if necessary, address
the potential threat at the earliest opportunity.
Visas and Travel Authorization Security
From the moment of potential travel, an initial layer of defense in
securing international air travel is preventing dangerous persons from
obtaining visas, travel authorizations, and boarding passes. Before
boarding a flight destined for the United States, most foreign
nationals must obtain a nonimmigrant visa (NIV)--issued by a U.S.
embassy or consulate--or, if they are eligible to travel under the VWP,
they must apply for a travel authorization through the Electronic
System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).\2\
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\2\ Exceptions would be citizens of countries under other visa
exempt authority, such as Canada. Citizens of countries under visa
exempt authority entering the United States via air are subjected to
CBP's vetting and inspection processes prior to departure. In the land
environment, they are subjected to CBP processing upon arrival at a
U.S. port of entry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Through ESTA, CBP conducts enhanced vetting of VWP applicants in
advance of travel to the United States, in order to assess whether they
are eligible to travel under the VWP, could pose a risk to the United
States or the public at large. In response to increasing concerns
regarding foreign fighters and other terrorist threats, DHS recently
strengthened the security of VWP by implementing enhancements to ESTA.
These enhancements include a series of additional questions VWP
travelers must answer on the ESTA application, including other names or
citizenships; parents' names; contact and employment information; and
city of birth. These improvements are designed to provide an additional
layer of security for the VWP and increase our ability to distinguish
between lawful applicants and individuals of concern.
CBP also conducts vetting of non-immigrant visas. Although the visa
application and adjudication processes rest with DOS, NTC conducts
continuous vetting of U.S. nonimmigrant visas that have been recently
issued, revoked, and/or denied. This recurrent vetting ensures that
changes in a traveler's visa status are identified in near-real time,
allowing CBP to immediately determine whether to provide a ``no board''
recommendation to a carrier, recommend that DOS revoke the visa, or
whether additional notification should take place for individuals
determined to be within the United States.
To further enhance visa screening efforts, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), CBP, and DOS have implemented an automated
visa application screening process that significantly expands DHS's
ability to identify serious threats to National security and public
safety at the point of inception in an individual's immigration life-
cycle and revolutionizes the way the U.S. Government screens foreign
nationals seeking entry to the United States. The program also results
in synchronized reviews of information across these agencies and allows
for a unified DHS response and recommendation regarding a visa
applicant's eligibility to be issued a visa. This process also serves
as a precursor to and works in conjunction with the current DOS
Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) and Advisory Opinion (AO) programs.
This collaborative program leverages the three agencies' expertise,
authorities, and technologies, such as CBP's Automated Targeting System
(ATS), to screen pre-adjudicated visa applications. These efforts
significantly enhance the U.S. Government's anti-terrorism efforts,
improving the existing process by extending our borders outward and
denying high-risk applicants the ability to travel to the United
States.
Pre-Departure Targeting
Once travel is booked, CBP gathers information, assesses risk, and
conducts pre-departure vetting for all international flights departing
for the United States by commercial air. CBP leverages all available
advance passenger data--including Passenger Name Record (PNR) and
Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) data, previous crossing
information, intelligence, and law enforcement information, as well as
open-source information in its anti-terrorism efforts at the NTC--to
make risk-based operational decisions before a passenger boards an
aircraft, continuing until the traveler enters the United States.
When a traveler purchases a ticket for travel to the United States,
PNR is generated in the airline's reservation system, which includes
information on itineraries, co-travelers, changes to the reservation,
and payment information. CBP receives passenger data from commercial
air carriers at operationally determined intervals up to 96 hours prior
to departure and concluding at the scheduled departure time.
Further, APIS regulations require that commercial air carriers
transmit all passenger and crew manifest information before departure,
prior to securing the aircraft doors. CBP vets APIS information, which
includes passenger biographic data and travel document information, on
all international flights to and from the United States against the
Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), criminal history information,
records of lost or stolen passports, public health records, and prior
immigration or customs violations and visa refusals. CBP uses APIS and
PNR data to identify known or suspected threats before they depart the
foreign location.
The NTC vetting process for international passengers continues
while the flight is en route to the United States in order to identify
any travelers who, although not necessarily National security risks,
may need a more thorough inspection at the port of entry upon arrival
in the United States.
Early Enforcement Approaches
Supported by these targeting efforts, CBP leverages its overseas
enforcement capabilities to prevent terrorists and other inadmissible
aliens from boarding commercial aircraft bound for the United States
through three programs that further support efforts to extend our zone
of security: Preclearance; the Immigration Advisory Program and the
Joint Security Program; and Regional Carrier Liaison Groups.
In fiscal year 2014, CBP's pre-departure programs identified over
20,000 passengers who would have been deemed inadmissible to the United
States and prevented such passengers from boarding aircraft at foreign
locations. This effort significantly increases security and reduces the
cost to the U.S. Government for adverse action processing costs for
travelers who would have been denied admission at U.S. ports of entry,
approximately $50 million, and the airlines who are required to return
inadmissible travelers to their points of origin.
Pre-clearance Operations
Pre-clearance operations provide CBP's highest level of capability
overseas and support CBP's extended border strategy by providing for
the inspection and clearance of commercial passengers on foreign soil,
prior to departure for the United States. At pre-clearance locations,
CBP Officers work in uniform, have the legal authorities to question
travelers and inspect luggage, and complete the same immigration,
customs, and agriculture inspections of passengers as at domestic ports
of entry. Passengers at a pre-clearance facility found to be
inadmissible to the United States are denied boarding to the airplane.
All mission requirements are completed at the pre-clearance port prior
to travel, which allows the aircraft to arrive at a domestic airport
gate in the United States and travelers to proceed to their final
destination without further CBP processing; a major efficiency for
travelers, carriers, and airports.
Currently, CBP operates 15 air pre-clearance locations in 6
countries: Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa,
Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), Ireland (Dublin and Shannon), The
Bahamas (Freeport and Nassau), Aruba, Bermuda, and the United Arab
Emirates (Abu Dhabi). In fiscal year 2014, CBP officers processed 17.4
million travelers for entry into the United States at international
pre-clearance locations, which included 21 percent of all commercial
aircraft and 16 percent of travelers arriving by air destined for the
United States. CBP also conducts immigration pre-inspection on ferries
in Victoria, Canada and on cruise vessels and trains in Vancouver,
Canada.
At our pre-clearance location in the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
CBP Officers exercise broad authorities to help mitigate threats, both
known and unknown, based on our analysis of current threats. The UAE
receives flights from Yemen, North, West, and East Africa (Morocco,
Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan), Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq,
Iran, Lebanon, Bangladesh, and India, all high-risk pathways for
terrorist travel. In the UAE, CBP Officers are allowed a full
complement of authorities to question and search individuals and
baggage, access to the full complement of technology systems, and are
authorized to have access to firearms and other law enforcement tools.
Additionally, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations directorate has
Attache offices located overseas to follow up on any investigative
leads generated from CBP pre-clearance operations.
Pre-clearance offers benefits for both travel security and
facilitation, more comprehensive than those available with IAP/JSP and
RCLGs. On a sliding scale, each provides more security coverage than
the next--RCLGs are located State-side and provide recommendations
through established relationships with commercial airlines; IAP and JSP
provide on-site location, but function in an advisory capacity with
voluntary compliance; preclearance, however, provides for the complete
security screening and formal determination of admissibility to the
United States for all travelers before passengers ever board a U.S.-
bound flight. Through preclearance, CBP is able to work with foreign
law enforcement officials and commercial carriers to prevent the
boarding of potentially high-risk travelers, leveraging its full legal
authority, as opposed to a purely advisory role. Pre-clearance also
provides unique facilitation benefits, allowing pre-cleared passengers
to proceed to their final destination without further CBP processing,
as if they had arrived on a domestic flight.
Reinforcing CBP's layered approach to security, CBP always retains
the authority to conduct further inspection or engage in enforcement
action of a pre-cleared flight upon its arrival in the United States.
Pre-clearance affords the United States the highest level coverage and
ability to intercept threats before they reach the United States. In
light of the terrorist threat we face now and in the future, there will
be locations where pre-clearance provides important security benefits
available in no other way.
In October 2014, CBP announced a plan to evaluate and prioritize
foreign airports for expansion of pre-clearance operations, and
requested all interested airports to express their interest in writing
prior to December 2014. Letters of interest were received from 25
airports, and DHS Technical Teams, consisting of CBP and Transportation
Security Administration (TSA) representatives, completed onsite
evaluations to determine the feasibility of pre-clearance operations at
applicant airports. Based on the technical visits and information
collected, CBP submitted a comprehensive report outlining
recommendations for pre-clearance expansion locations to the DHS
Secretary. With the announcement of potential pre-clearance locations,
CBP and TSA will work through an interactive process with each selected
airport to develop a feasible pre-clearance model beneficial to both
parties, including an examination of feasibility by CBP, TSA, and
respective airport stakeholders.
Immigration Advisory Program (IAP)/Joint Security Program (JSP)
Compared to CBP's pre-clearance operations, IAP and JSP provide a
more limited level of coverage at international locations. Through IAP,
CBP officers in plain clothes are posted at major gateway airports in
Western Europe, with a presence in Asia and the Middle East including:
Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester,
Madrid, Paris, Tokyo, and Doha. Building on the IAP concept, CBP
launched the JSP, partnering with host country law enforcement to
identify air passengers linked to terrorism, narcotics, weapons, and
currency smuggling. JSP officers are posted in Mexico City and Panama
City.
Using advance information from the NTC, IAP officers work in
partnership with host government authorities to identify possible
terrorists and other high-risk passengers. When a threat is identified,
IAP officers issue no-board recommendations to commercial air carriers,
helping to prevent terrorists, high-risk and improperly-documented
travelers from boarding commercial flights destined for the United
States. In Mexico and Panama, JSP officers collaborate with host
government law enforcement to jointly engage travelers arriving into
and departing the host country (U.S. and foreign-to-foreign commercial
flights). Using mobile technology, IAP and JSP officers conduct
database queries and coordinate with the NTC to confirm whether a
traveler is a watch-listed individual. IAP and JSP officers also
evaluate the potential risks presented by non-watch-listed travelers.
The IAP and JSP programs are based on the cooperation of the
airlines and the host government. IAP and JSP officers do not have the
legal authority to compel air carrier or traveler compliance that CBP
Officers have at a port of entry in the United States or at a pre-
clearance facility overseas. Nevertheless, an IAP or JSP officer's no-
board recommendations to an air carrier regarding inadmissible
travelers are generally accepted and followed by airlines.
Regional Carrier Liaison Groups
Finally, the RCLGs were developed to provide coverage of non-IAP
airports and support pre-clearance airports. Located in Honolulu,
Miami, and New York, RCLGs are staffed by CBP officers and utilize
established relationships with the commercial airlines to prevent
passengers who may pose a security threat, have fraudulent documents,
or are otherwise inadmissible from boarding flights to the United
States.
arrival processing and trusted travelers
CBP's use of advance information, our pre-departure targeting
operations, and our overseas footprint as part of CBP's pre-departure
strategy, all comprise critical parts of CBP's multi-layered security
strategy to address concerns long before they reach the physical border
of the United States. It is important to note that upon arrival in the
United States, all persons are subject to inspection by CBP Officers.
CBP Officers review entry documents, query CBP and other law
enforcement databases, collect biometrics,\3\ and interview each
traveler to determine the purpose and intent of their travel, and
whether any further inspection is necessary based on, among other
things, National security, admissibility, customs, or agriculture
concerns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Biometrics are collected for most foreign nationals arriving at
U.S. airports.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, CBP Officers remove from circulation all counterfeit,
fraudulent, and altered travel documents, as well as lost or stolen
travel documents presented for use by an individual other than the
rightful holder, such as those presented by impostors. CBP's Fraudulent
Document Analysis Unit (FDAU) serves as the central repository and
point of analysis for all fraudulent travel documents interdicted or
recovered by CBP personnel. FDAU analysis of fraudulent documents
provides intelligence, alerts, and training back to the field as well
as serves as a mechanism to remove fraudulent documents from
circulation to prevent their further use--a lesson learned from the 9/
11 Commission Report. This cyclical process adds a layer of security to
the homeland by removing an additional opportunity for misuse.
CBP's Carrier Liaison Program (CLP) is designed to enhance border
security by increasing commercial carrier effectiveness in identifying
improperly documented travelers destined to the United States and
removing fraudulent documents from circulation. Specially-trained CBP
Officers provide interactive training to commercial air carrier
participants to improve the air carrier's ability to detect and disrupt
improperly documented passengers. The CLP is another key component of
CBP's layered approach and enhances CBP's ability to thoroughly vet
passengers based on their true identities. Since the program's
inception in 2005, CLP has provided training to more than 34,800
airline industry personnel.
Trusted Traveler Programs
Identifying and separating low-risk travelers from those who may
require additional scrutiny is a key element in CBP's efforts to
facilitate and secure international travel. CBP's trusted traveler
programs, such as Global Entry, provide expedited processing upon
arrival in the United States for pre-approved, low-risk participants
through the use of secure and exclusive lanes and automated kiosks. At
airports, program participants proceed to Global Entry kiosks, present
their machine-readable passport or U.S. permanent resident card, place
their fingertips on the scanner for fingerprint verification, and
complete a customs declaration. The kiosk issues the traveler a
transaction receipt and directs the traveler to baggage claim and the
exit. Travelers must be pre-approved for the Global Entry program. All
applicants undergo a rigorous background check and in-person interview
before enrollment. While Global Entry's goal is to speed travelers
through the process, members may still be selected for further
examination when entering the United States. Any violation of the
program's terms and conditions will result in appropriate enforcement
action and revocation of the traveler's membership privileges.
conclusion
As terrorists change their methods and tactics and technologies
continue to evolve, CBP will work with DHS, Federal and international
partners--as well as commercial carriers--to adapt and respond swiftly
and effectively. We will continue to collaborate to strengthen on-going
efforts and facilitate the development of new innovative tools to
secure international air travel against terrorists and others who
threaten the safety of the traveling public and the security of our
Nation.
Chairwoman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look
forward to answering your questions.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Kubiak.
STATEMENT OF LEV J. KUBIAK, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
OPERATIONS, HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. IMMIGRATION
AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Kubiak. Good morning, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member
Vela, and distinguished Members of the subcommittee.
ICE Homeland Security Investigations' most important
function is to address threats to the homeland, and doing so
before they reach our Nation's borders enhances the security of
trade, travel, and financial systems by identifying and
disrupting the illicit actors, organizations, and activities
within them.
There are more than 400 HSI personnel and 63 offices around
the world with foreign counterparts to mitigate threats to
public safety and National security through our unique
investigative authorities.
In fiscal year 2014, these attaches' efforts through their
international counterpart relationships resulted in 2,500
criminal arrests, the seizure of 11,000 firearms, over a
million pounds of narcotics, 400 million dollars' worth of
counterfeit merchandise, and $43 million in international
criminal proceeds.
In recent years, HSI has increased our effectiveness
through these relationships in regions of the world that are
most important to us, with programs such as the transnational
criminal investigative unit and the enhancement of the visa
security program. In our TCIUs, HSI special agents work
alongside their vetted foreign counterparts to investigate
criminal organizations that threaten the security and economy
of both our countries. These TCIUs increase partner
capabilities, lead to the exchange of best practices, and build
stronger relationships which facilitate seamless information
exchange between HSI and the host nation partners.
Vetted foreign officers attend an intense 3-week course at
our academy taught by HSI and funded through partnerships with
the Department of State, which builds both of our joint
capacities to attack criminal networks. Just last month I had
the honor of participating in the graduation of 12 Panamanians
and 12 Guatemalan Federal police, who are now back in their
countries working along HSI agents to decrease crime. I would
invite each of you to attend one of those graduations which we
will have this summer.
Currently HSI has TCIU partnerships with 8 countries with
more than 200 foreign law enforcement officers. During fiscal
year 2014, those TCIUs arrested 631 suspects, seized 30,000
pounds of cocaine, and $14 million in cash from various
criminal organizations, to name a few accomplishments.
We are working with our Mexican counterparts to create 2
units there and additional units in Central America both this
year and next with funding provided by Congress. Those units
will increase our joint efforts to attack human smuggling and
illicit financial networks that destabilize those countries and
operate throughout the Americas.
The visa security program is another critical program that
enhances security of the United States while facilitating
legitimate travel. As this committee well knows, the Homeland
Security Act directs DHS to assist the State Department in
identifying visa applicants who seek to enter the United States
for terrorist or criminal activities. The visa adjudication
process presents the first opportunity to assess whether an
individual seeking entry to the United States poses a threat.
HSI, its sister agency, CBP, and the State Department have
collaborated to enhance visa security efforts through
automation. The PATRIOT system now automatically screens visa
application data against DHS holdings prior to the applicant's
interview.
The PATRIOT system uses interagency and intelligence
community resources to identify National security and public
safety threats, and the screening is done jointly by HSI and
CBP. The individuals that pose a threat are subject then to
additional in-depth review of visa applications both here in
the United States and by specially trained his agents overseas.
When a review and interview substantiate the threat, HSI
agents recommend refusal or revocation of visas. In fiscal year
2014, the visa security program reviewed more than 2.2 million
visa applications received at the 21 posts. The State
Department has, to date, concurred with every one of our visa
denial recommendations, nearly 8,700 last year.
It is these types of outcomes that drive us to expand.
Therefore, with additional funding provided by Congress this
year, HSI is expanding visa security operations to four
additional posts before the end of the fiscal year and
anticipates additional posts next year if funding allows.
While TCIUs and the visa security program demonstrate two
important international capabilities, the bulk of HSI's
principle engagement with international partners remains the
routine interaction on investigative matters between our
foreign deployed special agents and their international
partners.
Every day, at 63 locations around the world, HSI special
agents collaborate regionally with foreign law enforcement
officers to dismantle or disrupt transnational criminal
organizations. Our foreign personnel work tirelessly with their
counterparts to investigate the full scope of our broad
investigative authority.
We are involved in many other innovative efforts to enhance
the Nation's security through international partnerships. We
have strong collaboration with Europol. We have cooperation on
cybercrimes with Interpol. We are attacking wildlife
trafficking in Africa and throughout the Asia region. We are
securing trade and travel throughout the world within these
other efforts and these activities.
I appreciate the time of the committee today, and I look
very much forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kubiak follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lev J. Kubiak
June 2, 2015
introduction
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and distinguished Members of
the subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
international engagement and enforcement efforts of U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I am honored to provide an overview of
our international operations and highlight some successes and the
challenges I believe we currently face.
I would like to briefly outline the structure of ICE to help you
understand our mission and responsibilities. ICE is divided into two
operational components: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The role of ERO is to identify,
apprehend and, ultimately, remove unlawful aliens from the United
States in accordance with law and policy. HSI investigates
transnational crime and conducts a wide range of domestic and
international criminal investigations arising from the illegal movement
of people and merchandise into, within, and out of the United States,
often in coordination with other Federal agencies.
HSI enforces more than 400 Federal laws and regulations with
jurisdiction over the investigation of crimes with a nexus to U.S.
borders and ports of entry. HSI focuses its broad investigative
authority on three operational priorities--border security, public
safety, and counterterrorism/National security. Our agency investigates
offenses that stem from its traditional customs and immigration
authorities: Weapons smuggling and illegal exports of defense-related
materiel and technology; war crimes and human rights violations;
narcotics and contraband smuggling; financial crimes; cyber crimes and
child exploitation; human trafficking and human smuggling; commercial
fraud and intellectual property violations; transnational gangs; and
document and benefit fraud, to name a few.
I would like to broadly discuss HSI's international operations and
note some successes we recently achieved with our foreign partners. One
of HSI's most important priorities from an international perspective is
to stop threats before they reach our Nation's borders. HSI deploys
approximately 250 special agents and 170 support staff to 63 offices in
46 countries. HSI works with foreign counterparts to mitigate threats
to public safety and National security through investigative activity.
In fiscal year 2014, HSI collaborated with international counterparts
to arrest over 2,500 suspects abroad, and to seize $43 million in
criminal proceeds, 11,000 firearms, 1 million pounds of narcotics, and
$397 million worth of counterfeit merchandise. These statistics
demonstrate HSI's efforts to attack transnational criminal
organizations (TCOs) at their root in foreign countries.
transnational criminal investigative units
The effectiveness of HSI overseas stems from the quality of
relationships we have with our foreign law enforcement counterparts.
The relationships we build with foreign authorities are fundamental to
attacking TCOs. HSI is particularly proud of the formalized
relationships it has established with numerous foreign law enforcement
partners through its Transnational Criminal Investigative Units
(TCIUs).
TCIUs are investigative units comprised of HSI special agents
working alongside foreign law enforcement to investigate common
threats. Foreign personnel assigned to our TCIUs undergo a strict
vetting process, including a polygraph examination. Upon completion of
vetting, candidates must successfully complete a 3-week International
Task Force Agent Training course at the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. This training is provided by ICE
and funded by the Department of State (DOS) Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. I recently attended one of these
courses, and I can tell you first-hand that the training we provide to
our international partners is top-notch. It is based on the training we
provide to our own special agents.
Upon completion of training, TCIU members work together with HSI to
investigate significant threats. TCIUs facilitate seamless information
exchange between HSI special agents and their host nation partners.
These units obviously provide a great benefit to the United States, but
they also serve the host nation's interest. TCIUs enhance the host
country's ability to investigate and prosecute individuals involved in
transnational criminal activity that threatens the National security of
the partner nation. TCIUs identify targets, collect evidence, share
intelligence, and facilitate the prosecution of TCOs, both in-country
and through the U.S. judicial system. Currently, HSI has eight TCIUs
with more than 200 foreign law enforcement officers. During fiscal year
2014, our TCIUs arrested a combined total of 631 suspects, seized
nearly 30,000 pounds of cocaine, more than $14 million in cash, $17
million worth of counterfeit merchandise, and numerous firearms from
TCOs.
TCIUs routinely accomplish significant outcomes for HSI overseas.
Let me highlight two recent successes that underscore the value our
units. Last year, HSI special agents and their partners in the
Colombian TCIU developed criminal intelligence that resulted in the
seizure of 6,910 kilograms of cocaine at the port of Cartagena. The
estimated street value of that seizure exceeded $200 million.
In 2013, Panamanian authorities developed information on a North
Korean vessel transiting the Panama Canal from Cuba to North Korea. The
vessel's manifest described its cargo as sugar. Panamanian authorities
selected the vessel for inspection, and the TCIU discovered 240 tons of
munitions, radar equipment, and two MiG fighter jets concealed beneath
20 million pounds of sugar. The military materiel violated United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, and was seized by Panamanian
authorities based on the professional work done by the TCIU.
We plan to expand the TCIU program to Mexico this year and to
Jordan, Kenya, and the Philippines in fiscal year 2016.
the visa security program and patriot
As you know, the Homeland Security Act directs DHS to assist in the
identification of visa applicants who seek to enter the United States
for illegitimate purposes, including criminal offenses and terrorism-
related activities. The visa adjudication process often presents the
first opportunity to assess whether a potential visitor or immigrant
poses a threat to the United States. The Visa Security Program (VSP)
represents HSI's front line in protecting the United States against
terrorists and criminal organizations by preventing foreign nationals
who pose a threat to National security from entering the United States.
Within HSI's international footprint, we deploy specially-trained
agents overseas to screen and vet visas at 21 high-risk locations in
order to identify potential terrorist and criminal threats before they
reach the United States. HSI accomplishes this vitally important role
by conducting targeted, in-depth reviews of individual visa
applications and applicants prior to visa issuance, and making
recommendations to consular officers to refuse or revoke visas when
warranted. HSI actions complement the consular officers' screening,
applicant interviews, and reviews of applications and supporting
documentation. ICE will expand visa security operations at four
additional posts this year, which will bring the total to 25.
ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in collaboration
with DOS, have initiated an automated program to enhance visa security
efforts. The Pre-Adjudicated Threat Recognition Intelligence Operations
Team (PATRIOT) initiative is the automated screening of visa
application information against DHS holdings prior to the applicant's
interview. The process includes in-depth vetting of applicants
identified as potentially having derogatory information, who may be of
investigative interest, or ineligible to receive U.S. visas. The
PATRIOT initiative takes a risk-based approach and uses interagency
resources from ICE, CBP, DOS, and the intelligence community to
identify National security and public safety threats.
In fiscal year 2014, the VSP reviewed over 2 million visa
applications, which resulted in the refusal of more than 8,600 visas.
Over 5,000 of these refusals were because the applicants had some
suspected connection to terrorism or terrorist organizations. In
addition, the VSP enhances visa vetting by increasing automated data
exchange between DOS and the CBP National Targeting Center (NTC). The
NTC provides tactical targeting and analytical research to prevent
terrorist and terrorist weapons from entering the United States. The
flow of on-line visa information to DHS systems is now automated and
information is sent back to DOS using an automated interface. ICE will
leverage these modernization efforts to increase investigations of visa
applicants who pose the greatest threats to National security.
Furthermore, ICE deploys VSP personnel to the NTC to augment and
expand current operations. The co-location of VSP personnel at the NTC
helps increase both communication and information sharing. The NTC
conducts pre-departure vetting of all travelers on flights bound for
the United States. Vetting identifies high-risk passengers who should
be the subject of no-board recommendations to carriers, including those
whose visas have been revoked.
coordination with the u.s. department of state
Effective border security requires broad information sharing and
cooperation among U.S. agencies. In October 2006, ICE entered into to a
memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the DOS Bureau of Consular
Affairs in order to exchange visa and immigration data. The agreement
allows ICE and DOS to exchange information contained in each other's
electronic databases pertaining to foreign persons seeking entry into
the United States. This exchange of information allows Consular Affairs
personnel to query and access ICE and CBP records. Consular Affairs
personnel can then take into consideration prior violations when
adjudicating visa applications for foreign persons who have applied to
enter the United States. The exchange of information allows ICE
enforcement personnel to query the DOS Consular Consolidated Database
and access passport and visa application information of persons under
investigation by ICE. This information sharing also acts as an exchange
for ongoing criminal investigations. If, for example, a suspect of an
on-going HSI criminal investigation applies for a visa, ICE and DOS
employees can collaborate to achieve an advantageous outcome.
In January 2011, ICE signed an MOU outlining roles,
responsibilities, and collaboration between ICE, Consular Affairs, and
the Diplomatic Security Service. To facilitate information sharing and
reduce duplication of efforts, ICE and DOS conduct collaborative
training and orientation prior to overseas deployments. Once they are
deployed to overseas posts, ICE and DOS personnel work closely together
in working groups, meetings, training, and briefings, and engage in
regular and timely information sharing.
human smuggling and human trafficking investigations
Investigating human smuggling and human trafficking organizations
is one of our highest priorities. HSI is the principal Federal agency
for enforcing U.S. laws related to international human smuggling and
human trafficking. Let me explain the difference between human
smuggling and human trafficking. Human smuggling is a transportation-
based crime that violates the integrity of the border and the
immigration system. Human trafficking, on the other hand, is a crime
against a person involving the exploitation of an individual, and is
often referred to as modern-day slavery.
HSI has developed a comprehensive, victim-centered approach to
aggressively target human traffickers. HSI investigates various forms
of human trafficking, including sex trafficking, in which a commercial
sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the victim
is a minor; and labor trafficking, in which the victim is forced or
coerced into labor against his or her will. HSI's foreign offices focus
on two lines of effort to counter human trafficking: Operational
coordination with foreign counterparts and building foreign partner
capacity. In fiscal year 2014, HSI provided human trafficking training
or outreach to 10,650 international partners in 723 instances. We also
are fully committed to the DHS Blue Campaign, which unifies the
Department's outreach efforts.
In response to last year's crisis of unaccompanied Central American
children arriving at U.S. borders in unprecedented numbers, HSI
initiated Operation Coyote to target human smuggling organizations. The
operation was designed to stem the flow of illegal Central American
migration, including that of unaccompanied children. HSI deployed
additional personnel to Mexico and Central America to leverage partners
and focus efforts on human smuggling investigations.
To date, Operation Coyote has resulted in HSI opening 482
investigations, 1,037 criminal arrests, and the seizure of more than
$1.2 million in currency. HSI special agents assigned throughout
Central America routinely share criminal intelligence with foreign
partners and build capacity in human smuggling and human trafficking
enforcement. In collaboration with international partners, HSI
identified 15 major human smuggling organizations operating in Central
America and Mexico in fiscal year 2014. Six of these organizations have
been dismantled and the remaining nine organizations have been
disrupted.
HSI continues to work closely with CBP. In December 2013, HSI
established a permanent presence at the NTC, and created the NTC-
Investigations Division (NTC-I) to enhance collaboration of our shared
border security mission. The establishment of the NTC-I provides HSI
with an increased presence to work alongside CBP subject-matter experts
in support of the entire U.S. border security continuum, from CBP
interdictions and HSI investigations to the joint exploitation of
intelligence and cross-cutting border enforcement efforts.
As part of our overarching efforts to combat human smuggling and
human trafficking, we also lead two interagency initiatives. The Human
Smuggling Cell harnesses DHS's unique access to trade and financial
data to develop information on individuals or organizations involved in
human smuggling, and serves as the coordination center for all HSI
investigative operations to combat human smuggling organizations. In
addition, the interagency Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center works
with HSI's foreign offices to exchange information with foreign
governments and organizations to prevent human smuggling, human
trafficking, and the criminal facilitation of clandestine terrorist
travel.
counterterrorism and counter-proliferation investigations
Secretary Johnson has directed DHS components to continue to focus
on counterterrorism activities as a top priority. At ICE, we seek to
leverage our expertise and the investigative methodologies to counter
criminal and terrorist organizations. Both sets of bad actors seek to
exploit legitimate U.S. trade, travel, and financial systems in
furtherance of their financial or ideological objectives.
Within HSI, our goal is to prevent terrorist attacks against the
United States before they materialize by ensuring that our various
investigative programs, and domestic and international field offices,
collaborate within the intelligence community and with Federal, State,
local, Tribal, and international law enforcement partners. HSI is the
second-largest contributor of Federal task force agents to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Forces (second only to
the FBI itself), which rely on our investigative expertise and broad
enforcement authorities.
HSI also contributes to the Federal Government's efforts to prevent
foreign adversaries from illegally obtaining U.S. military products and
sensitive technology, including weapons of mass destruction and their
components. HSI's Counter-Proliferation Investigations (CPI) program
oversees a broad range of investigations related to export law
violations. CPI targets the trafficking and illegal export of
conventional military equipment, firearms, controlled technology, and
materials used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, including
chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials. HSI enforces
U.S. export laws involving military items and controlled dual-use
goods, as well as products going to sanctioned or embargoed countries.
As part of these efforts, HSI leads the Export Enforcement
Coordination Center (E2C2), a multi-agency center that serves as the
Government's clearinghouse for the exchange of information and
intelligence related to export enforcement. The E2C2 serves as a
conduit between Federal law enforcement agencies and the intelligence
community for export licensing and enforcement activities.
HSI frequently enables its foreign partners to make significant
seizures or arrests in this realm based on our criminal intelligence.
For example, in June 2013, special agents assigned to Mexico provided
specific information to Mexican authorities that resulted in the
seizure of 98 firearms, including assault rifles, a .50 caliber rifle,
grenade launchers, numerous handguns, and 30,000 rounds of ammunition
from the Gulf Cartel.
In September 2014, acting on time-sensitive information from a
domestic investigation, HSI special agents provided criminal
intelligence to Spanish authorities that resulted in the discovery of
90 assault rifles and handguns hidden in secret compartments inside a
vehicle exported from the United States to Lebanon. These cases
highlight HSI's abilities to leverage its network of foreign law
enforcement contacts to achieve desirable outcomes.
financial investigations
HSI must target its resources to the command and control elements
of a TCO. Often the critical node of a TCO is its finances. The goal of
all HSI's financial investigations is to deny TCOs their ill-gotten
gains. HSI continually evaluates current threats and adapts its efforts
to stay ahead of developing trends. For instance, HSI focuses on
several emerging trends, including interstate funnel accounts, which
are high-activity accounts with multiple deposits from numerous sources
by TCOs to move illicit proceeds within the interior of the United
States; trade-based money laundering, through which TCOs transfer
illicit proceeds disguised as legitimate international trade; and
virtual currencies, which TCOs use to disburse illicit proceeds with
the benefits of anonymity, liquidity, and international accessibility.
HSI financial investigations focus on identifying the methods by
which TCOs move, store, and attempt to legitimize illicit proceeds
through money laundering, bulk currency smuggling, and other financial
and trade-related crimes. HSI has enjoyed great success in this area in
recent years. For example, an HSI New York money laundering
investigation recently revealed that HSBC Bank was the financial
institution of choice for Mexican drug cartels, which deposited
hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit proceeds into accounts at
that bank. That investigation revealed major compliance shortcomings on
the part of HSBC, which ultimately resulted in the criminal forfeiture
of $1.9 billion.
In another example, from this past fall, an investigation led by
our offices in Los Angeles and Bogota, Colombia targeted drug cartels
that laundered illicit proceeds through a complex, trade-based money
laundering scheme involving retail stores in the Los Angeles Garment
District. In this case, HSI seized more than $142 million in currency,
bank accounts, and property--an agency record for the largest seizure
to occur in one investigation in a single day.
child exploitation investigations
HSI has a long and successful history in investigating and
disrupting the sexual exploitation of children, principally involving
two categories of crimes: Production/distribution of child pornography
and child sex tourism. HSI employs the latest technology to collect
evidence and track the activities of individuals and organized groups
sexually exploiting children through the use of websites and peer-to-
peer trading. HSI leverages the unique resources of its Cyber Crimes
Center, which enables special agents with specialized expertise,
resources, technical advice, and training to assist in a variety of
cyber crimes.
HSI works with several well-regarded institutions to investigate
child exploitation. For example, HSI receives law enforcement tips from
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline
regarding suspected crimes of sexual exploitation committed against
children. HSI has shared thousands of leads with foreign law
enforcement to rescue children from lives of abuse, fear, and shame.
HSI also partners with the Virtual Global Task Force, which seeks to
build relationships between international law enforcement agencies,
non-government organizations, and private industry to help protect
children from transnational child sexual exploitation.
Many times, our special agents encounter evidence of the sexual
abuse of children on-line, but are initially unable to determine who or
where the suspects or victims are located. The HSI Victim
Identification Program combines technological and investigative
capabilities and resources to rescue child victims of sexual
exploitation. HSI analyzes and enhances material that depicts abuse to
identify clues that may lead to the identity of the victim, suspect, or
geographic location.
HSI's technical expertise and its relationship with foreign law
enforcement recently saved a child. In early 2014, British police
reported to HSI's office in London that they had witnessed a suspect
abuse an infant in a live internet forum. Working together, HSI and its
British counterparts combed through digital clues and determined the
suspect appeared to reside in California. Within 7 hours of British
police witnessing this unconscionable act, HSI's office in Los Angeles
located and arrested the suspect, and rescued his 3-month-old infant
son. Thanks to quick actions of HSI and its partner, the suspect was
recently convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison and, indeed, the
child's life was changed for the better. I can think of no better
example of the value of our foreign partnerships.
conclusion
I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today and
for your continued support of ICE and its law enforcement mission. I am
confident that we will continue to build upon the momentum we have
generated as a result of our considerable operational achievements
around the world. HSI remains committed to working with this
subcommittee to forge a strong and productive relationship going
forward to help prevent and combat threats to our Nation.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
Ms. Gambler.
STATEMENT OF REBECCA GAMBLER, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND
JUSTICE ISSUES; U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Gambler. Good morning, Chairwoman Miller, Ranking
Member Vela, and Members of the subcommittee.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify at today's hearing
to discuss GAO's work reviewing DHS efforts to screen and
inspect passengers and maritime containerized cargo before they
board or are put on vessels to the United States.
DHS deploys multiple inspection and targeting programs
abroad to address high-risk travelers and cargo. According to
DHS, as of May 2015, the Department and its components had
about 1,800 FTEs in almost 80 countries.
My remarks today will reflect our findings in two areas
related to DHS' international programs: No. 1, Departmental
actions to align programs abroad with resource use and
strategic priorities and, No. 2, observations on specific DHS
overseas programs.
First, DHS has taken action toward aligning its programs
abroad with resource use and priorities. For example, DHS has
established a governance board to coordinate crosscutting
issues related to international engagement.
DHS has also reviewed its international footprint or its
complete set of resources deployed abroad to evaluate the
placement of resources on the basis of DHS' mission areas,
cost, and potential for engagement with host countries.
However, DHS has not yet established specific Department-wide
strategic priorities for use of its resources abroad.
Further, while DHS conducted a one-time exercise to assess
the Department's international footprint, it has not
established a routine process to continually assess the
alignment between strategic goals and resource decisions. DHS
also does not have comparable cost data for its programs abroad
and does not have a standardized framework to capture these
data to help informed resource decision making.
Second, with regard to specific DHS programs abroad to
target and inspect passengers and cargo before they depart for
the United States, GAO has issued numerous reports on such
programs. For example, with regard to one of ICE's overseas
activities, the visa security program, we have reported on
efforts to expand the program and address challenges and its
operations.
Under this program, ICE deploys personnel to certain U.S.
embassies and consulates to assist the Department of State's
consular officers with security reviews of visa applications,
among other things. We have identified challenges in the visa
security program, such as limited guidance regarding
interactions between ICE officials and consular officers, lack
of performance measures to accurately evaluate the program, and
variation in the training of consular officers by the Visa
Waiver Program agents from post to post.
We have also found that ICE did not track information on
the time ICE agents spent on non-Visa Waiver Program
activities. We also identified gaps in ICE's plans to expand
the program to additional diplomatic posts, noting that ICE's
plans did not address all posts identified by the agency as
being high-risk.
With regard to CBP programs related to targeting and
inspecting travelers before they board vessels bound for the
United States, we have on-going work for the committee and the
subcommittee reviewing these programs, including pre-clearance
operations and the immigration advisory program. We will be
reporting on results from our work in the future.
Finally, with regard to targeting and inspecting maritime
containerized cargo, GAO's work has addressed three of CBP's
programs, including the Container Security Initiative, the
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, or C-TPAT,
and the Secure Freight Initiative.
Through the Container Security Initiative, CBP targets
U.S.-bound containerized cargo shipments and requests
examinations of high-risk containers before they are loaded
onto U.S.-bound vessels. We reported that CBP has made progress
in implementing the program, but has not regularly assessed
foreign ports for risk since 2005. CBP took steps to rank ports
for risk in 2009, but did not use the results from that
assessment to modify program locations.
As part of our work, we used CBP's risk model and applied
it to fiscal year 2012 cargo shipment data. Through this
analysis, we found that the Container Security Initiative did
not have a presence at about half of the foreign ports CBP
considered high-risk and about one-fifth of the ports where CBP
had a presence were lower-risk locations at the time of our
review.
In closing, we have made recommendations to DHS in all of
these areas and others to help the Department and its
components in their efforts to better manage, oversee, and
assess their programs abroad. DHS has agreed with some of these
recommendations and has actions planned or underway to address
some of them. We will continue to monitor DHS' efforts in
response to our recommendations.
This ends my oral statement. I would be pleased to answer
any questions Members may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gambler follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rebecca Gambler
June 2, 2015
gao highlights
Highlights of GAO-15-668T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security, Committee on Homeland Security, House of
Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study
The National Strategy for Counterterrorism calls for a rapid and
coordinated effort that uses U.S. Government resources to mitigate
threats to homeland security. DHS contributes to the U.S. Government's
efforts to combat terrorism and works to prevent inadmissible travelers
and cargo from entering the United States. DHS's overseas efforts
include ensuring visa security, inspecting passengers prior to boarding
U.S.-bound flights, and identifying high-risk cargo shipments.
This statement addresses: (1) The extent to which DHS has aligned
resource use abroad with strategic priorities and (2) selected DHS
programs abroad aimed at preventing high-risk travelers and maritime
containerized cargo from entering the United States. This statement is
based on prior products GAO issued from 2008 through January 2015,
along with selected updates conducted in May 2015 to obtain information
from DHS on actions it has taken to address prior GAO recommendations.
What GAO Recommends
GAO previously made recommendations to DHS to inform its resource
deployment abroad and strengthen screening and targeting programs. DHS
agreed with GAO's recommendations to inform resource deployment abroad
and has actions planned or underway to address them. DHS did not agree
with some of GAO's recommendations related to VSP; GAO continues to
maintain that all of these recommendations should be addressed.
border security.--progress and challenges in dhs's efforts to address
high-risk travelers and maritime cargo
What GAO Found
In September 2013, GAO reported on actions the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) had taken to align its programs abroad with its
resource use and with other U.S. Governmental strategic priorities. GAO
found that DHS had taken actions to better align its resource use with
its programs abroad consistent with requirements set forth in law.
Specifically, from 2011 to early 2012, DHS conducted a one-time review
of its international footprint--the complete set of DHS resources and
efforts it has deployed abroad--and created a Department-wide
international engagement plan. However, DHS had not established
specific Department-wide strategic priorities for resource use abroad.
Specifically, DHS: (1) Had not established Department-wide strategic
priorities for international engagement, such as specific types of
activities or target regions to further combating terrorism goals; (2)
did not have a mechanism for monitoring alignment between resource
deployment abroad and strategic priorities; and (3) did not have
reliable, comparable cost data for its programs and activities abroad
and had not established a standardized framework to capture these data.
GAO recommended that DHS establish Department-wide strategic
priorities, a mechanism to routinely monitor alignment between
strategic priorities and resource deployment abroad, and reliable cost
data to provide DHS with critical information to make informed resource
deployment decisions. DHS concurred and, as of May 2015, has taken
steps to implement GAO's recommendations, such as drafting an
international engagement strategy to identify specific Department-wide
priorities and establishing a common cost framework. DHS plans to
finalize this strategy by early summer 2015 and use it a mechanism to
facilitate additional footprint reviews in future budget years.
DHS deploys multiple screening and targeting programs designed to
help interdict high-risk travelers, such as potential terrorists, and
otherwise inadmissible passengers and cargo shipments before they board
U.S.-bound commercial vessels. For example, in March 2011, GAO reported
on the Visa Security Program (VSP) through which DHS's U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deploys personnel to certain U.S.
embassies and consulates to conduct security reviews of visa
applications, among other things. GAO found that ICE had limited
guidance for the program and could improve its program expansion
planning. DHS concurred with GAO's recommendations to issue guidance
and strengthen its planning and took steps to address them. GAO also
found that DHS did not collect comprehensive data on all VSP
performance measures and track the time officials spent on visa
security activities; DHS did not concur with GAO's recommendations to
address these limitations. Further, since 2008, GAO has reported on
CBP's programs intended to secure the maritime global supply chain--the
flow of goods from manufacturers to retailer--and cargo destined for
the United States. For example, in September 2013, GAO found that CBP
had not regularly assessed foreign ports for risks to since 2005. While
CBP took steps to rank ports for risks in 2009, CBP did not use this
information to modify where CBP staff were posted. DHS concurred with
GAO's recommendation to periodically assess the supply chain security
risks from foreign ports and has plans to conduct such assessments by
the end of 2015.
border security.--progress and challenges in dhs's efforts to address
high-risk travelers and maritime cargo
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and Members of the
subcommittee: I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department
of Homeland Security's (DHS) international programs and activities
related to screening and inspecting passengers and maritime
containerized cargo. The National Strategy for Counterterrorism calls
for a rapid, coordinated, and effective effort that uses the resources
of the entire Government to mitigate threats to National and homeland
security.\1\ DHS--with its specific knowledge and skills in border and
maritime security, immigration, and law enforcement, among other
areas--contributes to the U.S. Government's efforts to combat terrorism
and works to prevent inadmissible travelers and goods from entering the
United States. In pursuit of this objective, DHS seeks to identify
security vulnerabilities and interdict threats at the earliest possible
point in the travel, trade, and immigration life cycles to make the
Nation's physical borders the last, not the first, line of defense.
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\1\ The National Strategy for Counterterrorism supports the
National Security Strategy, which lays out an approach for advancing
American interests, including the security of the American people. The
National Strategy for Counterterrorism sets out the approach to one of
the President's top National security priorities--disrupting,
dismantling, and eventually defeating al-Qaeda and its affiliates and
adherents. It also acknowledges the need to counter other transnational
terrorist networks. See White House, National Strategy for
Counterterrorism (Washington, DC: June 2011) and White House, National
Security Strategy (Washington, DC: May 2010).
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DHS's efforts to combat terrorism start abroad before travelers and
cargo are approved for departure to the United States. Most notably,
DHS deploys multiple inspection and targeting programs designed to help
interdict high-risk travelers, such as potential terrorists, and
otherwise inadmissible passengers and cargo before they board
commercial aircraft and vessels bound for the United States. DHS also
works alongside foreign government officials to support them in
assessing their own security vulnerabilities at air and sea ports and
strengthen their security infrastructure by providing training and
conducting critical infrastructure assessments, among other things.
DHS's Office of International Affairs (OIA) has primary responsibility
for coordinating all aspects of the Department's international
operations, and for developing, coordinating, and executing
Departmental international policy, including negotiating agreements
with other countries, developing policy and programs, interacting with
foreign officials, and working with DHS personnel abroad.
DHS components are generally responsible for making operational
decisions, such as allocating resources and conducting activities that
correspond to their particular missions to meet the Department's
mission needs.
Several DHS components are responsible for implementing programs
aimed at screening, inspecting and, if warranted, preventing high-risk
travelers and cargo from traveling to and entering the United States
and are responsible for deploying staff to certain foreign air and sea
ports and U.S. embassies to meet these objectives. U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), the Federal agency with primary responsibility
for securing U.S. borders, is authorized to vet, target, screen, and
inspect travelers and cargo prior to entering the United States and, in
certain circumstances and locations, before their transit to the United
States. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency with
responsibility for enforcing U.S. customs and immigration laws,
regulations, and policies, is authorized to investigate a wide range of
domestic and international activities arising from the illegal movement
of people and goods into, within, and out of the United States.\2\
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\2\ The U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal agency with primary
responsibility for safeguarding U.S. maritime interests, is also
responsible for ensuring the safety of the Nation's ports. The Coast
Guard is the lead agency responsible for assessing the security of
ports that ship goods to the United States, coordinating maritime
information sharing efforts, and promoting domain awareness in the
maritime environment. As of May 2015, the Coast Guard had 368 full-time
equivalents stationed in 28 countries to assist with maritime security
efforts. In addition, the Transportation Security Administration--the
Federal agency with primary responsibility for securing civil aviation,
including U.S.-bound flights--had 87 full-time equivalents stationed in
22 countries to assist with aviation security efforts.
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This statement is based on related reports and testimonies we
issued from 2008 through January 2015 that examined DHS's efforts to
target, interdict, screen, and inspect passengers and maritime
containerized cargo traveling to the United States (see app. I for a
list of related GAO products), and discusses:
the extent to which DHS has aligned resource use abroad with
strategic priorities and
selected DHS programs abroad aimed at preventing high-risk
travelers and maritime cargo from entering the United States.
This statement includes selected updates we conducted in May 2015
on DHS's efforts to address our previous recommendations related to
DHS's management and prioritization of its resources abroad, the visa
security program, and efforts to protect the maritime global supply
chain--the flow of goods from manufacturers to retailers--and
containerized cargo. It also includes preliminary observations on CBP's
international air passenger predeparture inspections efforts. We are
currently reviewing these programs at the request of the full
committee, its subcommittees, and other Members. Our reports
incorporated information we obtained and analyzed from officials at
various DHS components, including CBP and ICE, such as program plans,
policies, and procedures. More detailed information about our scope and
methodology can be found in our reports and testimonies. For the
updates, we collected information from DHS on actions it has taken to
address findings and recommendations made in prior reports on which
this statement is based. We also reviewed recent DHS Office of
Inspector General (OIG) reports on the Visa Security Program and DHS's
efforts to target and vet foreign nationals.\3\ For our on-going work
on CBP's international air passenger predeparture inspection efforts,
we analyzed agency-wide policy guidelines and procedures for operating
these programs overseas. We also interviewed CBP officials to obtain
their views on CBP's roles and responsibilities for implementing and
managing its predeparture inspections programs, as well as CBP's plans
to expand these programs in the future. We conducted all of this work
in accordance with generally accepted Government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
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\3\ DHS OIG, The DHS Visa Security Program, OIG-14-137 (Washington,
DC: Sept. 10, 2014) and DHS OIG, Information Sharing on Foreign
Nationals: Overseas Screening, OIG-11-68 (Washington, DC: Apr. 7,
2011).
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dhs has enhanced its resource alignment, but could better assure
resources deployed abroad support highest priorities
In September 2013, we reported on actions DHS has taken to align
its programs abroad with its resource use and with other U.S.
Governmental strategic priorities. We found that DHS had taken actions
toward increasing organizational and programmatic alignment for its
resource use abroad consistent with requirements set forth in law.\4\
For example, we found that DHS had established an intradepartmental
governance board to provide a formal organizational mechanism for DHS
component heads and OIA to collaborate and coordinate crosscutting
policy issues related to international engagement. We also found that
DHS reviewed its international footprint--the complete set of resources
and efforts DHS has deployed abroad--with the intention of enhancing
organizational and programmatic alignment. This ``footprint review''
was led by OIA, in coordination with component heads, and it evaluated
the placement of resources on the basis of DHS's strategic mission
areas, cost, and potential for engagement with host nations.\5\
Furthermore, in March 2013, the Secretary of Homeland Security signed
DHS's first International Engagement Plan to promote common
international objectives and priorities across the Department. The plan
maps key activities abroad to DHS's strategic mission areas, and
includes specific strategies in separate international engagement plans
for various regions of the world.
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\4\ GAO, Combating Terrorism: DHS Should Take Action to Better
Ensure Resources Abroad Align with Priorities, GAO-13-681 (Washington,
DC: Sept. 25, 2013). For example, every 4 years, DHS is required to
conduct a comprehensive review--known as DHS's Quadrennial Homeland
Security Review--of the homeland security strategy of the Nation,
including recommendations regarding the long-term strategy and
priorities of the Nation for homeland security and guidance on the
programs, assets, capabilities, budget, policies, and authorities of
the Department. See 6 U.S.C. 347.
\5\ The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review identifies five
strategic mission areas for DHS focus: (1) Preventing Terrorism and
Enhancing Security, (2) Securing Our Borders, (3) Enforcing and
Administering Immigration Laws, (4) Safeguarding and Securing
Cyberspace, and (5) Ensuring Resilience to Disasters.
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Despite these efforts, we found that DHS could not provide overall
assurance of alignment of its resource use abroad with Department-wide
and Government-wide strategic priorities. Although DHS has a broad
mission set and decision making about resource use abroad is
decentralized to the components, we found that DHS had not established
specific Department-wide strategic priorities--such as specific types
of activities or target regions to further combating terrorism goals--
for resource use abroad to help promote organizational alignment in
resource decision making. While DHS's International Engagement Plan
linked DHS's strategic missions to the kinds of activities that DHS
conducts abroad, we found that it did not establish specific priorities
to help guide resource decision making. DHS officials from OIA and the
Office of Counterterrorism Policy agreed that DHS's International
Engagement Plan did not represent a clear priority focus on countries
with factors that represented more immediate threats to the homeland
and did not necessarily serve to identify a clear set of priorities and
principles that would help to guide future resource decisions. To
address these concerns we recommended that DHS establish specific
Department-wide priorities for resources abroad. DHS concurred, and as
of May 2015, has started to draft an international engagement strategy
to identify specific Department-wide priorities. According to DHS
officials, OIA hopes to use the plan to help inform the Department's
fiscal year 2017 budget request and intends to finalize the plan no
later than early summer 2015.
We also found that although OIA conducted a one-time exercise from
2011 to early 2012 to evaluate the Department's international footprint
to try to bring it into better organizational and programmatic
alignment, DHS had not established a routine or ingrained process that
would continually assess the alignment between strategic goals and
resource decisions. For example, we found each of the operational
components that we interviewed, such as CBP and ICE, described
different rationales and methods for deciding where and how many
resources to deploy around the world. At the time of our review, OIA
officials stated they had not devised an approach for implementing a
routine, ingrained process with Department-wide methods and metrics,
but officials agreed that such methods and metrics that were meaningful
to all of the components would help provide a coherent strategic
overlay to give the Department better assurance of alignment between
resource use and strategic priorities. To address these concerns, we
recommended that DHS establish a routine, institutionalized mechanism
to ensure alignment of the Department's resource use abroad with the
highest Department-wide and Government-wide strategic priorities. DHS
concurred, and as of May 2015, OIA plans to use the international
engagement plan as the foundation of a footprint review, starting with
a specific international region, to identify opportunities to realign
resources with priorities and to identify crosscutting management
efficiencies for the Department's fiscal year 2017 budget request.
In addition, in 2013, we found that DHS did not have comparable
cost data for its programs and activities abroad and had not
established a standardized framework to capture these data to help
inform resource decision making and to achieve management efficiencies
when addressing issues that are common across the department. We found
that each of the components tracked its international expenditures
differently, and according to OIA officials, the effort to collect
comparable information that reliably informs management decision making
had been challenging.\6\ According to OIA officials, a standardized
reporting framework for the costs of conducting activities abroad--for
example, salaries, housing, and fees paid to embassies to cover certain
administrative and security costs--across the Department could enable
OIA to identify best practices that could lead to cost savings in
international deployments and enhance the ability to assess the
outcomes and cost-effectiveness of programs and activities carried out
abroad. We recommended that DHS establish a common reporting framework
to allow for the collection of reliable, comparable Department-wide
cost data for resource use abroad. DHS concurred, and, as of May 2015,
had established a common cost framework.
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\6\ For our September 2013 report, we attempted to produce cost
data for international expenditures. Although we determined that the
data were sufficiently reliable to report a general estimate of
expenditures for programs and activities abroad, in many cases it took
months for DHS to produce the expenditure data and some components
reported to us that meeting the request was difficult. After attempting
to collect separate expenditure data for training and technical
assistance expenditures, we ultimately determined that sufficiently
reliable data were not available.
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dhs carries out activities abroad that help prevent high-risk
passengers and cargo from traveling to and entering the united states
DHS conducts various programs and mission activities abroad to
prevent people and cargo posing a threat to the United States from
reaching the homeland. These include, among other things, efforts to
ensure visa security, inspect international passengers prior to
boarding a flight bound for the United States, and identify and target
high-risk maritime containerized cargo shipments before being loaded
onto U.S.-bound vessels. According to DHS's Office of Operations
Coordination and Planning data, as of May 2015, DHS OIA and DHS
operational components had approximately 1,800 full-time equivalents
(FTE) in almost 80 countries to help combat terrorism and achieve other
mission goals.\7\ CBP had 801 FTE employees stationed in 43 countries
and ICE had 380 FTEs in 45 countries.
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\7\ DHS's Office of Operations Coordination and Planning maintains
the Overseas Personnel and Activities Locator, which tracks all DHS
personnel deployed abroad. The locator is updated monthly with self-
reported data from the components, which may capture some personnel on
travel duty in additional to permanently deployed FTEs.
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In September 2013, we reported that DHS seeks to identify security
vulnerabilities and interdict threats at the earliest possible point in
the travel, trade, and immigration lifecycles, such as prior to visa
issuance.\8\ CBP, which operates the National Targeting Center (NTC),
supports DHS's efforts by providing tactical targeting and analytical
research of people and goods prior to their departure to the United
States.\9\ NTC monitors the movement of potential terrorists and
containerized cargo and works to prevent them and any weapons of mass
destruction or othercontraband from entering the country through land,
air, and sea ports. According to CBP program officials assigned to NTC,
NTC staff analyze various sources of Government data, including lists
of known terrorists; data on foreign visitors whose official
authorization permitting entry into and travel within the United States
has elapsed; passport, criminal, and other law enforcement information;
immigration records; and cargo manifest data. Through CBP's Automated
Targeting System (ATS), CBP officers identify and target passengers and
cargo container shipments for inspection.\10\ Among other things, ATS
uses a set of rules that assess different factors in the data to
determine the risk level of a passenger or shipment. According to CBP
program officials assigned to NTC, CBP makes available information from
its databases and ATS to ICE and CBP officials deployed abroad, among
others, to assist with in carrying out their respective missions as
they relate to passengers and cargo, and to reduce the vulnerabilities
associated with the global supply chain.
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\8\ GAO-13-681.
\9\ The NTC was established on October 22, 2001, under the
Department of the Treasury's U.S. Customs Service and began operations
in November 2001. NTC subsequently became part of CBP with the
establishment of DHS pursuant to the Homeland Security Act of 2002. In
addition to CBP personnel, the NTC is staffed by the U.S. Coast Guard,
ICE, the Federal Air Marshal Service, and the Transportation Security
Administration.
\10\ ATS is an enforcement and decision support system that
compares passenger and cargo manifest information against intelligence
and other law enforcement data, and consolidates data from various
sources to create a single, comprehensive record for each U.S.-bound
passenger and shipment.
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Visa Security
In March 2011, we reported on ICE's efforts to strengthen visa
issuance procedures.\11\ We found that ICE, through the Visa Security
Program (VSP), works to prevent terrorists and otherwise inadmissible
travelers from attempting to enter the United States by screening visa
applicants before the travel process begins. Specifically, we reported
that VSP is intended to prevent terrorists, criminals, and other
ineligible applicants from receiving visas. Under VSP, ICE deploys
personnel to certain U.S. embassies and consulates to assist the
Department of State's consular officers with security reviews of visa
applications and investigations of passport and visa fraud, among other
things.\12\ ICE is also responsible for training consular officers
regarding specific security threats relating to the adjudication of
individual visa applications or classes of applications. As of May
2015, ICE reported that it had established 21 visa security units in 15
countries. When reviewing applications for visas under VSP, ICE agents
screen applicant information against CBP immigration data and ATS
targeting and intelligence data to identify applicants that potentially
match records of individuals who are known or suspected threats to the
United States or have immigration violations or derogatory information
related to their criminal histories.\13\
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\11\ GAO, Border Security: DHS's Visa Security Program Needs to
Improve Performance Evaluation and Better Address Visa Risk Worldwide,
GAO-11-315 (Washington, DC: Mar. 31, 2011).
\12\ See 6 U.S.C. 236.
\13\ Specifically, ICE uses data from TECS (not an acronym), which
is an automated enforcement and antiterrorism database maintained by
CBP that provides information for law enforcement and border security
purposes, and can exchange information automatically with other U.S.
Government systems.
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In March 2011, we reported, among other things, on DHS's efforts to
expand VSP and challenges to VSP operations overseas.\14\ In general,
we found that ICE and the Department of State had limited guidance
regarding interactions between consular officers and ICE officials for
the screening and issuance of visas, and that training of consular
officers by VSP agents varied from post to post, with some consular
officers at some posts receiving no training. We also found that ICE
lacked performance measures to accurately evaluate VSP mission
objectives. Moreover, we found that VSP agents performed various
investigative and administrative functions beyond their visa security
responsibilities, a fact that at times slowed or limited visa security
activities, and ICE did not track this information in the VSP tracking
system, making it unable to identify the time spent on investigative
and administrative functions. Finally, we found that ICE's plans to
expand VSP did not cover 11 of 20 additional diplomatic posts
identified by ICE as high-risk.
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\14\ GAO-11-315.
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We made several recommendations to help DHS better manage VSP at
posts overseas. First, we recommended that DHS issue guidance requiring
ICE to provide training for consular officers. DHS concurred and has
issued guidance to enhance the training of consular officers by VSP
offices abroad. Second, we recommended that DHS ensure that ICE
collects reliable data to allow ICE to accurately evaluate VSP
performance and report to Congress on progress toward the VSP mission
objectives. DHS stated that the VSP captured all the required
performance metrics. However, as we reported, we determined on the
basis of our analysis that ICE was collecting some data on the required
performance measures, but that the data were not sufficient to
accurately demonstrate the progress made toward the program's stated
objectives. We continue to believe that without collecting
comprehensive data on the performance measures identified by ICE, DHS
cannot accurately demonstrate progress of VSP in enhancing National
security. Third, we recommended that DHS develop a mechanism to track
the amount of time spent by ICE on visa security activities and other
investigations as part of VSP, in order to determine appropriate
staffing levels and resource needs for VSP operations at posts
overseas. DHS did not concur with this recommendation and has taken no
action to implement it. DHS stated that ICE tracks case investigation
hours through its case management system, and that adding the metric to
the VSP tracking system would be redundant. However, we found,
according to ICE documentation, that ICE cannot accurately determine
the amount of time that VSP agents spend on investigative and visa
security activities because ICE does not distinguish between the hours
logged by VSP agents and hours logged by other ICE officials at posts
abroad and that ICE does not maintain accurate data on the time VSP
agents spend on visa security activities at posts. Without accurate
data to determine the amount of time VSP agents spend on the visa
security activities, ICE is not well-positioned to determine whether
the current allocations of staffing and resources at posts are adequate
to carry out the visa security reviews and fulfill VSP's objectives.
Thus, we continue to believe our recommendation has merit, and should
be fully implemented. Lastly, we recommended that DHS develop a plan to
provide VSP coverage at high-risk posts where the possibility of
deploying agents may be limited. DHS concurred, and ICE reported that
it has enhanced its information technology systems so that screening
and reviewing applicants at all posts world-wide will now be feasible.
Passenger Predeparture Inspections
CBP's efforts to identify high-risk and potentially inadmissible
travelers begin before travelers enter a port of embarkation and
continue between ports of entry until CBP officers officially approve
or deny travelers' entry into the United States. Specifically, CBP,
through its predeparture inspection programs, screens and inspects
travelers destined for the United States while they are still overseas.
These programs utilize established relationships with host countries
and air carriers to work to prevent passengers who may pose a security
threat, have fraudulent documents, or who are or may be otherwise
inadmissible from boarding flights to the United States. Specifically,
CBP operates three pre-departure inspection programs--preclearance; the
Immigration Advisory Program (IAP) and Joint Security Program (JSP);
and the regional carrier liaison groups (RCLG). According to senior CBP
officials responsible for overseeing predeparture inspection programs,
the United States intends to expand these programs to additional
locations. As of May 2015, DHS and the Department of State are
continuing to work together to determine which countries the United
States might consider for expansion. We are currently reviewing these
programs at the request of the full committee, its subcommittees, and
other Members. We anticipate reporting on the results of our analyses
by early 2016. Preliminary observations from our on-going work are as
follows.
Preclearance.--CBP pre-clearance locations serve as ports of entry
into the United States where CBP Officers are authorized and empowered
to make admissibility decisions about passengers and their accompanying
goods or baggage destined for the United States.\15\ According to CBP
program documents and officials, an inspection at a pre-clearance
location is essentially the same inspection an individual would undergo
at a port of entry in the United States, and CBP Officers conducting
pre-clearance inspections exercise identical authority as CBP Officers
at domestic ports of entry to approve or deny admission into the United
States. Once precleared, a passenger is admitted to the United States
and will not require additional CBP inspection upon arrival. However,
according to CBP's deputy director of pre-clearance operations, CBP
Officers retain the authority to inspect these travelers and their
accompanying goods or baggage after arriving in the United States
should inspection be warranted.\16\ According to CBP program
documentation, as of May 2015, CBP has 568 staff located in pre-
clearance facilities in 15 locations in six countries.\17\
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\15\ See 8 U.S.C. 1103(a)(7), 19 U.S.C. 1629. See also 8 C.F.R.
235.1, 235.5; 19 C.F.R. 148.22, 162.6, 162.8.
\16\ In addition, CBP program documents explain that flights
arriving in the United States from pre-clearance airports are also
permitted to land and disembark at domestic terminals wherein such
passengers are not required to undergo subsequent Transportation
Security Administration screening measures if connecting to another
flight.
\17\ CBP has pre-clearance locations in Aruba, the Bahamas (Nassau,
Freeport), Bermuda, Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal,
Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg), Ireland (Dublin, Shannon),
and the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi). CBP's pre-clearance in
Victoria, Canada only processes maritime passengers.
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Immigration Advisory Program and Joint Security Program.--According
to CBP program documents and officials we interviewed, under both IAP
and JSP, CBP partners with foreign governments and air carriers to
identify and prevent high-risk travelers, travelers without proper
documents, and other potentially inadmissible travelers from boarding
U.S.-bound flights.\18\ According to CBP program documentation, as of
May 15, 2015, CBP has 41 IAP and 11 JSP staff in 11 locations around
the world. IAP officers operate primarily at airports in Western
Europe, and have access to the sterile and boarding areas of the host
airports to question passengers and review their travel documents.\19\
Building on the IAP concept, CBP launched JSP in two locations in 2009.
According to a senior CBP official responsible for overseeing IAP,
under JSP agreements with these host governments, CBP Officers partner
with the host country law enforcement to identify air passengers linked
to terrorism, narcotics, weapons, and currency smuggling. In addition,
he stated that while CBP Officers at these locations do not have
unescorted access to the host airport's sterile area and must be
accompanied by local law enforcement personnel, they do have the
ability to question passengers and review their travel documents.
Further, both IAP and JSP officers themselves may not exercise U.S.
immigrations and customs authorities at the airport as CBP officers
stationed at pre-clearance locations do. However, a senior IAP and a
JSP official stated that officers work closely with the air carriers
and local law enforcement to identify fraudulent passports and visas
and other factors that may render a passenger inadmissible to the
United States and support a no-board recommendation to the commercial
air carrier--i.e., recommending that the carrier not transport the
passenger because the passenger will likely be deemed inadmissible upon
arrival in the United States. Moreover, these officials stated that CBP
Officers at both IAP and JSP locations can conduct queries of CBP
databases and ATS targeting information and coordinate with the NTC to
confirm whether a traveler is a threat to the United States or
otherwise inadmissible. At JSP locations, CBP Officers use ATS
targeting information in conjunction with local law enforcement and
host government data to identify threats, question passengers, and
review travel documents for all travelers arriving at and departing the
host country (including U.S.-bound and foreign-to-foreign commercial
flights).
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\18\ See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. 1103(a)(7).
\19\ The sterile area of an airport is, in general, the area beyond
a security screening checkpoint that provides passengers access to
boarding aircraft and to which access is generally controlled by the
Transportation Security Administration in the United States or host
country security at a foreign airport through the screening of persons
and property. See, e.g., 49 C.F.R. 1520.5.
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Regional Carrier Liaison Groups.--According to CBP officials at
NTC, Regional Carrier Liaison Groups (RCLGs) are to assist commercial
carriers with questions related to document fraud and inadmissibility.
As of May 2015, CBP has RCLGs in New York, Miami, and Honolulu.
According to CBP programs officials at the NTC, each of these locations
assists air carriers in designated parts of the world, and also assists
CBP Officers at designated pre-clearance locations make admissibility
decisions. According to CBP program officials assigned to NTC, RCLGs
use Government databases, immigration data, other NTC resources, and
ATS to provide technical real-time assistance to air carriers through
their phone center, and can make no-board recommendations directly to
the air carriers. In addition, according to CBP documentation, RCLGs
are to provide training on U.S. entry requirements, passenger
assessment, and fraudulent document detection, among other things, to
air carriers at U.S. ports of entry and at airports abroad.
Security of Maritime Cargo
DHS plays a large role in ensuring the safety of maritime
containerized cargo and vessels bound for the United States. Ports are
critical gateways for the movement of commerce through the global
supply chain. The facilities, vessels, and infrastructure within ports,
and the cargo passing through them, all have vulnerabilities that
terrorists could exploit. While there have been no known incidents of
containers being used for terrorism-related purposes, criminals have
exploited containers for other illegal purposes, such as smuggling
weapons, people, and illicit substances. Within DHS, CBP is primarily
responsible for maritime supply chain security and the screening of
high-risk maritime cargo. Specifically, CBP is focused on the security
of the cargo shipped to the United States from foreign ports. From 2008
to January 2015, we reported on DHS's efforts to assess potentially
risky foreign ports, and target, screen, and interdict vessels and
cargo container shipments destined for the United States.\20\ CBP
operates three programs intended to secure the maritime global supply
chain--the flow of goods from manufacturers to retailer--and cargo
destined for the United States--the Container Security Initiative
(CSI), the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT), and the
Secure Freight Initiative (SFI).
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\20\ GAO, Supply Chain Security: CBP Needs to Enhance Its Guidance
and Oversight of High-Risk Maritime Cargo Shipments, GAO-15-294
(Washington, DC: Jan. 27, 2015); Maritime Security: Progress and
Challenges with Selected Port Security Programs, GAO-14-636T.
(Washington, DC: June 4, 2014); Supply Chain Security: DHS Could
Improve Cargo Security by Periodically Assessing Risks from Foreign
Ports, GAO-13-764 (Washington, DC: Sept. 16, 2013); Supply Chain
Security: Container Security Programs Have Matured, but Uncertainty
Persists over the Future of 100 Percent Scanning, GAO-12-422T
(Washington, DC: Feb. 7, 2012); Maritime Security: Progress and
Challenges 10 Years After the Maritime Transportation Security Act,
GAO-12-1009T (Washington, DC: Sept. 11, 2012); Supply Chain Security:
Feasibility and Cost-Benefit Analysis Would Assist DHS and Congress in
Assessing and Implementing the Requirement to Scan 100 Percent of U.S.-
Bound Containers, GAO-10-12 (Washington, DC: Oct. 30, 2009); and Supply
Chain Security: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Has Enhanced Its
Partnership with Import Trade Sectors, but Challenges Remain in
Verifying Security Practices, GAO-08-240 (Washington, DC: Apr. 25,
2008).
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Container Security Initiative.--CSI is a bilateral Government
partnership program operated by CBP that aims to identify and examine
U.S.-bound cargo container shipments that are at risk of containing
weapons of mass destruction or other terrorist contraband.\21\ As part
of the program, CBP Officers are stationed at select foreign seaports
and review information about U.S.-bound containerized cargo shipments.
CBP uses ATS to target U.S.-bound container shipments and request
examinations of high-risk containers before they are loaded onto U.S.-
bound vessels. CBP has CSI staff located at 58 foreign ports. In
September 2013, we reported on CBP's progress in implementing CSI.\22\
Specifically, we found that CBP had not regularly assessed foreign
ports for risks to cargo under CSI since 2005. While CBP took steps to
rank ports for risks in 2009, we found that CBP did not use results
from this assessment to make modifications to the locations where CSI
staff are posted because of budget cuts. By applying CBP's risk model
to fiscal year 2012 cargo shipment data, we found that CSI did not have
a presence at about half of the foreign ports CBP considered high-risk,
and about one-fifth of the existing CSI ports were at lower-risk
locations. We recommended that DHS periodically assess the supply chain
security risks from all foreign ports that ship cargo to the United
States and use the results of these risk assessments to inform any
future expansion of CSI to additional locations and determine whether
changes need to be made to existing CSI ports and make adjustments as
appropriate and feasible. DHS concurred with our recommendation, and in
February 2015, CBP officials told us that the agency plans to conduct
periodic assessments of the supply chain security risks from all ports
that ship cargo to the United States.\23\ According to CBP officials,
CBP plans to complete the necessary steps to implement this
recommendation by the end of December 2015.
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\21\ See 6 U.S.C. 945.
\22\ GAO-13-764.
\23\ CBP plans to use two data sources to complete these
assessments. The first is to complete a foreign port risk assessment by
using an existing country risk assessment developed by a third party.
In addition, the CBP Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison
is in the process of developing a World Risk Matrix. CBP officials plan
to use both the risk assessment and the World Risk Matrix to compile a
final risk assessment of all foreign ports that ship cargo to the
United States.
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Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.--C-TPAT, operated by
CBP, was established through the Security and Accountability for Every
Port (or SAFE Port) Act of 2006.\24\ C-TPAT is a voluntary public-
private-sector partnership with private stakeholders in the
international trade community that aims to secure the flow of maritime
cargo bound for the United States. Under C-TPAT, CBP officials work
with member private companies to review the security of their
international supply chains and improve the security of their cargo
shipments to the United States. In return, C-TPAT members receive
various incentives to facilitate the flow of legitimate cargo, such as
reduced scrutiny of their shipments. In 2008, we reported, among other
things, that CBP took steps to improve the security validation process
for C-TPAT applicants and implemented numerous actions to address C-
TPAT management and staffing challenges.\25\ However, we found
challenges with the technology CBP used to help ensure that validation
information is consistently collected, documented, and uniformly
applied to decisions regarding the awarding of benefits to C-TPAT
members, and that CBP lacked a systematic process to ensure that
members take appropriate actions in response to security validation
findings. We also found that C-TPAT's performance measures were
insufficient to assess the impact of C-TPAT on increasing supply chain
security. We made recommendations to CBP to strengthen C-TPAT program
management and oversight. Specifically, we recommended, among other
things, that CBP document key data elements needed to track compliance
with the SAFE Port Act and other CBP internal requirements and to
identify and pursue opportunities in information collected during C-
TPAT member processing activities that may provide direction for
developing performance measures of enhanced supply chain security. CBP
has since implemented these recommendations by, for example, creating
an automated platform to track and capture the content and
communication between CBP and C-TPAT members to ensure that C-TPAT
validation report recommendations are implemented and identifying
analytical tools and data for trend analysis to better assess C-TPAT's
impact on the supply chain.
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\24\ See Pub. L. No. 109-347, 120 Stat. 1884 (2006).
\25\ GAO-08-240.
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Secure Freight Initiative.--The Secure Freight Initiative (SFI)
started as a pilot program among CBP, the Department of Energy, and the
Department of State intended to test the feasibility of using radiation
detection and nonintrusive imaging equipment to scan 100 percent of
cargo containers bound for the United States before they are loaded
onto vessels at foreign seaports.\26\ In 2009, we reported that
scanning operations at the initial SFI ports encountered a number of
challenges--including safety concerns, logistical problems with
containers transferred from rail or other vessels, scanning equipment
breakdowns, and poor-quality scan images.\27\ Both CBP and GAO had
previously identified many of these challenges, and CBP officials were
concerned that they and the participating ports could not overcome
them. Senior DHS and CBP officials acknowledged that most, if not all
foreign ports, would not be able to meet the July 2012 target date for
scanning all U.S.-bound cargo, and DHS would need to issue extensions
to such ports to allow the continued flow of commerce in order to
remain in compliance with relevant statutory requirements. We
recommended that DHS, in consultation with the Secretaries of Energy
and State, develop, among other things, more comprehensive cost
estimates, conduct cost-benefit and feasibility analyses, and provide
the results to Congress. CBP stated it does not plan to develop
comprehensive cost estimates since SFI has been reduced to one port,
and CBP has no funds to develop such cost estimates. We previously
reported that, in May 2014, the Secretary of Homeland Security stated
that ``DHS's ability to fully comply with this unfunded mandate of 100
percent scanning, even in [the] long term, is highly improbable, hugely
expensive, and in our judgment, not the best use of taxpayer resources
to meet this country's port security and homeland security needs.'' The
Secretary also stated that he instructed DHS, including CBP, to do a
better job of meeting the underlying objectives of the 100 percent
scanning requirement by, in part, refining aspects of CBP's layered
security strategy.\28\
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\26\ In response to the SAFE Port Act requirement to implement a
pilot program to determine the feasibility of scanning 100 percent of
U.S.-bound containers with both radiation portal monitors and
nonintrusive imaging equipment, CBP, the State Department, and the
Department of Energy jointly announced the formation of SFI in December
2006 as an effort to build upon existing container security measures by
enhancing the U.S. Government's ability to ensure containers are
scanned for nuclear and radiological material overseas and better
assess the risk of inbound containers. See 6 U.S.C. 981-82. The
Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007
subsequently imposed deadlines for achieving full-scale implementation
of the 100 percent scanning requirement. See Pub. L. No. 110-53,
1701(a), 121 Stat. 266, 489-91 (2007); 6 U.S.C. 982(b).
\27\ GAO-10-12.
\28\ GAO-15-294.
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In February 2012, we reported that the scanning challenges
continued, and CBP achieved 100 percent scanning of U.S.-bound cargo
containers at only one foreign pilot port where it was being
attempted.\29\ The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission
Act of 2007 (9/11 Act), enacted in 2007, required, among other things,
that by July 2012, 100 percent of U.S.-bound cargo containers be
scanned at foreign ports with both radiation detection and non-
intrusive inspection equipment before being placed on U.S.-bound
vessels.\30\ In May 2012, the then-Secretary of Homeland Security
authorized a 2-year extension (until July 2014) of the deadline for
implementing the requirement.\31\ Then, in May 2014, the current
Secretary of Homeland Security renewed the extension (until July 2016).
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\29\ GAO-12-422T.
\30\ See 6 U.S.C. 982(b).
\31\ Pursuant to the 9/11 Commission Act, the deadline for 100
percent scanning of containers loaded in a port or ports may be
extended in 2-year increments if Congress receives certification from
DHS that at least two out of a list of specific conditions exist. Among
others, these conditions include the following: Adequate scanning
equipment is not available or cannot be integrated with existing
systems, a port does not have the physical characteristics to install
the equipment, or use of the equipment will significantly affect trade
capacity and the flow of cargo. See 6 U.S.C. 982(b)(4).
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In addition to the CBP supply chain security programs described
above, we have also reported on CBP's targeting of high-risk maritime
containerized cargo shipments. Specifically, in January 2015, we found,
among other things, that CBP did not have accurate data on the number
and disposition of each high-risk maritime cargo shipment scheduled to
arrive in the United States.\32\ On the basis of our analyses of CBP
data for fiscal years 2009 through 2013, we found that on average each
year, approximately 11.6 million maritime cargo container shipments
arrived in the United States, and less than 1 percent of those
shipments were determined by ATS to be high-risk. CBP targeters at
advance targeting units--responsible for reviewing shipments arriving
at ports within their respective regions--can waive an examination if
they determine through research that: (1) The shipment falls within a
predetermined category (standard exception), or (2) they can articulate
why the shipment should not be considered high-risk (articulable
reason), such as an error in the shipment's data. For example, a
shipment could be identified as high-risk because it is associated with
a shipper on a terrorist watch list, but through further research, CBP
officials determine the shipper is not a true match to the terrorist
watch list and, therefore, the shipment should not be considered high-
risk. We found that CBP examined the vast majority of high-risk
shipments, but CBP's disposition data were not accurate because of
various factors--such as the inclusion of shipments that were never
sent to the United States--and our analyses found that CBP's data
overstated the number of high-risk shipments, including those not
examined/not waived under CBP policy. We also found that when
determining the disposition of high-risk shipments, CBP's targeting
units were inconsistently applying criteria to make some waiver
decisions and were also incorrectly documenting the reasons for
waivers.
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\32\ GAO-15-294.
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On the basis of our review of CBP policy and visits to selected
targeting units, we determined that CBP has not established uniform
definitions for standard exception waiver categories, some CBP
officials were unaware of existing waiver guidance for articulable
reason waivers, and some CBP targeters across the targeting units we
visited were inconsistently and inaccurately recording waiver reasons
in ATS. As a result, we concluded that CBP could not accurately
determine the extent to which standard exception waivers were used
consistently or whether waivers issued for articulable reasons were
being used judiciously, as required by policy. We recommended, among
other things, that CBP define standard exception waiver categories and
disseminate policy on documenting articulable reason waivers. Further,
we recommended that CBP enhance its methodology for selecting shipments
for self-inspections and change the way it calculates the compliance
rate. DHS concurred with our recommendations and has actions planned or
underway to address them. For example, CBP plans to, among other
things, draft an updated, comprehensive National Cargo Targeting
Policy, which is to include definitions for each of the standard
exception waiver categories and develop an enhanced methodology for
selecting shipment samples used for self-inspection to increase the
likelihood that any potential deficiencies will be identified so that
corrective actions can be taken to reduce errors in the future.
According to CBP officials, CBP is working to implement the
recommendations, and is to provide us with an update on the
implementation status by June 5, 2015.
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Vela, and Members of the
subcommittee this concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
Thank you all very much.
I think I will start with Mr. Wagner because I want to talk
a little bit about this preclearance. I was just looking at
this chart that I have in front of me. But, anyway, it shows
the facilities that we currently have and then what is
proposed.
It is interesting because--I don't want to use the term
``quaint,'' but it certainly is indicative of how our world has
changed since 9/11 because what we currently have--most of them
are all in Canada, obviously, our largest trading partner, and
then, from a tourism standpoint, Bahamas, Bermuda, Aruba, a
couple in Ireland. Then all of a sudden we go to the UAE, which
just seems--compared to the other ones.
Now, as the Secretary has announced, you have got
negotiations with these 9 other countries. I guess I would just
ask you--in fact, I was taking a note when you were saying
currently about 15 percent of everybody that is coming in is
going through preclearance. So you have about 15 spots. So it
is approximately--I don't know what that--I will do the math on
that. But if it is a percent per spot--I am not sure how that
all works.
But after the 10 new ones in the 9 different countries, do
you have any estimate of what percentage of inbound travelers
into the United States would be precleared before they board an
aircraft?
Mr. Wagner. Yes. It would bring the total up to about 36
percent of all travelers to the United States.
Mrs. Miller. So as you look at the 10 that you are
proposing here in the 9 different countries, what is really--I
mean, is the driver principally security and/or trade, look at
both things equally? How do you give the weight there?
Mr. Wagner. It is both. We looked at a couple of broad
categories of security, facilitation, feasibility, and
strategic impact.
So under the security piece, you know, we looked at the
number of terrorist watch list hits coming through that
airport--or originating in that airport. We looked at the
number of National security concerns identified through our
National Targeting Center.
Then we balanced it against similar facilitation and
workload measures, the number of passengers, the impact to wait
times in the United States, the number of what we call
secondary referrals and enforcement actions originating out of
these airports.
Then we also had to balance it against a feasibility score
and a strategic impact in that did we have a willing partner
here, did we have an airport that would build the type of
facility we would need, make that type of investment, did we
have a government that would agree to negotiate the terms and
the authorities for us to operate in uniform with authorities
on their soil.
So it is a mixture of all these different factors to try to
come across just a good balance and then also looking at the
competitive balance of the U.S. airline carriers.
Like you mentioned, we heard loud and clear from the U.S.
carriers and other stakeholders, and we consulted extensively
with a lot of those stakeholders to make sure these locations
represent a competitive balance between the U.S. carriers and
their strategic alliances so we are not picking winners and
losers between the different carriers.
Mrs. Miller. You know, I do recall during the whole
beginning of the pre-clearance at Abu Dhabi, when you had the
country-level agreement there, part of what was discussed at
that time was that the next one would be Dubai. Now, Dubai is
not on this list. I am not advocating--I am not sure if that is
what we should be doing, but that was a big part of the
discussion with the Congress.
Mr. Wagner. Correct.
Mrs. Miller. Do you have any comment on that?
Mr. Wagner. Yes. Dubai remains a priority location for us.
It is not on the list because we already have an agreement with
the UAE government. So we would not need to renegotiate the
principles of that.
But it remains a priority location for us in terms of
security and facilitation. There is a growing volume of
travelers coming to the United States. We have two U.S.
carriers, Delta and United, that fly out of there.
But we continue discussions with the Dubai airport
authorities, looking at plans for the new airport that they are
building and then looking at the technical specifications at
their existing airport in Dubai.
We anticipate having further discussions this summer with
them. I think this is consistent with some of the recent
statements made by the Dubai authorities. This very much
remains a priority for us.
Mrs. Miller. Okay. I appreciate that.
Now to Mr. Bersin and Mr. Kubiak. As we are all painfully
aware, particularly last year we had a humanitarian crisis at
the Southern Border with the UACs that were coming across, and
many of us made a lot of noise here about whether or not we
ought to be reducing or eliminating foreign aid, particularly
to the three countries in the Centrals that were responsible
for the greatest percentage of that population of these poor
children that were coming here or whether or not we even should
revisit some of our trade agreements, like CAFTA, et cetera.
There was a lot of talk about what we should do. But I think
you mentioned here Central America, where you were using the
vetted units in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, et cetera.
I am just wondering, is that a reaction from our Government
and those governments because of the UACs? If so, are you
having any good, positive outcome of all of that of, hopefully,
stopping that kind of activity before they start coming up
through Mexico?
Mr. Bersin. As part of the reaction to the engagement that
we have had, the transnational criminal investigative units
that Mr. Kubiak can go into much greater detail on have been a
first-rate element in our approach with the governments of
Guatemala, Salvador and Honduras to take on the human
trafficking groups as well as other elements of transnational
crime.
So, yes, I mean, the willingness of Guatemala to increase
the units there, the willingness of the government of Honduras
to continue the transnational criminal investigative units, and
the similar decision by the government of El Salvador all point
to their recognition of the utility.
Mr. Kubiak. Chairman Miller, as you know, the Department
really rallied all of its resources to address that threat
after last summer and it took steps in a number of fronts to
address kind-of the human smuggling activity throughout the
entire corridor of the Americas.
The TCIUs, to start with your question, were a fundamental
component of gathering intelligence related to what is causing
migrants to leave their countries, what are the factors within
those countries that are there, how they are getting from one
location to another, and then, subsequently, how do we disrupt
and identify the criminal networks associated in that activity.
So they weren't specifically formed for that purpose, but
they were able to be applied to that purpose, and have had a
fundamental role in the year since that activity and have given
us a much better picture of the reasons that people are leaving
the countries, but, also, more importantly to our line of work,
I think, specifically, a much better picture of how the
smuggling networks work throughout Central America, South
America, Mexico and then, ultimately, in the United States and,
in some cases, through the United States to Canada, depending
upon the nationality of the individual and the activity.
We have been able to take those foreign assets, both the
TCIUs and our attache networks overseas, develop that into
reporting with our CBP counterparts, who also have assets
deployed to Central America, South America, and Coast Guard,
and under the Secretary's Joint Task Force structure and Unity
of Effort have also built a human smuggling cell here in the
United States that is focused specifically on that, collects
that data, and helps us organize our activity and monitor what
we call the indicators on a weekly basis to see if we can
identify increases in illicit financial flows that relate to
the smuggling of those networks into and out of the United
States.
But those relationships, either strictly through the
attaches or more enhanced relationships through the TCIUs,
allow us to engage the foreign government to share information
much more quickly and to address the threat and then
operationalize that activity to reduce the crime in those
countries, which is beneficial to both.
So it is very much a shared activity in our TCIU activity.
There are threats that both countries feel are important to
those activities. Now what we are doing is trying to link those
TCIUs to increase collaboration and capacity between the
countries themselves.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, we just
participated in a training class where we had 12 Guatemalans
and 12 Panamanians with U.S. officers, and that built
camaraderie between the two units and exchange of best
practices between them beyond what we were teaching them at
FLETC in our training class.
Mrs. Miller. Very good.
In addition to this, I mean, just having those kind of
relationships, there is no second for human intel.
Mr. Kubiak. Absolutely.
Mrs. Miller. No second. That is the kind of information I
am sure we are getting from those forces as well. So thank you
for that.
The Chairman recognizes Mr. Vela.
Mr. Vela. Mr. Wagner, I have one question regarding liquid
meth. I understand that, over the past several years, we have
seen an increase in the shipment of liquid meth. I am just
curious if those shipments pose any special physical threat or
health risk to our agents in the field.
Mr. Wagner. Yes. It is correct. I mean, we have seen a
pretty strong increase in methamphetamine seizures. Most of it
is in the powder form, but we are seeing a lot of liquid
methamphetamine. We are seeing it secreted in gas tanks, in
other containers. There are risks inherent in handling that,
seizing it, removing it from the vehicle, storing it,
destroying it.
You know, we do put out the proper precautions and the
training and the equipment to be able to handle it. But the
storage of it can be a challenge, especially in liquid form,
and how we transport it and account for it and measure it. But
it is something we are also taking a look at to make sure we do
have the best and safest procedures for handling it.
Mr. Vela. What can we do from the standpoint of providing
the appropriate technologies to make it easier for the folks in
the field to do the job? I mean, do you feel like you have got
what you need or are there other things that we can do?
Mr. Wagner. It is challenging detecting the liquid
methamphetamine. It is challenging to find a technology that
will help us do that. A lot of our non-intrusive inspection
technology helps us find those false compartments and those
parts of the vehicles that are not factory made.
Our recapitalization plan is something we are seeking
support for to refresh that technology. A lot of it is nearing
the end of its life cycle. It needs to be replaced. A lot of it
was built specially for us over time, and we helped develop and
really build this industry up with what we have been able to
do.
So we are looking for support for the budget request that
does include the start of the refresh of a lot of that
technology. That is probably the most important thing for us.
Mr. Vela. I think, Mr. Bersin and Mr. Kubiak, you can
probably address this next question.
Mr. Bersin, you and I have dealt with this issue in
Tamaulipas for a while now, and, obviously, things are only
getting worse. I am wondering if you can give us an idea of
what is occurring on the diplomatic front in terms of getting
Mexico City to address this situation.
At the same time, I know what kind of coordination we have
between our State Department, our Department of Justice, and
our his and DEA employees on the field. I would like to get
some sense if either you or Mr. Kubiak feel like there is
anything else we can do from the standpoint of providing
further support for those agents that are living in places like
this.
Mr. Bersin. As you know, the relationship between Mexico
and the United States at the level of law enforcement as well
as at the diplomatic level is unprecedented. I can tell you,
having lived and worked on the border for 20 years, that the
way in which we engage with Mexico today is simply dramatically
different from what it was 5 and certainly 10 years ago.
So, for example, the relationship that we have with Mexico
in response to the unaccompanied minor and the family migration
from Central America--we have seen a dramatic decline in the
number of people trying to cross, in part, because of
activities undertaken by the United States in the sending
countries, but we should not ignore the extent to which
activities by Mexico and Mexican migration authorities and law
enforcement in their Southern Border has really contributed to
a decrease in the number of people trying to cross into our
country and Texas from Texas to California.
With regard to the violence in Tamaulipas--and you know I
have visited with you both in Brownsville as well as in
Matamoros--what we are seeing is the latest result of what has
been going on in Mexico since 2006, when the Mexican government
and the Mexican people made a decision to take on organized
crime. We have seen 100,000--or just under 100,000 deaths since
that time.
But, in fact, we have seen significant cooperation and the
significant growth in Mexican capacity to confront organized
crime. When we began with Merida in 2006 in the Bush
administration and then continued in the Obama administration,
Mexico was facing what was seen by many observers, Mexican and
U.S., as a National security threat. In fact, if you go back to
2006, you maybe remember Barry McCaffrey, the former drug czar,
worrying that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a failed
state, which turned out to be wrong and certainly, in
retrospect, is not the case.
But there has been a dramatic change in the nature of the
organized crime problem in Mexico from that of massive cartels
led by a series of kingpin figures like Chapo Guzman, but we
have gone from four or five large cartels to a polarization of
those organizations and the growth of many smaller organized
criminal gangs on a local level.
That has been good news from the standpoint of turning the
National security problem into a law enforcement problem. The
bad side is that it has also led to the kind of violence that
we have seen in Tamaulipas now and in Reynosa, in Coahuila.
But, Congressman, it is not of great solace to anyone when you
are in the middle of a storm to say that, ``Well, we will
survive this storm.''
But we have seen the same pattern of violence in every
large major city, starting in Tijuana 5 or 6 years ago, moving
over to Arizona, Sonora, moving over to Juarez, which we will
all recall even 3 years ago was the most violent city in the
western hemisphere and now has seen that violence subsiding.
Now we are seeing in Mexico's northeast this kind of horrible
violence that you describe and that we need to confront.
But the relationships that we have put us in a better
position to help Mexico confront that since, after all, it is a
Mexican responsibility and they will confront, as they have
confronted, violence elsewhere in their country.
But the point I think is that we will see this violence
contained. We are beginning to see the reaction of Mexican law
enforcement and the Mexican military and SEMAR to confront this
violence, and I trust that has been the case in Juarez and
Tijuana and that, in fact, the violence of Matamoros will
subside.
With regard to force protection of our people, as you
properly point out, there is great attention being given to
that by the State Department as well as the Department of
Homeland Security to protect U.S. officials serving in the
consular offices and generally in Mexican diplomatic posts. I
am confident that we are taking that threat indeed very
seriously. Thank you.
Mr. Vela. I am out of time. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. We can come back for a second round.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Kubiak, let me address my first question to you. That
is to ask you, if you would, to go into more detail about how
you intend to expand the visa security program, in other words,
what new offices will be involved, how many, what criteria you
will use, and what other things you are taking to better vet
individuals who apply for visas. But start with the details
about how you intend to expand the program first.
Mr. Kubiak. Thank you, sir.
So with additional funding that Congress provided us this
fiscal year, we have been able to identify additional VSP
posts, where we will initiate VSP operations in four locations
before the end of the fiscal year.
That funding is 2-year funding, thankfully, to Congress'
allocation because it is difficult for us to operationalize
more offices than that, given the amount of time that we had
left.
Mr. Smith. Where are those four locations?
Mr. Kubiak. Sir, we don't publicly announce the locations
of these security units, but I would be happy to provide that
information in a Classified or Law Enforcement-Sensitive forum,
if you would like.
Mr. Smith. Okay. That is fine.
Then what other steps and areas are in those locations--
other than those four, what other steps are you taking to
better vet individuals?
Mr. Kubiak. So there was a major transition to the vetting
of our process since the last GAO audit in that our vetting
process was changed in two major ways. First of all, it was
centralized.
So we do a centralized vetting now of all visa applications
for those 21 posts where we were active. We do that even
equally significantly prior to the State Department's decision
on a visa application process.
So, in the past, it was done subsequent to that event. Now
we have moved that to the front end so that the visa security
officers, consular officers, overseas benefit from that
centralized review and can focus on the most specific threats,
those with derogatory information.
We do two things with that derogatory information. One, we
are able to either determine that the derogatory information
does not apply to the applicant that is applying for
application to the United States or, second, we are able to
further confirm and even spread that out and then utilize our
opportunity overseas to interview those individuals to make
greatest assets.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. That is helpful.
Ms. Gambler, let me ask you my next question, which is--you
are going have a number of individuals who are either wrongly
given a visa or who are given a visa and then it is
subsequently determined that they are a security risk, new
information comes to light, and they should not remain in the
United States.
First of all, how many people are we talking about in that
category?
Ms. Gambler. So you are talking about individuals who maybe
have either overstayed their visa or have some other issue that
would mean that we would no longer want them to be in the
United States?
Mr. Smith. Right. Individuals who for good reasons you no
longer want to remain in the United States.
Ms. Gambler. We don't have good data on that, sir. We have
done a body of work on overstays and can certainly follow up
and try to give you specific numbers for the record.
Mr. Smith. I am talking about those who you determine are a
security risk. Surely you know that number. Right?
Ms. Gambler. When we last looked at the overstay issue, we
found that ICE had--or CBP and DHS had identified several
thousands of individuals who they needed to look at for some
additional risk.
I think, of those that they looked at, there was a small
number who were sort of identified for additional investigation
because of National security or public safety risks. I think it
was maybe within the hundreds. We can certainly give you the
specifics for the record.
Mr. Smith. That is close enough. Of those hundreds of
individuals who you now think are security risks, how many has
the administration moved to actually deport?
Ms. Gambler. We, again, can get you those specific numbers
for the record.
But some were found to have already departed the country
and some were referred out to field offices for additional
investigation.
Mr. Smith. Again, if you just want to give me a percentage,
it is fine. What percent has the administration moved to
actually send home, to deport, who have been deemed to be
security risks?
Ms. Gambler. Through our work, Congressman, I am not sure
that we were able to identify that through our work. But we can
certainly follow up.
Mr. Smith. We have three administration officials here. Do
any of you all know the answer to the question, how many
individuals the administration has sought to deport who were
considered security risks after the fact? I mean, we are
talking about the safety of the American people. Has the
administration been seeking to deport any of these individuals?
Does anybody know?
Mr. Bersin. Congressman, I don't have a specific figure,
but I do know that if a high-risk person is identified as
constituting a threat, that person is not ignored. I can't tell
you any, because I am not aware of any specific case, but I can
tell you that it is not a question of knowing there are X
number of people who have been identified as security risks who
are not being looked at by his.
Mr. Smith. Is the administration moving to deport these
individuals or not?
Mr. Bersin. As a matter of policy, they would. If someone
is identified as a high-risk security threat, they would be
investigated and not permitted to stay in the country. Yes,
sir.
Mr. Smith. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Torres of California.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you so much.
I have a few questions for Deputy Assistant Commissioner
Wagner. Because of limited time, I am going to ask all of them
at once, so you might want to take a note or two.
I would like for you to comment on the testimony that was
just given by Ms. Gambler, and I am going to quote a little bit
from the report that I have in front of me and from her
statement, that one-fifth of the existing CSI ports were at
lower-risk locations; and also that CBP had not regularly
assessed foreign ports for risks to cargo under CSI since 2005,
and that when you did in 2009, they found that you did not use
the results from this assessment to make modifications to the
locations where CSI staff was posted because of budget cuts.
So I heard a little bit about a budget increase in a
testimony earlier, but yet the testimony was that due to budget
cuts we are not able to be more effective where we need to be.
My two questions, my other two questions for you, I
represent the 35th District in California. We are a logistics
center district. Our economy is very much dependent on the Port
of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach. UPS has a major
footprint in the district and FedEx has a smaller footprint.
The Ontario International Airport is also housed in my
district.
My question to you is: By expanding our borders, is that
taking resources away from our inland ports that we have here
in the United States? What steps are being taken to ensure that
pushing out our borders and assigning Customs and Border
Protection officers abroad does not undermine the security at
ports such as the Ontario International Airport?
On record, I would like to have an opportunity for a
dialogue with your office about issues that I have identified
at Ontario Airport.
Mr. Wagner. Sure. Thank you for the question.
So in response to CSI, we are currently operational at 60
ports in 32 countries. This covers about 80 percent of the
total maritime container traffic that is destined to the United
States. We do analyze the risk of the ports. We do look at
where people are deployed. We do look is that meaningful work.
We look for a broad coverage of application of where our
resources are best used. We also want to look for competent
foreign partners that are willing to have us and cooperate with
us in their seaports and allow us to identify containers that
we ask them then to inspect for us. So it is a little bit of a
risk assessment and also who we have the cooperation with and
who is willing to allow us to operate there. But we are happy
to follow up with more detail on CSI.
Mr. Wagner. As far as Ontario Airport, when we expanded to
Abu Dhabi Airport, it was a new model for preclearance, and we
currently receive reimbursement for all of our expenses to
deploy to that location. We can currently accept reimbursement
for up to about 85 percent of our total costs. So as we expand
preclearance, that will be the model we will be pursuing for
the maximum allowable reimbursement.
So we don't see the necessary, the diversion of resources
from the United States overseas, but really it is plussing up
our overall resource picture, which, as you know, we do have
staffing constraints. This really helps us plus them up because
we are being reimbursed for that work.
Now, it does free up other advantages for the airlines,
that they can make different choices about where to land, what
parts of the airport to use, and it allows some different
flexibilities or options into their business models by having
flights precleared overseas. But there is no significant
diversion of resources to staff up foreign pre-clearance
locations now, and it is actually the contrary in that we will
be plussing-up our resources.
Mrs. Torres. So are we picking winners and losers when we
choose these countries simply because they can afford to pay 85
percent of your budget?
Mr. Wagner. It was a balance of how we measured it, looking
at the security aspects, looking at the partnerships we have
there. Are they willing to reimburse us is certainly one of the
considerations. But is there enough traffic there to justify it
and does it have a competitive balance between the different
U.S. carriers that service those locations. So that is part of
the factors, but it is certainly not the overriding or
principal factor we would use.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Barletta of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The primary objective of the Immigration Advisory and Joint
Security Programs are to stop potential terrorists and other
high-risk passengers from boarding aircrafts and entering the
United States. But under these programs, the no-board
recommendations made by CBP Officers are only voluntary.
Mr. Wagner, can you speak to the frequency with which CBP's
recommendations under these programs are followed? In light of
the growing threat of the Islamic State, are there any plans to
make these recommendations have more force or to otherwise
implement additional measures to prevent foreign fighters from
boarding planes to the United States?
Mr. Wagner. Thank you.
You are correct, these are recommendations we make in
partnership with the air carriers. Almost always do they accept
our recommendations. Very, very rarely, there has been one or
two isolated incidents that I can recall where they have not
followed our recommendations. We are there on arrangements with
the host countries in the Immigration Advisory Program. We are
there on the basis that we are advising the airlines about the
security documents and the security of travelers. We are there
to liaise with the foreign authorities. But we are not there
under negotiated authorities, like we would in preclearance.
A much different set of complications and issues to be
there with authorities. That is where pre-clearance really
comes into play. It is a lot bigger considerations to allow us
to have those authorities on foreign soil than more in an
advisory capability.
We have very strong relationships with the carriers. They
welcome our presence at these locations and they work very
closely with us, with their security contacts, and with the
foreign authorities. So we don't really see a need at this
point to have the authority to compel them not to board
someone, and I think they have recognized our value and
realized it is in their best interest to accept those
recommendations.
Mr. Barletta. Sure. We know that those wishing to do us
harm have manipulated our immigration systems in the past to
enter and remain in the United States. Indeed the 9/11
Commission noted that for terrorists travel documents are as
important as weapons. Mahmud Abouhalima, a convicted
perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, received
amnesty in 1986 after he claimed to be an agricultural worker,
despite being a cab driver. The only thing he planted in
America was a bomb.
How would you rank the effectiveness, Mr. Wagner, of the
programs discussed here today at preventing another Mahmud
Abouhalima from obtaining or using travel documents to carry
out an attack against the United States? Are there some that
you think do a better job at meeting this goal? How would you
improve those that are less than effective?
Mr. Wagner. Well, sir, I happened to be there at the World
Trade Center that day in 1993. That is where I started my
career with the Customs Service. So that is still very fresh,
that experience.
I think we have made a lot of great strides in our
programs. We have a lot more work still to do. Pre-clearance
offers us and the pre-clearance expansion offers us a lot of
expanded capabilities in addressing that.
But we have made a lot of good progress. Like Mr. Bersin
mentioned in his opening statement, with the Christmas day
bomber over Detroit, we were there waiting on the ground for
Abdulmutallab to land. You know, it was we had capabilities in
place, that we didn't quite fully exploit the systems we had in
place. We had people in Amsterdam that could have intercepted
him. We had our Regional Carrier Liaison Group that could have
called to his original embarkation point to have a no-board
recommendation.
We really took that to heart and put a lot of these what we
call predeparture programs into place and really with a focus
on how do we best utilize the information that we have and how
do we take action with that as early as possible to help secure
the transportation system.
So looking at the expanded partnerships, the expanded
operations, the expansion of preclearance, and the use of our
technology and our systems, we are in a much better place
today, but we still have a lot of work to do.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Hurd of Texas.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity to
have this hearing. I think it is an important issue.
To our panelists, thanks for your presence here today.
My first set of questions I think are for you, Mr. Kubiak,
about the PATRIOT Program. It is my understanding this is a
program that helps screen and vet visa applicants and that it
is only at posts overseas where they have an existing visa
security program, is that correct?
Mr. Kubiak. That is correct.
Mr. Hurd. Is that 19 or 21?
Mr. Kubiak. Twenty-one currently.
Mr. Hurd. So why can that program not be exported to other
places that don't have the VSP program?
Mr. Kubiak. I appreciate the opportunity to really clarify
that process and how the program has developed since 2003 when
it was first initiated.
The PATRIOT process was a technological advancement for us
that took a while. When I first was involved in international
affairs back in 2003 through 2006, when the program was being
developed, we simply didn't have the technical capability to
process and screen those applications the way we do today and
the way we are doing today.
As that process evolved after the GAO report in 2011, we
did, in partnership with CBP, develop a system, the PATRIOT
system, an ICE system, that allowed us to prescreen,
automatically screen, and get that information from our partner
agencies, like the Department of State, and then to run that
automatically, in many cases, the screening capability against
that activity.
Mr. Hurd. So I was in the CIA for 9 years. I was
undercover. At one of my posts I was the consular officer, so I
stamped visas by day and did my real job at night. So we can
have just a hearing on just this topic. But my question is: So
when that person comes up to the window, and I am not a VSP
consulate, their name is not being ran against the PATRIOT
database? Is the information in the PATRIOT database different
than what is in TIDE or the TSTC database?
Mr. Kubiak. So those databases work together to screen the
applicants in the applicant process. But you are correct, we
are not currently, we don't currently have the capability to
screen the world, if you will, all the applications around the
world that are submitted, and we are screening and vetting
those applications at the 21 locations that we are.
We are working currently, now that we have the PATRIOT
capability and the ability to do that, to assess, No. 1, how we
would turn that capability on and where it would make sense to
do so remotely without additional personnel. I don't think that
we will likely ever be in a situation to be at all 225 visa-
issuing posts physically. So those that are lower threat and--
--
Mr. Hurd. So what are the limitations of this? This should
be an automated process where you take whatever identifying
information that you are collecting through the visa
application and it should be run against every single one of
the databases that are in our systems. That is the purpose of
TIDE. I would also welcome your response to that.
But, Ms. Gambler, I would welcome and appreciate your
perspective on this too if you have one as well. But, Mr.
Kubiak, over to you.
Mr. Kubiak. Sure. That capability is automated now. That is
just as of----
Mr. Hurd. In 21 locations.
Mr. Kubiak. In 21 locations.
Mr. Hurd. Why not 220?
Mr. Kubiak. Well, that is what we are working on doing now,
sir, is we are attempting to assess whether the capability and
what the viability is of that. It is not as simple as flipping
the switch and being able to do that, it is additional. It is
not a completely automated process. There is a human factor
associated with screening the information that the automated
system puts out, being able then to deliver that to someone at
post who can then operationalize that activity and being able
to do the additional.
Mr. Hurd. Do we have a time line?
Mr. Kubiak. Sir, I don't currently have a time line, no.
That process is in development at this point.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Kubiak.
Mr. Kubiak. Sure.
Mr. Hurd. Ms. Gambler, do you have insights?
Ms. Gambler. The thing that I would add, based on the work
that GAO has done, and the last report was in 2011, so it kind
of predated sort of the implementation of this program that we
are now discussing, but at the time ICE had a plan for
expanding the Visa Waiver Program, but we found there were some
gaps in how they were addressing risks through that plan.
So from our perspective it is important, and this is what
we recommended, that ICE needed to assess ways to address these
higher-risk posts that don't have a visa security program
presence to be able to be better-positioned to address the
risks in the process. So from our perspective it is important,
as ICE considers plans going forward for the visa security
program, that they take a risk-based approach to doing that.
Mr. Hurd. Mr. Wagner, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Wagner. Yes. Just that once the visa is issued we do do
recurring vetting on the visa database. We do run the visa
database through our targeting and analytical tools and then
work with ICE and Department of State on any results that we do
come out of that for potential revocation of that visa. Then,
of course, when they travel and book their travel, we are also
vetting that information again.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Wagner.
Madam Chair, I think this may be an area that the
terrorists, the foreign fighter pipeline, the subcommittee
should continue to look into.
Mrs. Miller. I certainly agree. It looks like there is a
gap there in the system. So we should pursue that. I appreciate
the gentleman's questions.
Ms. McSally of Arizona.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to our panel
today.
I recently received two demonstrations related to
deception-detection technology developed at the University of
Arizona, which is in my district. I don't want to get too deep
into the science behind it, but the two I want to talk about
is, one of them is called Neuro-Screen, which identifies just
embedded in on-line forms any sort of deception behavior, that
can then further vet individuals, red, yellow, green, for
further interviews and further vetting based on a suspicious
score. The other one, called AVATAR, is like a computer
interview detecting your pupils and your skin and your weight
shifting, all that kind of stuff.
So it looks like very interesting technology that could be
used, both of them differently. I mean, the Neuro-Screen is
much more easily deployable perhaps than AVATAR, but it could
be used for the on-line form interviews for the Electronic
System for Travel Authorization or for the in-person interviews
or even at the ports of entry in order to detect what humans
might not be able to detect. The professors told me that even
our best, most trained interrogators, like my colleague here
from Texas, oftentimes don't detect deception correctly in
about 50 percent of the cases just human to human.
So the question is: To what extent is the Department using
any deception-detection technology or investigating the use of
technology like this? The first part of that question.
Mr. Bersin. I can respond to that, Congresswoman.
The AVATAR technology at the University of Arizona, which
was a Center of Excellence, a Border Center of Excellence, and
I believe will continue, although not as the administrative
head, will continue there, has been promoting and developing
this technology. I, myself, have seen it both in my current
role and as the commissioner of customs in 2010-2011.
I know there have been significant discussions both at the
science and technology end, as well as CBP's considering the
use of it. I am not in a position to tell you why exactly it
hasn't been deployed, but I can assure you that it has been
investigated for potential application.
Ms. McSally. Great. I have heard that as well, interested
in further discussions on that. But the Neuro-Screen seems like
it is much more easily deployable and at least can be used for
on-line forms. So is there any use going on for deception-
detection technology in the on-line forms?
Mr. Bersin. I am not familiar with that program.
Ms. McSally. Okay. Great.
If you are willing, I would like to organize a
demonstration with relevant parties and even the committee,
Madam Chair. It is pretty easy stuff to demonstrate, perhaps,
for further deployment.
Great. Thank you. That is all I have got. I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. Very well. Yes, I think we would all be
interested in that. I think you can utilize that. I have heard
a little bit about that. I don't know much about it. But even
for the ESTA, with the Visa Waiver and those kinds of things,
so that really utilizing technology.
Ms. McSally. Yes, exactly. Like I said, the Neuro-Screen
really is just based on kind-of how people usually are acting
when they are deceiving and the use of their mouth and just
where they are hovering and how long they take. So it captures
all that and then identifies, you know what, this person needs
to be further looked into. So if somebody is just filling out
an on-line application, that seems like pretty easily
deployable technology that we could----
Mrs. Miller. Very well. Very good.
Ms. McSally. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. We do have time for a second round. The
Ranking Member is recognized.
Mr. Vela. Thank you, Chairman Miller.
I jut wanted to follow up, Mr. Bersin, on your responses.
The one thing that I have not seen, acknowledging the
challenges that Mexico has in other parts of the country and
acknowledging their successes in addressing some of these
cartel figures, is I haven't seen the political will to do in
Tamaulipas what we saw them do in Ciudad Juarez and in Tijuana,
understanding that there are also logistical differences. I was
wondering if you could comment on that.
One other thing is in light of the killing of the 43
students in Guerrero, President Pena Nieto announced the
development of three secure economic zones in Chiapas, Oaxaca,
and I think it was Guerrero, if I am not mistaken, right? I am
just wondering why, if he can do that in the southern states,
why not do it along our border?
Mr. Bersin. Taking the last point, Congressman, first, I
think you understand that the six Mexican states contiguous to
our 4 U.S. States are among, in fact, the wealthiest states in
the United States of Mexico. In a huge powerhouse economy those
are the six states, from Tamaulipas to Baja California, that
actually are not in the same condition as the Mexican southern
states, which have been designated as the special economic
zones because they actually are very unindustrialized, remain
primarily rural. I think that was the intent. So it is a bit of
apples and oranges with regard to the reasons why the north of
Mexico has not been designated while the south, southern states
you mentioned have been.
With respect to the continuing violence, I can assure you
that diplomatically both the State Department and DHS are in
regular contact both at post with Ambassador Wayne and his
staff and our attaches with authorities that raise the issues
of violence in Tamaulipas, both because of the threat to
Mexican public order, but also to the threat that is presented,
as you pointed out, to the U.S. representatives working there.
I believe that you are seeing the kind of application of
force that produced the results elsewhere in terms of the
assignment of SEMAR, the doubling down on the Federal police
commitment to Tamaulipas and Coahuila. Over time, as I said,
although no assurance and no comfort to those living through
what your neighbors in Matamoros are living through, I believe
in time it will have the same results that we have seen in
Juarez and Tijuana.
Mr. Vela. Well, we will save the debate on that first point
for later. But thank you.
Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Torres, do you have additional questions?
Excuse me, I am sorry, excuse me. Mr. Hurd of Texas.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you.
Mr. Wagner and Ms. Gambler, this question may be for you. I
represent 820 miles of the border with Mexico, and the amount
of goods and services that are coming across the border is
increasing, it is going to continue to increase, and I think
one of the programs that I think is helpful.
Increased traffic means more work for you all folks to do,
more things to weed through to find the bad guys, which is I
know a difficult proposition. But I am just interested to hear
about the C-TPAT program and how it is working in Mexico or the
steps to implement it in Mexico, and are there any efforts to
do pre-clearance in Mexico as well.
Mr. Wagner. So you are absolutely right. I mean, increasing
workload makes increasing challenging to find the things we are
looking for. But that is where we look for programs like our
Trusted Traveler, Trusted Trader programs, C-TPAT, leveraging
the resources of the industry to help secure their own supply
chains. They have vested interests in doing that as well.
So we work closely with them to help each other. When we
can certify that their supply chains are secure, they can
package it together with a secure trucking company. We can
designate a special lane for them to use under the FAST program
for them to cross the border. We expend less resources on
checking them because they have taken those extra measures that
we have validated and we can focus on everyone else.
Same thing with the passenger programs, the travelers that
signed up for our Trusted Traveler programs get vetted, get
interviewed, get fingerprinted. We spend less time on them when
they are crossing and we can focus on other people.
Mr. Hurd. Are you having any difficulties implementing
that? Are there any barriers that you are finding in the
Mexican bureaucracy to do these kind of programs?
Mr. Wagner. No, not necessarily. We have very good
cooperation with the Mexican authorities. They are very willing
partners. We exchange a lot of information with them. We have
our officers deployed at their airport in Mexico City working
closely with them under the Immigration Advisory Program. We
exchange a lot of information with them. We do have willing
partners there.
Mr. Hurd. Good copy.
Ms. Gambler, any comment.
Ms. Gambler. GAO has issued a report on CBP's Trusted
Traveler programs, to include the FAST program, which Mr.
Wagner noted. What we found through the program was for
commercial vehicles, for example, that are in the FAST program,
which relies on C-TPAT, that those participants in the FAST
program did experience benefits relative to shippers or
vehicles who are not part of the FAST programs, including
having shorter wait times at ports of entry. We also found that
trusted travelers committed fewer violations than did non-
trusted travelers.
That being said, we did find some challenges with the
program, but it was as it related to the enrollment of
individuals into CBP's Trusted Traveler programs, including
sort of how long it is taking to get through the vetting and
the enrollment processes for certain trusted travelers and at
certain enrollment centers. We made recommendations to CBP to
try to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the
enrollment process.
Mr. Hurd. Great. Thank you.
Look, I think we can secure our border and facilitate the
movement of goods and services at the same time, and those
should always be our twin goals. So thank you all for your time
today.
Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Torres, did you have an additional
question?
Mrs. Torres. I do. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
Assistant Secretary Bersin, can you give us an update on
the progress made so far on the Department's international
engagement strategy, where we are on that?
Mr. Bersin. Yes, ma'am. We have, as the GAO had noted, have
developed an international engagement strategy that is now
actually in final review for presentation to the Deputy
Secretary and the Secretary that looks at the priorities as
discussed by my colleagues here this morning and myself, but
also does it in a regional context. And we expect that that
policy will be able to be reviewed by you and delivered to you
within the foreseeable future, meaning, I hope, before July 4.
Mrs. Torres. I was going to push you on a date. So thank
you for that. That was my question. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. Ms. McSally of Arizona.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just one follow-up question. I have heard a lot from my
constituents about concerns related to refugee vetting,
specifically those that would be coming into the country from
Syria, Iraq, and concerns about we have had a couple incidents
with those that were Iraqi refugees and databases not catching
up to each other before they got here. So could you walk
through any issues or concerns you have related to the vetting
of those coming in as refugees specifically from that region?
Mr. Bersin. So, Congresswoman, the databases that we have
that are knit together, that permit a federated search, are
actually, as Mr. Wagner indicated, better than we have had.
They are constantly getting better as you can actually search
in a federated fashion through all of the holdings of the
United States Government in all respects.
There have been concerns and we are aware of the concerns
with regard to the refugee status and the status of people
applying for refugee entry into the United States. I can assure
you that attention is being paid to that. The danger is that we
do not have a record of someone who may or may not have been or
may have been radicalized while in a Syrian refugee camp, for
example. That is the concern. It is not that, if we have the
biometrics or we have some derogatory information from
battlefield findings, that we won't catch the person when
vetted. It is to be sure that, in fact, we are certain that we
are not dealing with a radicalized individual or group of
individuals. That is the risk that we are concerned about.
Ms. McSally. Right. I get that. You can't, obviously,
measure intent if there is no other activity. So are you saying
all databases, to include information from the DOD, that is all
synched up before someone, especially from----
Mr. Bersin. I can go in, in a different setting, go into
the detail in which we have all of the holdings available and
which ones are--let me stop there and just offer you a briefing
on that.
Ms. McSally. That is okay. But it is safe to say that it is
not going to be perfect, obviously, and concerns do remain that
we are potentially missing people? I don't want to put words in
your mouth.
Mr. Bersin. There is always that threat. The threat is that
you are dealing with someone who is a so-called clean skin. But
the Citizenship and Immigration Services refugee officers
actually are quite experienced and the people that are looking
at this series of potential refugees are among our most
experienced. So that there is the face-to-face interview that
is, obviously, critical in this context.
Ms. McSally. Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield back my time.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentlelady. I appreciate that
question. Actually Chairman McCaul and myself and a couple of
other Members, I think, sent a letter to the Secretary about
that very issue. I was just asking my staff here have we
received a response to it yet. So I will make sure you get all
of that. Very good question.
I certainly want to thank the witnesses for all their
valuable testimony and for their participation here today. It
has been an excellent hearing, very engaged, obviously, from
our Members and the witnesses as well. For any Members of the
committee that would have some additional questions, we would
ask you to respond to these in writing. Therefore, pursuant to
Committee Rule VII(e), the hearing record would be held open
for 10 days.
Again, we thank you for your participation here today. We
certainly thank all of you for your service to the country as
well.
With that, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Question From Honorable Brian Higgins for Alan D. Bersin
Question. The announced US-Canada pre-clearance agreement
pertaining to the air, land, rail, and marine modes of transportation
will enable CBP to screen individuals and goods before they reach the
United States, enhancing legitimate trade and travel and increasing
efficiency. At the same time, a pre-Inspection pilot for commercial
cargo in which CBP Officers performed primary inspections on U.S.-bound
trucks in Ft. Erie recently concluded and was deemed a success.
Would the pre-clearance agreement provide the authorities needed to
make pre-inspection permanent at the Peace Bridge? If not, what would
be required?
Answer. Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson and Public Safety
Canada Minister Blaney signed the U.S.-Canada Land, Rail, Marine, and
Air Pre-clearance Agreement on March 16, 2015. This Agreement delivers
on a key commitment in President Obama and Prime Minister Harper's 2011
U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border Declaration and Action Plan and includes
provisions recognizing the operational and security realities of
conducting customs, agriculture, and immigration inspection activities
on foreign soil in a post-9/11 environment. In addition to updating the
existing U.S.-Canada Air Pre-clearance Agreement, the new Agreement,
for the first time, covers pre-clearance in other modes of
transportation. By its terms the Pre-clearance Agreement covers the
examination and inspection of people and goods in the host country to
ensure that their entry and admission into the territory of the
inspecting party conform to its customs, immigration, agriculture,
public health, and safety requirements. The Agreement also covers
certain passenger pre-inspection programs but does not cover cargo pre-
inspection programs, such as those covered by the pilot program, where
CBP Officers conduct primary inspection of commercial truck cargo in
Canada with any secondary inspection performed in the United States.
DHS and CBP are evaluating options, including the possibility of
making this program permanent. If such an option is pursued, DHS and
Public Safety Canada would need to negotiate a new agreement or
arrangement that outlines the purpose, scope, and authorities for the
initiative.
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