    [Senate Hearing 117-281]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 117-281

                   FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE: IMPROVING
      SECURITY, TRADE, AND TRAVEL FLOWS AT THE SOUTHWEST BORDER PORTS OF
                                     ENTRY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                  GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND BORDER MANAGEMENT

                                     of the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                   HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               NOVEMBER 17, 2021

                                   __________

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                           Printed for the use of the
            Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

      [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
     46-707 PDF             WASHINGTON : 2022

            COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                       GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
    THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
    MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
    KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              RAND PAUL, Kentucky
    JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
    ALEX PADILLA, California             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                         JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                       David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
                        Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
                    Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
        Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
                         Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                         Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk

          SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND BORDER MANAGEMENT

                       KRYSTEN SINEMA, Arizona, Chairman
    THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
    ALEX PADILLA, California             RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  MITT ROMNEY, Utah
                                         JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                         Eric A. Bursch, Staff Director
                Amy Flickinger, National Security Agency Detail
      James D. Mann, Minority Staff Director and Regulatory Policy Counsel
                Jacob Stubbs, Minority Professional Staff Member
             Mallory B. Nersesian, Archivist and Subcommittee Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                     ------
    Opening statements:
                                                                       Page
        Senator Sinema...............................................     1
        Senator Lankford.............................................     2
        Senator Carper...............................................    16
        Senator Padilla..............................................    19
        Senator Portman..............................................    23
    Prepared statements:
        Senator Sinema...............................................    35
        Senator Lankford.............................................    39

                                   WITNESSES
                          Wednesday, November 17, 2021

    Diane Sabatino, Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office
      of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection........     5
    Joe Jeronimo, Deputy Assistant Director, Transnational Organized
      Crime Division, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S.
      Immigration and Customs Enforcement............................     7
    Stuart Burns, Assistant Commissioner, Public Buildings Service,
      Portfolio Management and Customer Engagement, General Services
      Administration.................................................     9

                         Alphabetical List of Witnesses

    Burns, Stuart:
        Testimony....................................................     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    66
    Jeronimo, Joe:
        Testimony....................................................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    55
    Sabatino, Diane:
        Testimony....................................................     5
        Prepared statement...........................................    44
    Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
        Ms. Sabatino.................................................    71
        Mr. Jeronimo.................................................   102
        Mr. Burns....................................................   110

                        FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE:

                     IMPROVING SECURITY, TRADE, AND TRAVEL

                  FLOWS AT THE SOUTHWEST BORDER PORTS OF ENTRY

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2021

                                         U.S. Senate,
                          Subcommittee on Government Operations
                                         and Border Management,
                        of the Committee on Homeland Security
                                      and Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m. via
    Webex and in room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon.
    Krysten Sinema, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Sinema, Carper, Padilla, Ossoff,
    Lankford, Portman, Johnson, and Hawley.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA\1\

        Senator Sinema. I call today's hearing to order.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Sinema appears in the
    Appendix on page 35.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I welcome Ranking Member Lankford, Members of the
    Subcommittee, and our witnesses to today's discussion on
    southwest border land ports of entry (LPOE).
        Having grown up in southern Arizona I know the importance
    of cross-border security, trade, and travel for my State and
    the entire nation. Our ports along the Southwest Border play a
    critical role in facilitating trade and ensuring the safety,
    prosperity, and economic security of the American people.
        The United States shares strong economic and cultural ties
    with Mexico, and any disruption to this relationship has
    adverse effects on investment, employment, productivity, and
    competitiveness. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
    pandemic has certainly created new challenges, and the 20-month
    closure of the border to non-essential travel seriously hurt
    local border communities.
        Our ports are also the key link to securing our border.
    Most seizures of illicit drugs at our border happen at ports of
    entry (POE). It is critical that we ensure we are making the
    right security investment at our ports of entry, both now and
    in the future. Our nation must slow the flow of illegal goods
    and drugs through our ports of entry while also maintaining the
    efficient flow of legitimate trade and travel.
        I was proud to lead bipartisan efforts in the Senate that
    produced the bipartisan infrastructure package that was signed
    into law on Monday by the President. This historic legislation
    included $3.85 billion to modernize land ports of entry
    throughout the Nation, including two ports in Arizona. This
    investment takes an important step in ensuring that our ports
    have the right infrastructure footprint to meet our nation's
    needs.
        But there are other initiatives beyond infrastructure we
    need to consider at our ports of entry. New technology,
    including Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII), plays a critical role
    in any effort to improve security at our ports of entry. It is
    critical to understand what technology is needed right now,
    both to detect and deter shipments of illegal drugs but also to
    facilitate the flow of legitimate trade and travel.
        As always, the key part of improved border security is a
    strong border workforce. Our port officers have worked the past
    year in challenging circumstances in the midst of a global
    pandemic, and I honor their efforts.
        I hope today's hearing can help us focus our border
    security discussions back toward ports of entry. I want to
    continue gathering an understanding of the current challenges
    at our Southwest Border ports and discuss the appropriate
    technology, infrastructure, and personnel investments needed to
    ensure our ports can be secure and fully operational today,
    tomorrow, and years into the future.
        I am pleased to have a strong panel of government leaders
    on our witness panel today who will bring important expertise
    on workforce, trade, and security issues. With that I would
    like to recognize our Subcommittee Ranking Member, Senator
    James Lankford, for his opening statement.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD\1\

        Senator Lankford. Senator Sinema, thank you very much for
    this and for holding this hearing. At our last hearing on this
    issue on the ports of entry along the Southwest Border that we
    held in June we had encountered about a 20-year high in the
    number of migrants that had attempted to cross the Southwest
    Border. We were, at that time, also seeing a significant surge
    in the amount of fentanyl that U.S. Customs and Border
    Protection (CBP) was interdicting along the Southwest Border.
    Unfortunately, since June, these problems have only continued
    to compound.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lankford appears in the
    Apendix on page 39.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        We recently concluded fiscal year (FY) 2021, where we saw
    the U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered over 1.7
    million migrants. That is the highest number of encounters in
    American history. During that same window of time, CBP
    interdicted over 10,000 pounds of fentanyl, the highest amount
    in our recorded history, a tenfold growth from when the
    government first encountered fentanyl in 2016.
        These two data points only capture what we interdict, not
    the totality of the picture, though. Outside experts and
    officials in the government are all aware that we have more
    got-away immigrants who had crossed the border this year
    illegally and significantly more drugs than were interdicted
    that flow through our port of entry.
        This crisis is significantly straining the Federal
    Government's resources. It has invited active harm into our
    communities. Stories about fentanyl overdoses, heroin
    overdoses, violence endemic to the narcotic trade are all too
    common now.
        In 2020, Oklahoma reported 629 methamphetamine-related
    deaths. Unfortunately, in this past year, we have just crossed
    the highest number of overdose deaths due to opioids, fentanyl
    in all that we have had ever. One hundred thousand people died
    between April 2020 and April 2021. It is the first time that
    drug-related deaths have reached six figures in any 12-month
    period.
        Over the last 5 years, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics has
    seen the vast majority of meth and fentanyl in Oklahoma are
    items that had been smuggled through Mexico over the Southwest
    Border. We are becoming more and more aware of the humanitarian
    and national security implications ongoing surge at the
    Southwest Border. We hear stories about unaccompanied minors
    being victimized for labor trafficking.
        Around the same time, the Department of Homeland Security
    (DHS) began reopening to fully vaccinated, nonessential
    travelers.
        CBP announced that it has formally ended the policy of
    metering, which allowed CBP to control the flow of migrants
    during large surges by metering or creating a waiting list for
    the migrants to enter the United States and claim asylum. The
    Obama Administration instituted metering in 2016, to ensure
    that CBP could fully meet its obligations to facilitate a
    secure and lawful trade and traffic at our ports while dealing
    with the surge of migrants.
        Career staff who served in the Obama and Trump
    administrations have stated the metering policy was useful as
    CBP navigated increasing flows of migrants. Rescinding the
    metering tool, I fear, will open up our ports to increased risk
    by allowing cartels to be able to surge migrants at the ports
    and overwhelm them to distract CBP while they move fentanyl and
    hard narcotics across the border.
        As our country reopens to travel, we have not seen how DHS
    will manage the increased demand for lawful trade and travel
    across our Southwest Border, which is essential to our economy.
    However, the rescission of the metering policy will force CBP
    to make tough decisions about how to balance responding to a
    surge of migrants while fulfilling its mission of facilitating
    lawful trade and travel.
        Our port facilities in the Southwest Border further
    compound these problems. They are not designed to hold
    individuals in detention, which is why CBP has historically
    relied on metering. These facilities are also becoming
    increasingly strained and facing difficulties meeting our trade
    obligations or handling an increase in travelers.
        The General Services Administration (GSA), told Congress in
    a report that steady global and regional growth has funneled
    more people and goods through our nation's aging land port of
    entry infrastructure than it is able to handle. Two-thirds of
    our land ports of entry have not had capital improvements in
    over a decade.
        Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we have heard about
    disrupted supply chains and long wait times for ship goods. We
    face significant difficulties obtaining the analogs and
    components our country needs for basic manufacturing. As our
    seaports continue to face crisis levels of congestion, it is
    likely that our aging land ports will face increased strains as
    they struggle to keep up with the demand for goods.
        Unfortunately, many of our ports along the Southwest Border
    were built before the North American Free Trade Agreement
    (NAFTA) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)
    and they have not been touched since these two agreements went
    into effect. Even worse, our ports have not been able to keep
    up with the evolving threat landscape over the last few
    decades.
        China has recently begun exploiting our aging ports at the
    Southwest Border by shipping fentanyl and synthetic opioid
    analogs to Mexico and then working with the cartels to be able
    to smuggle them across our ports. According to the U.S. Drug
    Enforcement Administration (DEA), cartels transport bulk
    quantity polydrug loads via commercial and passenger vehicles,
    and they do so by exploiting major highway routes for
    transportation. The DEA notes the most common method of drug
    smuggling in the United States involves smuggling illicit drugs
    through the U.S. ports of entry in passenger vehicles with
    concealed compartments or comingled with legitimate goods on
    tractor trailers.
        Over the coming weeks and months we will see the strain on
    our aging ports as we work to reopen our country even more.
    Unless the Administration takes action to get the border crisis
    under control, we will also likely see the ongoing migrant
    surge continue to take away from CBP's efforts to stop illicit
    narcotics, counterfeit goods, and other threats that undermine
    our public safety and national security.
        I am grateful for our witnesses that they are here today,
    that we can get a chance to be able to talk through some of
    these issues while all of us are in the same room to be able to
    discuss this. I am very aware some folks are joining us online
    in that dialogue and some folks will be coming in and out of
    the room, but we are very grateful for your testimony and for
    us putting this on the record today.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Ranking Member Lankford.
        Now it is the practice of this Committee to swear in
    witnesses, so if you will please stand and raise your right
    hand.
        Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this
    Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
    the truth, so help you, God?
        Ms. Sabatino. I do.
        Mr. Jeromino. I do.
        Mr. Burns. I do.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. You may be seated.
        Now I will introduce our witnesses so they may present
    their opening statements. I ask each of our witnesses to keep
    their opening statements to 5 minutes, and your full written
    statements will be submitted for the record.
        Our first witness is Diane Sabatino, who has been serving
    as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border
    Protection's Office of Field Operations (OFO) since July 2020.
    In this position, Ms. Sabatino oversees operations at over 330
    ports of entry to support the national security, immigration,
    customs, and commercial trade-related missions of CBP.
        Mrs. Sabatino, we are honored to have you join us today,
    and you are now recognized for your opening statement.

      TESTIMONY OF DIANE SABATINO,\1\ DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
      COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF FIELD OPERATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS AND
                           BORDER PROTECTION

        Ms. Sabatino. Chairwoman Sinema, Ranking Member Lankford,
    and Members of the Subcommittee, it is my honor to appear
    before you today on behalf of the men and women of CBP's Office
    of Field Operations to discuss ports of entry along the
    Southwest Border.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Sabatino appears in the Appendix
    on page 44.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The nation's ports of entry are vital gateways for cross-
    border commerce and travel, critical sectors that drive
    economic growth and opportunities for American businesses and
    consumers. We manage complex processes to facilitate safe and
    lawful travel, inspect goods for possible hazards and unfair
    trade practices, and stop threats at the border.
        The recent years and months reaffirm that our land ports of
    entry must be prepared to respond and adapt to fluctuations in
    travel, trade, migration flows, as well as unprecedented events
    such as the COVID-19 pandemic. CBP was ready to accommodate the
    increased traffic following the eased restrictions on
    nonessential travel at our land ports of entry for travelers
    fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and we anticipate increased
    private and commercial traffic as we approach the holidays.
        Some challenges facing our ports are persistent, such
    threats as terrorist groups, drug traffickers, smugglers, and
    other adversaries, but those threats are never static nor are
    they wholly predictable. These adversaries constantly change
    their methodologies to avoid detection.
        Many of our inspection facilities were not built to support
    present-day security and operational missions. However, CBP
    continues to work with our partners to modernize these ports of
    entry while also actively implementing innovative technology
    and business solutions to effectively interdict contraband and
    other threats without impeding legitimate traffic.
        We pursue advanced technology to identify high-risk
    shipments and individuals before they reach our borders,
    including digital solutions that, combined with enhanced
    infrastructure and other integrated technology, streamlines our
    processes. At the ports, license plate readers and dedicated
    lanes for travelers using Radio Frequency Identification
    (RFID)-enabled documents provide officers a valuable extra time
    to identify a threat and to speed the process to determine the
    admissibility of vehicle occupants.
        We have deployed Simplified Arrival to all of our
    pedestrian crossings at the Southwest Border and most of the
    crossings on the Northern Border, and we are currently testing
    Simplified Arrival at the Port of Anzalduas, Texas, in select
    vehicle lanes. Simplified Arrival incorporates facial biometric
    comparison technology to alleviate the administrative burden
    from our frontline officers and afford them more time to engage
    with travelers to determine intent.
        Since the initial deployments of our Simplified Arrival
    program across all of our port environments we have identified
    over 950 imposters attempting to use identities on genuine
    travel documents, and over 600 of those imposters were
    identified along the Southwest Border this year alone.
        We operate more than 350 large-scale, non-intrusive
    inspection, systems at land ports and seaports of entry to scan
    conveyances for anomalies. In fiscal year 2020, these
    inspections resulted in the interdiction of more than 470,000
    pounds of narcotics and $11.5 million of unreported currency.
        Approximately 90 percent of the NII-attributable seizures
    resulted from scanning less than 2 percent of primary passenger
    vehicles and 15 percent of commercial vehicles crossing the
    Southwest Border. By fiscal year 2023, we expect to increase
    NII scans of those vehicles to 40 percent and at least 72
    percent, respectively.
        But we leverage our partnerships with the private sector,
    local governments in border communities. For example, and
    thanks to the great support of Congress, the Donations
    Acceptance Program (DAP) also continues to be a key mechanism
    to address port-specific infrastructure and resource
    challenges. We invest in our personnel, our most critical
    asset, and use sophisticated workload staffing models to
    identify staffing needs and analyze trends to anticipate future
    requirements.
        We coordinate with our Federal partners, including GSA and
    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as
    others from infrastructure modernization projects to
    information sharing and intelligence analysis at the National
    Targeting Center (NTC). Our Federal partnerships are all
    essential to our port of entry operations.
        We actively pursue new capabilities and initiatives, such
    as the future of travel and inspection and Port of the Future
    concepts, to draw together experts, frontline personnel, and
    stakeholders from all levels to improve our processing
    workflows.
        Despite the challenges we face, we continue to make
    progress toward upgrading facilities, incorporating effective
    technology, and implementing innovative solutions for the ever-
    evolving challenges and threats, both at and beyond our
    borders.
        Again, thank you so much for the opportunity to appear
    before you today, and I look forward to your questions.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. Our second witness is Joe
    Jeronimo, the Deputy Assistant Director for ICE's Homeland
    Security Investigations (HSI) Transnational Organized Crime
    Division. HSI is the principal investigative component of the
    Department of Homeland Security, responsible for investigating
    transnational crime and threats that exploit the infrastructure
    through which international trade, travel, and finance move.
        Mr. Jeronimo, thank you for your work and for joining us
    today, and you are recognized for your opening statement.

       TESTIMONY OF JOE JERONIMO,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
       TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME DIVISION, HOMELAND SECURITY
        INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

        Mr. Jeronimo. Chairwoman Sinema, Ranking Member Lankford,
    and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on Government
    Operations and Border Management, thank you for the opportunity
    to appear before you today to discuss the efforts of homeland
    security investigations to secure the United States from
    transnational crimes and threats.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Jeronimo appears in the Appendix
    on page 55.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As the principal investigative component DHS, HSI is the
    premier global law enforcement organization responsible for
    conducting Federal criminal investigations at every critical
    location in the cycle--internationally, in cooperation with
    foreign counterparts, where transnational criminal and
    terrorist organizations operate, at our nation's physical
    border and ports of entry, in coordination with CBP, where
    illicit smuggling cells attempt to exploit America's legitimate
    trade, travel, and transportation systems, and in cities
    throughout the United States where criminal organizations earn
    substantial profits off their illicit activities.
        The missions of HSI and CBP are connected and
    complementary. Neither agency can fully succeed in its efforts
    to secure the homeland without an unwavering commitment and
    support from the other, nor can HSI and CBP maximize their
    collective contributions to homeland security without
    coordinating and deconflicting law enforcement responses and
    actions.
        In collaboration with its strategic partners in the United
    States and abroad, HSI special agents gather evidence used to
    identify and build criminal cases against transnational
    criminal organizations (TCOs), terrorist networks and
    facilitators, and other criminal elements that threaten the
    homeland. HSI works with prosecutors to indict and arrest
    violators, execute criminal search warrants, seize criminal-
    derived money and assets, and take other actions designed to
    disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations operating around
    the world. These efforts protect the national security and
    public safety of the United States.
        Conducting criminal investigations and prosecution
    resulting from arrests associated with CBP seizures is
    necessary for ensuring rule of law. However, HSI's mandate is
    to use multi-defendant, multi-jurisdictional, complex
    investigations to disrupt and dismantle TCOs. The impressive
    narcotics seizures at our border ports of entry clearly
    demonstrate CBP's diligence in protecting America's border, but
    also the ability of TCOs to absorb substantial losses while
    continuing to function.
        Land border contraband seizures are necessary but cannot
    degrade TCO capabilities or imprison TCO leadership without
    HSI's investigations. HSI aims to push out the U.S. borders and
    stem illegal activity targeting the homeland while still
    abroad, as HSI authorities do not start or stop at ports of
    entry or along the borders but rather are extended to
    international domains and into the interior of the United
    States.
        With the largest international investigative presence in
    DHS, comprised of 80 offices in order 50 countries, HSI focuses
    on expanding the borders out, remaining forward-leaning in our
    approach to identify and mitigate threats before they reach our
    borders. This multi-tiered, multi-pronged strategy is one which
    spans international boundaries and crosses all investigative
    program areas and authorities that HSI enforces.
        To complement its international focus, HSI's efforts
    continue at the border and within our field offices throughout
    the United States where HSI special agents respond to and
    investigate schemes that are encountered or identified at the
    U.S. border. At ports of entry along the southwest land border,
    smugglers use a wide variety of tactics and techniques for
    concealing illicit contraband. Our special agents work every
    day with CBP officers to identify, seize, and investigate TCOs
    that attempt to exploit ports of entry to introduce illicit
    contraband into the United States.
        As such, HSI focuses on disrupting and dismantling TCOs by
    working with CBP on collecting, examining, and exploiting
    information gathered from interdictions by CBP and other law
    enforcement partners in furthering new or ongoing
    investigations as well as execute enforcement actions that will
    disrupt and dismantle the criminal activity of TCOs and their
    operations.
        The multi-faceted, complex transnational nature of crimes
    surrounding illicit activity requires an equally robust and
    layered investigative response, which HSI implements on
    multiple fronts. This starts abroad and continues domestically
    where HSI special agents and criminal analysts assigned to over
    220 offices across the United States respond to and pursue
    investigations into illicit smuggling and trafficking.
        HSI's comprehensive strategy to conduct complex, large-
    scale investigations represents one of DHS's best weapons for
    dismantling TCOs in a manner not possible solely through border
    interdiction efforts.
        United in our partnership with CBP at the border and ports
    of entry as well as our efforts within the interior of the
    United States, HSI uses the full breadth of its authorities and
    expertise to pursue investigations and attack all aspects of
    TCOs.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
    today and for your continued support of HSI and the critical
    investigative role it plays in investigating TCOs. HSI remains
    committed to its mission to secure the homeland from
    transnational crime and threats and to uphold the national
    security and public safety of the United States. I look forward
    to your questions.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. Our final witness is Stuart
    Burns, the Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Portfolio
    Management and Customer Engagement for the General Services
    Administration's Public Buildings Service (PBS). PBS, amongst
    other things, acquires space through new construction and
    leasing and maintains Federal properties nationwide. This
    includes over 100 land ports of entry.
        Mr. Burns, thank you for joining us today, and you are
    recognized for your opening statement.

     TESTIMONY OF STUART BURNS,\1\ ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, PUBLIC
         BUILDINGS SERVICE, PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER
              ENGAGEMENT, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

        Mr. Burns. Good afternoon Chairwoman Sinema, Ranking Member
    Lankford, and Members of the Subcommittee. I would like to
    thank you for inviting me to testify at the hearing on
    improving security, trade, and travel flows at the southwest
    border ports of entry.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Burns appear in the Appendix on
    page 66.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        GSA's mission is to deliver the best value in real estate,
    acquisition, and technology services to the government and the
    American people. To meet the Federal Government's real estate
    and technology needs along the borders, GSA maintains a close
    partnership with Department of Homeland Security's Customs and
    Border Protection, the other Federal inspection agencies like
    U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Health and
    Human Services (HHS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and
    the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier
    Safety Administration.
        As you know, CBP is our primary partner among the many
    Federal inspection agencies stationed along the American land
    borders, and it is essential that they have modern facilities
    to perform their critical mission of safeguarding our borders
    and enhancing the Nation's economic prosperity. Investment in
    new and existing land ports of entry strengthens trade,
    tourism, and commerce, creates jobs, and bolsters our Nation's
    security.
        I would like to thank Chairwoman Sinema and other Members
    of the Subcommittee for their work to include these land ports
    in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which you
    mentioned was signed into law on Monday. Now that the
    legislation is enacted, GSA will work with CBP and our other
    partners to construct new and modernize existing land ports of
    entry at dozens of border stations across the Northern and
    Southern Border.
        Additionally, GSA will undertake paving projects to improve
    road infrastructure leading to and from and also within the
    ports. These critical investments will provide modern and
    energy-efficient facilities for Federal inspection agencies,
    and benefit our State, local and private partners. The $3.4
    billion provided to GSA and $400 million provided to CBP will
    address critical infrastructure priorities for our country, and
    eliminate a substantial backlog of outstanding projects.
        GSA is well positioned to undertake and deliver on this
    LPOE program. We have a consistent track record of delivering
    capital projects on time and on budget. Our successes are the
    result of leveraging project resources and subject matter
    experts across GSA. This approach results in the application of
    industry best practices in site acquisition, environmental
    analysis, design, construction, and delivery of these
    facilities. This collaborative team approach has contributed to
    the success of many projects.
        As you mentioned, there are 167 land ports of entry across
    nearly 7,500 miles of the United States borders, and GSA
    manages 123. GSA's land ports of entry serve diverse mission
    needs at a diverse set of locations that include urban
    communities like San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and
    Detroit, Michigan; as well as remote localities like Douglas,
    Arizona; Van Buren, Maine; and Alcan, Alaska.
        Safe, secure, and modern land ports along our borders are
    critical to ensuring an efficient flow of commerce and people
    that supports jobs and economic growth. However, the average
    LPOE in GSA's portfolio was designed and constructed more than
    40 years ago. As a result, many of these facilities are
    functionally obsolete for the 21st Century. This, in turn, has
    a negative effect on American trade, tourism, commerce, jobs,
    and national security.
        To inform and facilitate investment in the land ports of
    entry, GSA coordinates and assists CBP in evaluating and
    prioritizing the facilities for investment. Over the past 5
    years, this process has resulted in significant investments in
    the land ports at Calexico and San Ysidro in California;
    Columbus, New Mexico; Tornillo and Laredo in Texas; and
    Alexandria Bay, New York.
        GSA works closely with CBP to ensure that their priority
    projects are integrated into GSA's larger, multi-year priority
    plan. As part of that plan, GSA consults with CBP and other
    stakeholder agencies, such as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
    Administration, at the onset of project planning, and we
    continue that relationship throughout the lifecycle of project
    delivery.
        An example of this partnership in practice was the
    expansion and modernization of the San Ysidro land port of
    entry in California. GSA incorporated each of those agencies'
    programs of requirements into one modernized facility.
        Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about
    GSA's ongoing partnership with CBP and others to deliver on the
    land ports' modernization program at the Northern and Southern
    Border, and the historic opportunity that the Infrastructure
    Investment and Jobs Act presents to bring these critical
    facilities into the 21st Century. I welcome the opportunity to
    discuss GSA's commitment to strategic investment in our
    Nation's land ports of entry, and am happy to answer any
    questions that you have.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Burns.
        Now we will begin the question portion of the hearing. Each
    Senator will receive 7 minutes for questions. I will recognize
    myself first for 7 minutes.
        My first question is for Ms. Sabatino and Mr. Burns. With
    the recent passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
    Act Congress provided a significant investment in improving our
    ports of entry. This investment will help provide more security
    and more efficient trade and travel, but security is a
    constantly evolving challenge and Congress and the
    Administration should always be planning for the future.
        Looking at ports of entry, what steps should Congress take
    now so that our nation has the infrastructure it needs 10 years
    from now? Ms. Sabatino, I will ask you to address this first,
    as I am curious to learn more about how this will fit with
    CBP's Port of the Future concept of operation that seeks to
    transform port workflow and technology processes.
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you for the question, Chairwoman. CBP
    made significant investments in research and development (R&D)
    for new technology to enhance our current infrastructure on the
    port, and it is complemented by our investments in prioritizing
    land ports of entry for infrastructure investments when the
    opportunity presents itself. I certainly thank you for your
    support in the infrastructure bill. We look forward to being
    able to complete 16 of the priority projects on the 5-year
    capital investment plan, but in addition to that, another 10
    potentially covered for modernization efforts.
        With the Port of the Future concept focusing on the cargo
    operations and streamlining workflows, we have been making
    investments in building out technology that is going to
    integrate information for our CBP officers and agriculture
    specialists into an integrated, newer platform. That is taking
    all of the information as the NII technology is deployed, the
    information from the RFID, the information, once we have the
    simplified arrival program rolled out into a common viewer so
    that we can give our officers the best tools and information to
    make decisions quickly and essentially automate every part of
    the process that we can, again, giving them the time to invest
    in the interviews with individuals or the time to look further
    at the actual commodities and do what they do best.
        With the future travel initiatives we have been looking at,
    comprehensively, across all of our travel environments where we
    can leverage new technology, and again, automate processes to
    remove the administrative burden from our frontline personnel.
    That includes the facial biometric comparison technology but
    also affording travelers the opportunity to apply for I-94s in
    advance, that they could do previously already through our
    website and now through a mobile application in the CBP One
    portal.
        But all of these individual investments that we look at to
    refine legitimate travel and trade helping us provide the
    officers the tools and the time to address the significant
    challenge and identify those threats that cross the border on a
    daily basis.
        Senator Sinema. Mr. Burns.
        Mr. Burns. Thank you, Chairman. We rely extensively on CBP
    and the other inspection agencies at those land ports to define
    what the requirements are and what the projected flows are
    through those land ports of entry. That is why we have a heavy
    coordination effort in our capital planning and our request to
    Congress for funding for the land ports of entry, moving
    forward.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. My question is for Ms. Sabatino.
    I want to discuss the role of ports of entry in the flow of
    migrants across the border. The Administration recently
    announced an end to the practice of metering of asylum seekers
    at ports of the entry, and the comment period of the new asylum
    rule recently closed. Now I have visited ports of entry in
    Arizona and I have seen firsthand the limited facilities to
    fairly and humanely process migrants and asylum seekers at
    ports of entry.
        So what steps is OFO taking to ensure that ports of entry
    are prepared to deal with the potential for increased numbers
    of migrants seeking asylum and other forms of relief? I would
    especially like to know how OFO is ensuring this need is taken
    into consideration when modernizing our ports of entry.
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you for the question. Regarding the
    steps with respect to the ability to manage the flow, it is an
    absolutely critical strategy that we have to employ to ensure
    that as migrants present themselves at ports of entry to
    request asylum--some are not even requesting asylum. Some are
    processed through other cases. However, these individuals, as
    they present themselves, as mentioned earlier, the ports are
    not designed to detain people for extended periods of time.
        One of the steps that we have been pursuing is working with
    non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in particular
    international organizations south of the border, to help
    provide us advanced information through the CBP One app so that
    we can make decisions, not necessarily decisions on the
    determination of the inspection in advance but that we can
    assess and determine who is coming toward us, do all of the
    administrative work in advance of individuals arriving at the
    ports of entry, and then, certainly put them through a
    streamlined process as they arrive, and make a final
    determination on the inspection.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is also for
    you, and I wanted to focus on technology. At times I worry the
    border security technology discussion focuses too much on the
    regions between ports of entry and not enough on the ports
    themselves. Yet we know that criminal networks are constantly
    targeting our ports. So what gets in the way of CBP being able
    to deploy the right technology at our ports of entry to allow
    our officers to keep pace with criminals who are continually
    adapting their tactics in response to U.S. capabilities?
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you, Chairwoman. Certainly it is a
    challenge that persists, that as soon as new technology is
    deployed our adversaries are well underway at how to overcome
    the strategies and the technologies that we employ. But
    certainly we look as comprehensively as possible at all of the
    opportunities and the investments, certainly, in the non-
    intrusive technology deployments that are going to occur over
    the next 18 to 24 months since the execution of the contracts.
    It is going to be critical to ensuring that our officers have
    the best information available to make the decisions quickly--
    drive-through scanning systems, again, tying that information,
    I think where we have a vulnerability and need to work toward
    is advanced information for travelers over the land border.
        That is really the next step for us in, closing the gaps
    and vulnerabilities so that we can, again, continue to
    streamline travel. The vast majority of people that cross our
    ports of entry are legitimate travelers and it is legitimate
    commerce. But that streamlined information will help us
    illuminate those bad actors, and again, give our resources, our
    frontline personnel, the time to invest in making the decision
    to spend more time to determine intent and actually surge the
    commodities.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. I would like to recognize
    Senator Lankford for his 7 minutes of questions.
        Senator Lankford. Thank you. Ms. Sabatino, I want to
    continue this conversation that you had raised in your opening
    statement as well about individuals who had false documents
    when they crossed the border at the land ports of entry. So
    there are really two things that are connected here. One is the
    ability to be able to identify false documents. I would assume
    that is dealing with the document plus facial recognition, when
    we will be at a point where all of our land ports of entry can
    actually do facial recognition to be able to line up and to
    compare that with the document that is being handled.
        The second thing is you mentioned that 950 of these
    fraudulent documents came across last year in all ports, and
    600 of those of the Southwest Border. I want to make sure I
    heard that number correct, that last year we had 600 false
    documents, or documents that came across but it was not
    actually the person that was holding the card. Is that correct?
        Ms. Sabatino. Yes. Since the deployment of the facial
    biometric technology, in all of our port environments--air,
    maritime, and land--the deployments were Simplified Arrival in
    our pedestrian lanes, really started in Tucson about a year and
    a half ago, but more significantly since January of this year.
    Over 600--I have the exact number and I can certainly follow
    up--but of the 950 it was over 600 that have been identified at
    our Southwest Border ports of entry.
        Senator Lankford. Were these legitimate cards, just not the
    person that was actually holding it?
        Ms. Sabatino. Imposters to genuine documents.
        Senator Lankford. OK. So then the question is, what
    happened to those legitimate documents then? It is a border
    crossing card or a passport, I assume, one of those. Are those
    being held? Is there a need for those to be able to go back to
    individuals? If you are going to get another border crossing
    card for that individual, some kind of process where they can
    re-request it so we know what happened and how this ended up in
    their hands?
        Ms. Sabatino. Certainly through the interview process in
    trying to obtain the information from the individuals that we
    encounter, with individuals who present themselves as imposters
    we can make referrals for Federal prosecution for false claims,
    certainly in the scenario if they are presenting themselves as
    an impostor to U.S. citizenship.
        But with respect to the documents themselves they are not
    returned to individuals. They are retained, and we dispose of
    them, consistent with the policy with respect to the individual
    documents, which agency they could be returned to.
        Senator Lankford. So you can actually prosecute those
    individuals that are imposters, that are showing legitimate
    documents, just not the right person. How often do we?
        Ms. Sabatino. In the last fiscal year we presented, and
    there were just under 500 cases of fraudulent documents
    accepted for prosecution. That is a national number. It is not
    specific to the Southwest Border.
        Senator Lankford. OK. We will follow up on that, to get a
    specific number to know how we are prosecuting those.
        The non-intrusive inspection, Senator Sinema and I both
    have talked about that already, both in opening statements and
    in questions. From a staff briefing that we had in September,
    we have learned that some of the money that had been allocated
    for non-intrusive inspections in other areas, in other ports,
    have actually been shifted to the Southwest Border for other
    purposes other than non-intrusive inspections. Are you aware of
    that, and how much was dedicated non-intrusive inspections has
    actually been moved to other purposes?
        Ms. Sabatino. With respect to reprogramming funding in
    response to user fee shortfalls and covering salaries, the
    specifics about where the funding and to what it was allocated
    I can certainly follow up.
        Senator Lankford. OK. Let's do. Obviously, that has been a
    high priority on both sides of the aisle on non-intrusive
    inspections, both for drug interdictions and other contraband,
    and obviously facial recognition, to be able to line up
    documents to see if they are actually accurate. We want to be
    able to see that continue and not be reprogrammed into other
    areas.
        Can I ask a question? As we are trying to track this we are
    getting very close to some deadlines here for CBP. Do you know
    what percentage of the CBP employees have been vaccinated or
    are facing possible issues for the vaccine mandate that has
    been laid down right now?
        Ms. Sabatino. The numbers continue to grow. I do not have
    exact data. We do have until the November 22nd deadline----
        Senator Lankford. That is a week, yes.
        Ms. Sabatino [continuing]. Yes, and we are very optimistic
    about the numbers coming in.
        Senator Lankford. Do you have a guess on that percentage?
    Obviously we are a week away. I would assume you would have
    some idea of how many people have not turned in their status on
    vaccination, when we are just a week away.
        Ms. Sabatino. I do not have a good number for you today,
    sir. We will follow up.
        Senator Lankford. Mr. Jeronimo, do you have a good number
    for that, at HSI, at ICE?
        Mr. Jeronimo. I do not, sir.
        Senator Lankford. Mr. Burns, are you aware of that for GSA?
        Mr. Burns. I am not aware of the number. That is not in my
    area.
        Senator Lankford. OK. We will follow up in the next week,
    obviously. That should be known. I would tell you it is
    interesting to me the number of agencies that I have talked to
    that do not know that answer. We have reached out to multiple
    agencies. We deal with the Federal workforce issues as well as
    national security issues, and if we have a large number of
    individuals that are not vaccinated that will go through the
    process of removal over the holiday period, that they are going
    to suddenly be removed from their jobs, it is a very expensive
    process to be able to hire, train, and equip and be able to
    reach out to bring on additional folks.
        I assume, Ms. Sabatino, you do not have too many employees
    at this point right now. The last I saw that you all had a
    backlog of staff that you needed to hire. Is that still true?
        Ms. Sabatino. We have a robust pipeline of individuals for
    the CBP officer position, and with respect to the vaccine
    mandate, there is also a population of individuals that can and
    have requested reasonable accommodations. So the process is
    expected to be over several months. We have been very engaged
    with our stakeholders as well, ensuring that they understand
    what the timeline is for any impact, and we will forecast for
    them as soon as we see any even remote potential for that.
        Senator Lankford. So your timeline for the accommodation
    and the answers to get back to the individuals that are asking
    for accommodation is when? Whether that be medical, personal,
    or religious accommodations.
        Ms. Sabatino. For religious and medical, and it is an
    established process to go through to request reasonable
    accommodations. It is not new for the vaccination mandate. It
    is going to be contingent on the volume that we do have.
        Senator Lankford. But you expect that to take how long?
        Ms. Sabatino. That could take several months.
        Senator Lankford. All right. Mr. Jeronimo, we continue to
    deal with obviously a large flow of methamphetamines coming
    into the country from Mexico. This has been an ongoing issue
    for quite a while. What are you seeing as far as trend lines
    and what you are seeing for transnational criminal
    organizations moving, and have some of the techniques changed,
    and what do we need to accommodate for, for technology or other
    staffing?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Sir, thank you for your question. I will
    start with the technology piece. Because cartels and TCOs are
    ever-changing and ever-evolving, we need to do the same. A
    couple of items that I would bring to your attention, from a
    technology perspective, is implementing mobile drug labs along
    the Southwest Border, due to the fact that we are not
    necessarily dealing with just marijuana and cocaine anymore. We
    are dealing with synthetic narcotics, and again, it is
    difficult sometimes to determine what those substances are. So
    having a mobile drug lab platform along the Southwest Border
    would be welcomed.
        Pollen testing. If you are not familiar with it, pollen
    testing gives you the ability to provide, with some certainty,
    the geographical origin of where fentanyl and meth are being
    made. For example, it can tell you that this fentanyl is being
    produced in Guadalajara or Michoacan area, or it has been made
    in some province in China.
        I would also talk about using drones for offensive and
    defensive purposes, using drones for countering surveillance
    and for operational needs as well as the ability to counter the
    use of drones by TCOs who are using them for bringing
    narcotics. Obviously you saw recently in Iran the fact that
    these can be used for other means.
        As far as inflow, from a perspective that if I was a cartel
    I would not waste my time with marijuana and I would get out of
    the cocaine business, because at the end of the day, with
    synthetic opiates and drugs of that nature you are purchasing
    dual-use chemicals that are legal in most cases. You need a
    warehouse and a chemist. At the end of the day this is not
    going to go away. This continues to be an issue.
        From an HSI perspective, we have been on the front lines
    since day one of the opiate crisis. We have taken our border
    enforcement and security task force, our best pre-stat, from a
    traditional border perspective, and moved that and increased
    our presence at international mail facilities (IMF),
    consignment hubs, seaports, and nontraditional locations like
    Ohio and Michigan, for example, to put Border Security Task
    Force (BEST) in.
        We have operations like Die Another Day, which is a
    partnership with CBP, U.S. Postal Service (USPS), DEA, focusing
    on pill presses that are being imported into the United States
    to be used to make illicit substances.
        When it comes to precursors, HSI and CBP are leading the
    way, by far leading the way in that. In the last 18 months, we
    have seized over 500 kilograms of precursors destined to TCOs.
    That is 1 million pounds of precursors to be used for meth and
    fentanyl.
        The other thing is partnerships. We are in tune with our
    Federal and State and local partners--CBP, DEA, U.S. Postal,
    the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). There is not a place
    where we are not working collectively together as a whole-of-
    government approach. I understand your frustration in this, but
    it is not from a lack of effort on behalf of the men and women
    within HSI and CBP working the front lines, sir.
        Senator Lankford. Thank you.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Next I will
    recognize Senator Carper for 7 minutes.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

        Senator Carper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and to you and the
    Ranking Member thanks for holding this important hearing, and
    to our witnesses, thank you very much for joining us.
        I think I might have time for two questions. The first
    would deal with supply chain issues and the second would focus
    on Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) related
    issues. I will start off with the first one with respect to
    supply chain. I am going to direct this question to Deputy
    Assistant Commissioner (DAC) Diane Sabatino.
        I said in my notes here it says, ``DAC Sabatino.'' Is that
    a first name? What is D-A-C? Is that your name?
        Ms. Sabatino. No. It is Deputy Executive Assistant
    Commissioner (DEAC).
        Senator Carper. OK. All right. Fair enough. I serve as
    Chair on the Subcommittee on International Trade, on Customs
    and Global Competitiveness on the Finance Committee. As I am
    sure you know well, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a host of
    supply chain issues over the availability of goods, ranging
    from consumer products to vehicles to canned goods.
        My question is this. Given CBP's mission to dislocate
    lawful international trade and travel, could you just talk with
    us for a bit about any lessons learned from the pandemic and
    how CBP adapted to address a change in any trade patterns?
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you for the question, Senator. I think
    from a perspective not unique to CBP, certainly leveraging
    virtual technology across the field operations enterprise in a
    number of different areas, leveraging the expertise of our
    personnel across all of our ports of entry on a daily and
    recurring basis, now that we have the ability to engage with
    them as frequently through Microsoft Teams and other endeavors.
        So certainly moving to a virtual environment, virtual
    engagements with all of our stakeholders, allowing us to reach
    more individuals with a timely message, simultaneously, instead
    of multiple gaps, between stakeholders, and ensuring that we
    have a consistent message, again not unique certainly to CBP.
        But leveraging the virtual environment as well for things
    like renewals of Global Entry applicant programs, freeing up
    2,300 interviews per week to ensure that we tackle the volume
    that built up while the Global Entry enrollment centers were
    closed during the pandemic.
        From a trade perspective, as I mentioned, tapping into the
    expertise of our individuals across the country and really
    leveraging them in national dialogue with large stakeholder
    forums. I think from the C-TPAT perspective, also working with
    our international partners and companies overseas. Again,
    virtual engagements and validations, things that we had
    traditionally relied on, costly travel, costly paperwork. I
    think really taking advantage of the technology is a lesson
    learned for CBP, and not losing sight of our opportunities to
    continue to leverage that while we are moving out of the
    significant travel restrictions and challenges. But really
    moving in the trade environment to as paperless a process as
    possible.
        Innovating in our seized property process, in our vaults,
    leveraging biometric technology, again, creating friction-less
    and touch-less environments, not just in the traveler space but
    also in our own workspaces. Frankly looking at our footprints
    across all of our offices, to ensure that we are truly
    leveraging the space that we need and, reallocating resources,
    from costly investments that clearly have demonstrated we can
    use toward other programs and tackling other threats.
        Senator Carper. All right. Thanks. I think I have time for
    another question. Let me just get this one in, if I can, also
    Ms. Sabatino.
        Senator Cornyn and I, we are the co-leads on a trade
    subcommittee in Finance Committee. We have introduced
    legislation. It is called the Customs-Trade Partnership Against
    Terrorism Pilot Program Act of 2021 or C-TPAT Pilot Program Act
    of 2021. I do not know if you are familiar with it. But a pilot
    program act which recently passed out of our Committee on
    Finance by voice vote, our bill would expand this successful
    program within CBP that allows trusted merchants to voluntarily
    submit themselves to enhanced screening and information
    sharing, in exchange for a fast-track customs clearance process
    for imported goods. Ultimately, we believe it will strengthen
    our national security while creating jobs and expedite the
    movement of goods.
        Since you mentioned the benefit of the current C-TPAT
    program in use at CBP in your testimony, I hope to continue
    work on this issue with you and your colleagues at the agency.
    My question would be, Commissioner Sabatino, what other steps
    should Congress consider to modernize and improve the security
    of the imported goods at our ports of entry?
        Ms. Sabatino. We certainly look forward to working with you
    on the legislation. The C-TPAT program is a very important
    program to us because we rely very heavily on the companies
    that are invested in the program to also help illuminate those
    bad actors that we can identify in the supply chain. We rely on
    them, certainly to trust in us to do our mission and receive
    the benefits of the program.
        With respect to the future of the C-TPAT program, the work
    that we are doing in engaging with other similar programs,
    international programs, where we can--I think Business Alliance
    for Secure Commerce (BASC) is a good example of that, and
    having recently signed an agreement with the BASC organization
    to help collaborate on some of these investments in identifying
    the good actors in the trade space but also help us illuminate
    the vulnerabilities and the bad actors as well as the networks
    tied to those bad actors.
        Senator Carper. All right. Great. Thank you so much for
    those responses. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us today.
    Thanks for your service.
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you, Senator.
        Senator Sinema. I believe we are waiting for Senator
    Padilla to join, and while we are waiting I will continue to
    ask some questions until he arrives.
        My next question is for Mr. Jeronimo. I know that HSI is
    focused on transnational criminal organizations, but what does
    Congress and the public need to be aware of about TCOs in their
    exploiting of security gaps at our ports of entry? Are there
    technology investments needed at our ports that could assist in
    HSI investigations to allow us to more effectively disrupt and
    counter these criminal groups?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Thank you for your question, ma'am. First of
    all, I applaud the Committee and Legislative Affairs for their
    efforts in passing the recent bill which gives CBP the ability
    to upgrade the ports of entry. The reason I say that is every
    time CBP makes an interdiction it gives HSI an opportunity to
    take that interdiction and turn it into a criminal
    investigation, and then turn in that criminal investigation and
    furthering that hopefully to identify and build out networks
    and identify the TCOs and for disruption, dismantlement, and
    potential prosecution. Some of the areas with that, as
    interdictions increase because of this NII process, that would
    result in HSI being resourced in order to respond to those.
        Currently, 20 percent of our work hours, total work hours,
    are specific to CBP's port of entry seizures. That is 20
    percent. That is fairly significant. Every time there is an
    interdiction by CBP, HSI spends, at a minimum, 95 hours to
    handle that interdiction, from cradle to grave, 95 hours. That
    is 12 business days. So again, that is significant in nature
    and that is a huge commitment.
        I am a knuckle-dragger by nature, so I try to dumb things
    down for myself. But the point here is if you have a port of
    entry where there are 1,000 cars that go through it, and CBP
    inspects 10 percent of that, they are inspecting 100 cars. If
    their hit rate is 10 percent, there are 10 cars with illegal
    substances in them. HSI is mandated and is nondiscretionary and
    has to respond to them.
        So as NII continues to improve and CBP now inspects 500
    cars, and their hit rate is still 10 percent, that is 50 cars
    with narcotics that we are going to have to. So that is us
    responding to those and trying to build out those seizures and
    interdictions into long-term investigations and building out
    those networks.
        I will say, resource-wise, continue to deal with encrypted
    communication. That has been a sore subject for us as far as
    continuing to keep up with cartels and TCOs in regard to
    encrypted communication, and dealing with that. Approving the
    Shadow Wolves Enhancement Act would be a plus. That would help
    close the gap, especially in the Tribal lands as far TCOs
    taking advantage of that.
        A more collaborative approach. I look at things in four
    buckets, ma'am. I look at things from an interdiction
    perspective--excuse me, intelligence perspective, interdiction,
    investigation, and prosecution. The goal is to move from one
    bucket to another bucket as seamlessly as possible. Sometimes,
    unfortunately, somebody thinks their bucket is more important.
    I think when we are able to work collectively together, it all
    means something, because intelligence is good but if you cannot
    operationalize it, it does not mean anything. You can interdict
    things all day long, but that is not going to change anything.
    You can work the best case ever, but if you cannot get a
    prosecution or arrest somebody and put them in jail, it really
    does not mean much. So working collectively together across
    those avenues is vital.
        In totality, again, I appreciate everybody's support in
    regard to HSI's efforts for combating TCOs.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Jeronimo, and thank you for
    mentioning the Shadow Wolves bill. That is a bill I have
    offered, and we passed this Committee and we are working to
    pass it through this entire Congress, so I appreciate that.
        Senator Padilla, you are recognized for 7 minutes of
    questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

        Senator Padilla. Thank you, Madam Chair. Colleagues,
    California's land ports of entry are the busiest border
    crossings in the western hemisphere, which creates considerable
    opportunities for bilateral trade and economic cooperation.
    Unfortunately, a recent study found that delays at land ports
    of entry, in 2016, caused nearly $1.6 billion in lost economic
    output and more than 12,000 unrealized jobs in California
    alone. Without capacity enhancements, the adverse impacts of
    delays for both personal trips as well as freight movements at
    these ports of entry will continue to grow and intensify.
        The San Diego Association of Governments and the California
    Department of Transportation, in coordination with State and
    Federal partners in the United States and Mexico are carrying
    out the State Route 11/Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project in
    order to create a new, multimodal land port of entry. Now this
    project seeks to leverage technology, including interchangeable
    passenger and commercial vehicle primary inspection lanes to
    better manage traffic demand and decrease wait times across all
    ports of entry in the region.
        Questions for Ms. Sabatino. I appreciate that CBP is
    constructively engaging with the project sponsors to identify
    the staffing requirements for the Otay Mesa East facility. What
    steps or assurances can the Administration provide to State and
    local governments with respect to staffing for this project so
    that we are prepared when it is time to open?
        Ms. Sabatino. Senator, thank you for the question, and we
    are always excited about the prospect of newly designed
    infrastructure for our ports of entry and the ability to
    incorporate the technology that we are working to identify and
    implement today at the onset and development.
        Regarding the Otay Mesa East port of entry, with any new
    project we leverage our workload staffing model and we
    incorporate those new projects, and with this particular
    project I think the next steps are engaging with the respective
    program offices in the National Capital Region (NCR) here, and
    they have been very engaged both with the San Diego field
    office and the local leadership, which we greatly appreciate.
        But we do have additional steps to work on, validating the
    information and modeling the project, to really identify what
    those staffing needs could be. But then we also use our
    workload staffing model as a decision tool for the allocation
    of the resources that we have authorized on board.
        Senator Padilla. All right. In anticipation of the staffing
    needs come 2023, a two-part question. Will resources for
    sufficient staffing be part of the budget for 2023, and part
    two of the question is, given how long it takes to fill
    staffing pipelines, what steps are we taking now to ensure that
    there will be adequate staffing when it opens, potentially as
    early as 2024?
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you, Senator. I am very pleased to be
    able to say that we do have a robust pipeline. It is an
    investment going back over 10 years, and ensuring that we have
    a cadre of people ready to onboard and our staffing numbers
    have reflected that. We have really been limited, frankly, by
    training seats available at times versus not having the
    individuals to place into the positions.
        We will certainly continue to work with you and your staff
    on the needs for the particular ports in Southern California,
    and again, leveraging and briefing with the information
    available through the workload staffing model which, again, is
    our best resource, and we continue to refine that resource.
        The workload staffing model, certainly impacted by the
    travel downturn, still reflected a need for officers as well as
    our agriculture model, because when the travel decreased we
    reallocated resources to other areas and certainly demonstrated
    a need and a workload in things like our outbound environment,
    mail and express consignment facilities. So as travel comes
    back and that gets layered in we do expect to see changes in
    increases in what the staffing models reflect as well, to
    include new locations.
        Senator Padilla. Thank you. Next question, on the same
    project, for Mr. Burns. I understand that one option under
    consideration is for GSA to take possession of the Otay Mesa
    East facility once it is built and then to enter an agreement
    with CBP to equip it and to staff it. So, one, is that
    accurate, and two, if that is a scenario that does play out
    what other responsibilities accompany taking possession of a
    facility like that?
        Mr. Burns. Thank you for the question. I am familiar with
    the project. Since the funding would be coming from the project
    sponsor, I have not seen the final funding proposal for it
    becoming fully functional. But certainly we would be prepared
    to take that into our inventory and begin to service it and
    maintain that facility.
        Senator Padilla. OK. We will look forward to a continuing
    conversation about this in the year or two ahead.
        A question more broadly about land ports of entry. I know
    in California delays and the resulting vehicle idling has had a
    considerable impact on air quality in the surrounding regions,
    including significant increase in emissions. These delays
    resulted in an average release of 457 metric tons of carbon
    dioxide emissions alone per day in 2016. A recent study also
    highlighted how reducing delays would lower the emissions of
    pollutants like carbon monoxide and particulate matters.
        Back to you, Ms. Sabatino. How can reducing delays at land
    ports of entry reduce not just environmental impacts but health
    impacts, and what plans are in place to attempt to achieve
    these reductions?
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you for the question, and I do
    apologize, and I think also, in part, answers the question that
    Senator Lankford mentioned earlier with respect to the timeline
    for simplified arrival in vehicle lanes. That is our facial
    biometric comparison technology. We are currently testing that
    in the port of Anzalduas in select lanes and really working
    with both the industry as well as our Office of Information
    Technology.
        We rolled out Simplified Arrival in the air environment, in
    the maritime environment. It did move very quickly in the
    pedestrian environment. The vehicle environment, because of the
    environmental challenges that we have, it really is going to be
    a larger hurdle than the other deployments, but we look forward
    to keeping you apprised of the deployment schedule as we see it
    rolling out.
        I believe we are going to expand to an additional pilot
    location in another location in Texas, but San Ysidro, in
    particular, is one location that we are targeting, once we have
    the right technology identified to leverage, because of the
    volume that comes through that particular port. We have been
    engaged with the local leadership on the ground from CBP to
    talk about identifying amenable populations for even lanes
    where we could potentially pilot that in the next phase.
        Senator Padilla. OK. Thank you for your work. I look
    forward to the ongoing collaboration. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Senator Padilla. We have time to
    start a second round of questions, so I will start with another
    round of questions, first to Ms. Sabatino.
        As part of the fiscal year 2021 appropriations package,
    Congress improved important bipartisan language regarding the
    creation of a pilot program that would expand the border
    crossing card program in Arizona and allow vetted Mexican
    travelers with an I-94 to travel throughout Arizona. This is an
    important initiative for my State that has the potential to
    make border crossing more efficient for travel and trade.
        Can you provide the Subcommittee an update on CBP's
    progress in implementing this expansion, what hurdles you might
    have experienced, and the plans you have to overcome those
    challenges?
        Ms. Sabatino. Thank you, Chairwoman, and I do not,
    unfortunately, have a good answer for you on the particular
    pilot program. Because of the challenges with the travel
    restrictions, that project did not develop as it could have,
    had we not encountered the COVID pandemic. However, we are
    looking at the opportunities to implement that pilot program
    and actually see it as a short-term solution and gap-filler for
    things that I had mentioned earlier. When we were talking about
    advanced information and more comprehensively looking at the
    traffic coming across the border, individuals applying for and
    receiving the provisional I-94s in advance and being able to
    issue those right at primary.
        A number of efforts underway, that a short term, and we
    will follow up with you on the developments and what a timeline
    could be for that project.
        Senator Sinema. I appreciate that. Another question for
    you. In Arizona and other border States we have had a recurring
    problem of understaffing at our ports of entry, as I am sure
    you are aware. Office of Field Operations workforce staffing
    models for ports in areas such as Nogales indicate that the
    hiring has improved somewhat. But I do always worry about
    retaining experienced officers who understand the challenges
    unique to the U.S.-Mexico border.
        What are the key concerns that OFO leadership hears from
    port officers that get in the way of them successfully doing
    their job, and what steps are you all taking to improve these
    workforce morale and retention challenges?
        Ms. Sabatino. And very important to CBP, in particular, the
    Office of Field Operations for our frontline personnel and all
    of our personnel who have been so significantly impacted, along
    with the rest of the country, by the pandemic.
        We do have a number of investments that cover a spectrum of
    target areas. I think first and foremost the investments at the
    Office of Field Operations has made in peer support teams and
    investments in the chaplain program, where we have resources
    right on the ground for employees, certainly to engage with
    employees should they identify any challenges, but a resource
    if they do not want to pick up a phone and reach out through
    the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), that they have someone
    that they can talk to, that they know, and that they are
    comfortable with. We message that aggressively with our
    personnel.
        There is also the Employee Assistance Program where there
    is a variety of services available to our workforce should they
    need anything with respect to challenges--assistance managing
    finances, mental health resources for them. These are all
    different opportunities, given the comfort level of the
    individual, to who they would like to speak to.
        I think the agency has also made a significant investment
    in bringing on clinicians to help us guide these programs and
    enhance them. We also have the Workforce and Resiliency
    Division in the National Capital Region that looks at
    opportunities to engage employees in morale-building and team-
    building programs that we deploy out to the field.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. Mr. Jeronimo, the same basic
    question for you. Can you speak to the challenges impacting HSI
    personnel and agency efforts to improve morale and retention?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Thank you for your question, Chairwoman. I
    will say that HSI always recruits very well. We have
    announcements for 1811 special agent positions. We have a
    robust applicant pool. We also even do female-only
    announcements. So we have never had an issue in the recruiting
    process, and I believe the reason for that is we are not a
    single-scope mission agency. We are able to attack criminal
    organizations or TCOs from multiple fronts, and I think that is
    important when we are looking for new recruits.
        I will also point out that HSI might be relatively new in
    name but HSI and CBP have a legacy that goes back to 1789, with
    the creation of U.S. Customs. We have a very long tradition,
    and who would not want to be a part of that, is what I would
    put out there.
        I will also say if there is one thing that does bring
    morale down for HSI is our inability to work with some
    jurisdictions, because we are under the umbrella of ICE. It is
    well documented that certain jurisdictions will not work with
    HSI because of that fact alone, and it is a bit frustrating for
    HSI and its employees, because the only thing we are looking to
    do is work with these jurisdictions to enforce narcotics
    investigations, child exploitation, cyber, gang enforcement,
    money laundering, human smuggling, human trafficking. At the
    end of the day we are only focusing on the safety and well-
    being of those particular citizens in those jurisdictions and
    the Nation as a whole. So that is a frustrating point for us in
    that regard, ma'am.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. Senator Portman, I see you have
    joined the Committee. I would like to recognize you for 7
    minutes of questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN

        Senator Portman. Great. Thank you very much, Senator
    Sinema, one for having this hearing. You and Senator Lankford
    are to be commended for that. There is so much going on at the
    border and so much need for oversight. Obviously, we have had
    some terrible statistics recently. We look at the month of
    October and we had, we are told, the highest number of
    encounters with illegal immigrants in any October in the
    history of our country. So we are breaking records, it seems,
    every month. There is clearly a crisis at the border.
        I would ask quickly, if I could, and perhaps Ms. Sabatino,
    you are the right one to answer this, how many people got away?
    In other words, the so-called getaway number. If you have, say,
    164,000 people who have been apprehended or encounters, how
    many people do you think you are not finding who are coming
    across the border illegally?
        Ms. Sabatino. I do not have that number, sir. That is
    something I will have to follow up and certainly get from our
    colleagues in the Border Patrol. We do work closely with our
    colleagues in the Border Patrol to assist them with resources
    as they are available and as needed.
        Senator Portman. The estimate that they have given me is
    that they think somewhere between 15 and 20 percent on top of
    that, but I would be interested in any data you could provide
    us on that.
        Along with that, of course we had terrible numbers this
    week with regard to this issue of overdoses of people in the
    United States who are taking opioids, and when we look more
    closely at it, it turns out almost all of these opioids are
    connected to fentanyl in some way or another. Sometimes it
    might be another drug, even heroin or a non-opioid like
    cocaine, but fentanyl mixed in with it, or mixed in with a
    pill. This fentanyl is killing more and more of our American
    citizens. One hundred thousand people died of overdoses between
    April 2020 and April 2021, we were just told in the last couple
    of days.
        That number, 100,000, has never been reached before. It is
    a terrible record, and it indicates that so many Americans are
    succumbing to this fentanyl that is so deadly, that comes in
    primarily across the Mexican border. For a while it was coming
    mostly from China, and now we know it is coming mostly from
    Mexico.
        I looked at those numbers and it turns out in October we
    had a 42 percent increase in fentanyl seizures coming in over
    the border. I know that you are perhaps more focused on that,
    in some respects, because much of this comes through the ports
    of entry, actually, but a 42 percent increase in the deadliest
    drugs coming in over the Southern Border. It seems to me we
    have a national emergency here.
        Can you give us a sense of what you think the amount of
    drugs are that are coming in that are not being seized? If it
    is 42 percent increase in seizures, what is it overall?
        Ms. Sabatino. I would have to do math on the fly, sir, and
    I apologize. I am not equipped to do that. We can certainly
    follow up with estimates. We did seize, in the last fiscal
    year, over 10,000 pounds of fentanyl coming across to our ports
    of entry. Over 9,000 pounds was, in particular, at the
    Southwest Border.
        I think with the investments that we are making in
    technology, in particular the NII deployments that we are going
    to be doing over the next 18 to 24 months--and frankly not
    quick enough--it is going to help us certainly in that endeavor
    to tackle that challenge. But we also work very closely with
    our partners in HSI and other Federal Government partners,
    because the best, we can do certainly is identify these
    networks that are bringing this to our ports of entry, in deep
    concealments, in either commodities or in private vehicles
    coming across the border.
        But the continued investment in resources like canine
    assets, but also our intelligence units that we are building
    out, in conjunction with our Office of Intelligence in the
    National Capital Region to make sure that we are providing our
    frontline staff with the best available information about these
    networks, how to identify these threats, and, recent
    concealment methods.
        But I would also defer to my colleague with HSI as well,
    with respect to the investigative effort related to fentanyl.
        Senator Portman. Thank you, and look, I appreciate what you
    are doing. We have to provide more resources for technology and
    for people, and we should, and it sounds like in the next
    couple of years we will have better technology. We saw some of
    this on the border earlier this year when some of us toured.
        The technology is good but the one thing I would emphasize
    is that by allowing more of these drugs to come in across our
    Southern Border, the more drugs that are getting on the
    streets, in our communities, at a lower price. In other words,
    the increased supply is decreasing the price and making it
    easier for people to be able to afford these deadly drugs.
        So I am, for one, someone who believes strongly in dealing
    with the demand side of this, that our prevention efforts, more
    treatment. We were making progress in that, a longer-term
    recovery. We were making progress there. But unfortunately in
    the last year and a half we have seen this huge increase, and I
    think some of it is attributable to the fact that the volume is
    so high now, and the price is so relatively depressed because
    of that, that it is creating more of a problem.
        Mr. Jeronimo, do you have an answer to this question about
    if we have a 42 percent increase, if we are finding 9,000
    pounds of this stuff--which, by the way, is enough to kill
    every man, woman, and child in my home State of Ohio. It is an
    enormous amount of fentanyl, 9,000 pounds. But do you, Mr.
    Jeronimo, have a sense as to what we are missing? In other
    words, how much of these deadly substances are coming in across
    our border and not being detected?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Sir, I do not have the answer to that
    particular question, but I will tell you HSI's efforts, along
    with our partners. Last year alone, HSI seized over 40,000
    pounds of fentanyl opiates to address this issue. It starts
    internationally, and we do have a vast presence overseas, 86
    offices in 55 countries. But more importantly, we have our
    partnerships with our foreign counterparts through our
    Transnational Criminal Investigative Units (TCIUs). They are
    vetted units. That allows us to operationalize information as
    they come in.
        I mentioned earlier, to Senator Lankford, that in the last
    18 months, HSI, in partnership with CBP and DEA, we seized over
    500 kilograms of precursor chemicals coming into Mexico to be
    used by TCOs. That is 1 million pounds of precursor chemicals.
        Senator Portman. Mr. Jeronimo, were those precursors coming
    from China?
        Mr. Jeronimo. In most cases, yes, sir.
        Senator Portman. Do you have an office in China?
        Mr. Jeronimo. We do have an attach? there, sir.
        Senator Portman. Do you have an office there?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Yes, sir. We do have an attach there.
        So again, 1 million pounds of precursors. The other efforts
    that we made domestically, and I mentioned this earlier, was in
    expanding our BESTs into the mail facilities, international
    mail facilities, as well as the airports and into what I would
    consider interior States, like the State of Ohio. Our BESTs,
    our Border Security Task Force, have been traditionally along
    the Southwest Border, but we have expanded that at the
    inception of the opiate crisis, as well as focusing on the
    mechanisms for producing these pill presses.
        We have an operation called Die Another Day, which, again,
    is in partnership with CBP, DEA, and U.S. Postal Service, where
    we are focusing on the importation of pill presses that are
    being used for illicit substances and production.
        Senator Portman. Look, my time is expiring here, and again,
    I thank you for what your officers are doing on the ground and
    in foreign countries. I would just make the obvious point, you
    said that there are all sorts of precursors coming from China
    into Mexico, so China is still very involved in this, even
    though there is less coming directly from China, thanks, I
    think in large measure, to the Synthetics Trafficking and
    Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, which this Committee passed.
        But I think we need to make a point that this poison is
    coming in in record numbers, despite all of your good efforts.
    So what do we need to do differently to be able to address this
    issue, both on the supply side and the demand side? Again, I
    thank you for what you are doing. You, by finding 9,000 pounds,
    are saving lives. There is no question about it. But we need to
    do better.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Senator Portman. I would like to
    return back to Senator Lankford for his second round of
    questions.
        Senator Lankford. Thank you. It is rare for us to have CBP
    and GSA sitting at the same table together so I want to have
    some dialogue between the three of us, if I can do that.
        There are 101 land ports of entry that GSA has custody of
    and 40 that CBP has custody of. They are in all different
    conditions, all different ages. The challenge becomes how do we
    maintain this, and why do we have ownership sometimes in GSA
    and sometimes in CBP? The last report that we got back in is if
    there are going to be major changes in a facility or a new
    facility it is about a 7-year process to be able to get in line
    to go through the process to be able to do that. If it is a
    project over $100,000 in one of those facilities, CBP cannot do
    that. GSA has to be able to do that. We have some unique
    dynamics here on how that works as a person, entity that is
    leasing or that is owning, and sometimes owning and trying to
    be able to manage that.
        My question on this is, why does the jurisdictional split,
    why is that happening, has happened? Has that just kind of
    organically grown up over the years? Is there a better way to
    be able to handle this.
        Let me just start with you, Mr. Burns. Let's start from the
    GSA perspective.
        Mr. Burns. Thank you for that question. My understanding is
    the roughly 40 buildings, facilities that are in CBP's control
    and custody are legacy. They were initially part of the group
    that CBP is, and they remained in their inventory when GSA was
    created. They are generally much smaller facilities and
    generally singular in focus, and by that I mean it is not a
    multi-tenanted facility. It does not have multiple inspection
    agencies.
        I think where GSA creates the value in the ownership is
    when we are balancing the needs of the Federal Motor Carrier
    Safety Administration, with FDA, and with CBP, to balance all
    those needs and create a facility that suits all of their
    purposes.
        Senator Lankford. So your assumption is, at this point, if
    we have multiple agencies that come through, and obviously our
    land ports of entries do, CBP not being the owner, GSA being a
    third-party owner is a better model for that.
        Mr. Burns. I believe that is the case, yes.
        Senator Lankford. OK. Ms. Sabatino, talk to me a little bit
    about the maintenance and the upkeep and expansion, adding
    additional facilities, or just operation. How do we make this
    better?
        Ms. Sabatino. Certainly working very closely with our
    Office of Facilities and Asset Management and GSA, we can
    shorten that timeline. We are working with them to process-map
    the individual projects, to find efficiencies and set better
    deadlines. I think, some of the challenges that we face
    together is all of the other stakeholders that we have to
    engage with throughout the process, from the local, State, and
    Federal entities that are involved in some way, shape, or form
    of the upkeep or management, potentially, of a facility.
        I think from a CBP perspective, in the facilities that we
    manage and the last investments that we had back in 2009, we
    were able to do some significant modernization efforts because
    of the support of Congress for those particular locations.
        Again, continued to work, sometimes on a very case-by-case
    basis, as challenges come up, I think certainly having the
    resources to make the investments, either from GSA or from CBP
    remains a challenge. But that is why through the 5-year LPOE
    plan, where we prioritize those needs, there has been some
    delegations of authority for limited amounts that CBP can
    address challenges ourselves.
        Senator Lankford. That is the $100,000 amount?
        Ms. Sabatino. I believe that is the number, sir. It might
    be lower than that. I would have to get back to you on the
    actual amount. But those have been added value.
        I think with also the opportunities through the Donation
    Acceptance Program and our Reimbursable Services Program, the
    public-private partnership and the Donation Acceptance Program,
    in coordination with GSA, has really been a phenomenal resource
    for us as, travel and commerce growth exceeds both potentially
    GSA and CBP's resource availability to make the investments and
    grow with the pace of the private sector.
        We do have, and we appreciate your support, the Donation
    Acceptance Program. There is a sunset as of December 16th for
    the real property donations, that we are looking and hopefully
    will have addressed before that date. That is going to be very
    important to us to maintain the ability to do that as well. But
    it is an ongoing dialogue and not just at the national level,
    at the regional level and the local level on all of our
    projects.
        We do have a full assessment ongoing of all of the 167
    ports of entry that will continue through fiscal year 2023, and
    we expect to be able to provide you a completely prioritized
    portfolio of all of those ports of entry, that we are going to
    continue to work with GSA on, as well as our individually owned
    ports of entry.
        Senator Lankford. When will get that inventory?
        Ms. Sabatino. The full prioritization? We are going to be
    doing the assessments through fiscal year 2023, but certainly
    the LPOE, 5-year plan that we submit every year, captures our
    highest priorities.
        Senator Lankford. So let me tell you what I hear, because I
    have visited, over the last 7 years, a lot of different land
    ports of entry. I have had the opportunity to be able to visit
    with a lot of different folks from CBP. But what I hear
    consistently is, ``I want to do a project. There is something
    that''--whether it is plumbing, air conditioning, repainting,
    whatever it may be, they want to do it, and they turn it in to
    GSA, and GSA gets it into the list, and it takes forever to be
    able to get done, because they have a ton of other things to be
    able to get done, and it ends up being something they work
    around.
        The CBP folks will tell me, ``We would go get that done. We
    could hire a local contractor to do it if we owned the
    facilities, but we can't actually do that.'' With the $100,000
    limit they are able to do some things now to be able to get it
    done, but it ends up costing more, taking longer than what they
    want it to be able to take if CBP were able to make the
    decision to be able to manage the funds on that.
        Now that may be fair or unfair for GSA, and I want to hear
    your response on that. But I have heard that over and over and
    over again, and trying to be able to balance that out.
        Now I understand CBP is not the only entity that is in that
    facility, but it is a challenge, both with dollars that GSA has
    got to be able to manage, and very remote facilities that are
    very unique facilities. They are not office space. They are
    very unique facilities for this.
        How do we start to solve that length of time, flexibility?
    I had mentioned I think it is $100,000. You said it may be even
    less than that. I may have that number wrong, but I thought it
    was right at $100,000 of repairs that could be done. What would
    be a recommendation from GSA to either raise that threshold,
    give more flexibility? The donation program is very important
    to be able to pick up additional land and real property that
    are around it, but sometimes a redesign is going to be required
    long term, and it is a much bigger project. From GSA's
    perspective, how do we solve both the time and the flexibility
    issue for properties that are very unique in the GSA portfolio?
        Mr. Burns. I appreciate the question and the comment there.
    I do agree with you that I believe it is $100,000. I believe
    that is established in statute, that our delegation authority
    goes up to $100,000.
        When you get to projects larger than that, the ones you
    mentioned--plumbing, et cetera--generally do not have a larger
    impact on the portfolio of building that is in that facility. I
    am happy to take that back and discuss with my team how we
    might be able to expedite some of those smaller projects.
        When you get into the larger projects and larger dollar
    thresholds, sometimes those affect systems that CBP may not
    even be aware of that are part of the overall facility. That is
    why we would like to have a voice into that process.
        Also we have expertise in the other issues that need to be
    taken care of in some of those larger projects. I would point
    to environmental reviews, coordinating with historic
    preservation requirements. We have the skill and the expertise
    to handle those. I certainly appreciate your point that some of
    these smaller projects that you are hearing about--and I have
    been to the ports as well and talked with port directors so I
    am aware of that pain point and I am happy to look into that.
        Senator Lankford. I would love to be able to maintain this
    conversation, to be able to keep this going, because this is
    one that needs to be resolved. Because we cannot have a
    situation where it takes 7 years to be able to move things
    through the study phase when we have tremendous needs, and many
    of these facilities are decades and decades old and very out of
    date.
        Ms. Sabatino, for detention space at your CBP facilities,
    what is the largest area you have for detention space, for
    instance, in those locations? The maximum number of what, and
    what location might that be?
        Ms. Sabatino. Off the top of my head, sir, I do not have a
    specific, but we can provide you kind of a breakdown, I think,
    where we are challenged with capacity to hold individuals,
    because we do not have true detention.
        Senator Lankford. Yes. It is not set up for that.
        Ms. Sabatino. But to hold individuals is really driven by
    the demographic of what is in the port during the day. One or
    two family members at certain ports could fill the capacity
    that we have available. If we had all single adult males,
    certainly we could have more in a port of entry. So it is a
    number for us that fluctuates.
        Senator Lankford. But it is well below capacity from what
    real-life situation is now versus what it was 50 years ago when
    it was constructed.
        Ms. Sabatino. The current ports of entry, right. They are
    not designed for the operational needs that we have today, no.
        Senator Lankford. Even in a lot of facilities where we have
    the traffic lanes, and you have individuals that are waiting in
    line, get tired of waiting in line and they run right through
    the traffic lanes, we are not set up to be able to secure those
    traffic lanes to be able to shut down foot traffic even running
    into the middle of the cars, which is a safety issue as well as
    a security issue. Correct or not correct?
        Ms. Sabatino. That is a challenge that we have experienced,
    in particular, in the Port of San Ysidro on a recurring basis.
    But we do have measures that we take, including putting our
    officers in the primary vehicle lanes to prevent things like
    that from happening. But it also occurs in our outbound lanes.
        Senator Lankford. There are serious issues that we have to
    be able to resolve there, and I would like to have an ongoing
    dialogue, maybe off camera, at some point, to be able to help
    determine how we actually get this resolved, what the
    recommendations would be from CBP and from GSA, to try to get
    this resolved. I know the $100,000 threshold is way too low to
    be able to do a lot of different projects, to be able to
    accelerate things that are not going to be significant but do
    need to be addressed and do not need to get into a long
    queueing process to actually get done.
        But also we are going to have to deal with long-term how do
    we actually deal with the ownership issues in other places. CBP
    also has some older facilities, and they were described as
    legacy facilities, that are not just legacy facilities, they
    are falling apart. They are in very remote areas and they have
    to have some attention to them as well. And trying to figure
    out for the individuals that are working in very remote areas,
    it is very difficult for them and their families to also have
    facilities that are also well-maintained there.
        I know that is an allocation of priorities, and it is
    always going to be great if Congress will give us a little more
    money, then we can fix all of these. I understand that. But it
    is trying to be able to set those priorities. This 2023 list
    that we have coming will be very important to us in the days
    ahead as well.
        Let me ask a question about the Otay Mesa II project that
    is coming through. Do we know that Mexico is fulfilling its
    part of its responsibility at this point? There is a lot that
    is happening in the northern part of the border, but are they
    fulfilling what they have on the southern part of the border to
    also fulfill the access points coming into that new planned
    port of entry?
        Ms. Sabatino. We work very closely with our Mexican
    counterparts, and there are a number of groups that we leverage
    to ensure that the pace is kept both on the southern side of
    the border with the northern side of the border. It does not
    always come to fruition. I think with respect to the Otay East
    project, I am certainly happy to provide follow-up, regarding
    what the status and developments are on the southern side of
    the border.
        Senator Lankford. Mr. Burns, do you have any other comments
    on that?
        Mr. Burns. I think that is covered. Thank you.
        Senator Lankford. OK. That would be helpful to get an
    update. The last that I saw for that particular land port of
    entry, Mexico was way behind schedule on getting this going. If
    we have everything on our side of the border ready to go and
    Mexico does not have their portion ready to go, that is not
    going to matter, and on the approach it is not going to
    actually help us in that process to be able to have everything
    ready to go north and northing is ready to go south.
        Are there other ports of entry that you are concerned about
    as far as the relationship between Mexico and the United
    States? I understand in most of our ports of entry that has
    been a very good working relationship.
        Ms. Sabatino. Certainly at the local level with our
    counterparts on the southern side of the border we do enjoy
    solid working relationships. An example, the Unified Cargo
    Processing (UCP), where we actually have employees from
    Mexico's Tax Administration Service (SAT) sitting in primary
    booths with our CBP officers, doing joint cargo processing. It
    is a phenomenal example of the coordination that we have with
    Mexico and looking for opportunities to expand because, it has
    a positive impact on the throughput that we have on both sides
    of the border.
        With respect to the different forums, we engage in a number
    of different forums, many led by the Department of State, with
    a host of other government agencies as well as all of our
    Mexican counterparts, including the Binational Bridge and
    Border Crossings committee, the Joint Working Committee on
    Transportation Planning, all different engagements that we have
    with our international partners to prioritize. Also the border
    management strategy, we are working on, I think, an updated
    plan on what the priorities are on both sides of the border,
    where we want the investments to be made.
        Those are also things that we consider in our
    decisionmaking about investments in infrastructure as well, but
    that is all the stakeholders on both sides of the border
    meeting on a regular and recurring basis.
        Senator Lankford. That is great. Madam Chair, I have one
    more question. Are you OK?
        Senator Sinema. Yes.
        Senator Lankford. Mr. Jeronimo, we deal a lot with
    transnational criminal organizations moving drugs. We have
    talked about that quite a bit. But there is also quite a bit of
    money that is being made moving people by transnational
    criminal organizations. Can you bring some clarity--I want to
    ask you a couple of questions on this--on how the coyotes, as
    they are moving individuals through Central America, up through
    Mexico, relate to transnational criminal organizations? Are
    these the same groups that are also smuggling drugs or is it
    different groups?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Sir, thank you, and it is a very good
    question. Different groups. We have some things in place
    downrange in order to address this. I think our first effort is
    from what I would call a legal entry, and that is our Visa
    Security Program (VSP), and that is in 28 countries and 41
    issuing posts. In the last 3 years we have vetted 4.6 million
    individuals through the Visa Security Program, and nearly 9,500
    of those individuals were denied access or entry into the
    United States due to terrorism nexus. So that, to me, is the
    front line pushing the border out.
        Our second effort is our biometric collection system,
    Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program
    (BITMAP). It is a partnership with the Department of Defense
    (DOD), CBP, as well as FBI. We have BITMAP locations in 18
    countries, and what that does is it gives us an opportunity to
    enroll individuals as they come into the western hemisphere and
    make their way up through South America, into Latin America,
    and into Mexico, from Sao Paulo to Macau, and that is 5,000
    miles. Once somebody enters into the western hemisphere I can
    pretty much tell you, with certainty, when that individual
    arrives and where they are going to travel through before they
    reach the Southwest Border.
        What that does is it gives us an opportunity to know in
    advance who we are dealing with, especially individuals that we
    consider known suspected terrorists (KSTs) or individuals of
    interest to the United States before they reach the Southwest
    Border. The BITMAP program, last year, enrolled 35,000
    individuals, and about 80 percent of those do make it to the
    Southwest Border.
        I had mentioned earlier our TCIUs are vetted units. That
    gives us an opportunity to operationalize or put into play
    things as far as information sharing. The vetted units have
    oversight of those BITMAP locations, so those have been very
    effective in giving some insight on who is coming up.
        Our Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force (ECT)
    program is a partnership with the Department of Justice (DOJ),
    the intel community, as well as CBP. The ECT program focuses on
    human smuggling organizations that cater specifically to KSTs
    or what we call special interest citizens (SICs). Those
    organizations, again, are what we consider high level, and we
    have been very successful with that program. We have been able
    to move beyond the U.S. border and operationalize takedowns
    internationally. We have been able to effect arrests in
    different countries with the help of DOJ. So the ECT program
    has been very successful.
        In the last 2 years we have initiated over 5,000 cases and
    nearly 8,000 arrests specifically to human smuggling
    organizations.
        Senator Lankford. Eight thousand arrests in the United
    States or outside the United States?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Combined.
        Senator Lankford. OK.
        Mr. Jeronimo. So 8,000 arrests.
        Senator Lankford. Were the majority of those inside or
    outside the United States?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Inside. Outside, as well.
        The last effort is recent, and that is Joint Task Force
    Alpha, and that is with DOJ. DOJ initiated an initiative
    focusing on the Northern Triangle--El Salvador, Honduras, and
    Guatemala--specific to that. That, again, is a partnership with
    CBP and DOJ focusing again on organizations that are catering
    to that particular problem set. DOJ has identified about 25 HSI
    cases that they have considered top priority for that.
        So again, we are fighting the good fight in regard to human
    smuggling and trafficking, sir.
        Senator Lankford. What is the current going rate for
    coyotes in moving a person or a family?
        Mr. Jeronimo. It depends on location. If you are coming
    from Asia it could be anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000. If you
    are coming from Brazil it could be $10,000 to $15,000. If you
    are coming from Latin America, Mexico, anywhere from $5,000 to
    $10,000.
        Senator Lankford. Are you picking up any other trends on
    the trafficking of individuals coming in and from the coyotes
    as they are moving? Anything that is changing? I know it is
    always changing, but any new trends?
        Mr. Jeronimo. Nothing, sir, to report.
        Senator Lankford. We have seen before, with areas like when
    Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was announced,
    the coyotes used that moment to be able to work families in
    Central America and say, ``If you get your kids to America they
    are going to become citizens right now.'' That was not what was
    announced by the Obama Administration but that is what the
    coyotes told people. And so we had that enormous surge that
    came during that time period.
        We had another enormous surge, which has not really slowed,
    during the Biden administration, with individuals that have
    been told who knows what from Central America and other
    countries as they are being told by coyotes. When there is an
    announcement that individuals may be paid up to $450,000 if
    they were separated from the border, do you have reports yet of
    coyotes using that kind of information, from where there is
    leaked information now that there could be payments from the
    Federal Government to individuals that were illegally crossing
    in the last 4 years of $450,000, though I understand the Biden
    administration has argued with that number. They have not
    argued with that policy or denied that that policy is actually.
    They just said that number is not there. I am not going to ask
    you to verify that number. You would not know.
        But are you getting reports of people actually using that,
    saying if you come now and you are separated you may get a
    payment?
        Mr. Jeronimo. No, sir. We have not received any type of
    intelligence specific to that.
        Senator Lankford. Terrific. I hope we never do. But we will
    see a lot of other incentives and a lot of things that have
    been twisted around in the past on this.
        Madam Chair, thank you for the additional time to be able
    to pummel them with some additional questions on this. I
    appreciate that very much.
        Senator Sinema. They appear to have done just fine.
        Thank you, Senator Lankford, and thank you to our
    witnesses. With that we have reached the end of today's
    hearing, and I appreciate all of you for your time and your
    testimony. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their
    participation. This is an important subject, and I look forward
    to working with my colleagues to improves security, travel, and
    trade at our ports of entry.
        Today's hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks, until
    December 2, 2021, and that is when questions for the record are
    also due.
        Thanks again. We are adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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