[Senate Hearing 117-264]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                        S. Hrg. 117-264

                THREATS TO THE HOMELAND: EVALUATING THE
                     LANDSCAPE 20 YEARS AFTER 9/11

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

                                HEARING

                               before the

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 21, 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 NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
 





                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

47-626PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023










        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
          Christoper J. Mulkins, Director of Homeland Security
                       Sarah Pierce Kirk, Counsel
                  Kelsey N. Smith, Research Assistant
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
    Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
       Kirsten D. Madison, Minority Director of Homeland Security
     Clyde E. Hicks Jr., Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
       Jeremy H. Hayes, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
          Cara G. Mumford, Minority Professional Staff member
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                     Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk








                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Peters...............................................     1
    Senator Portman..............................................     2
    Senator Carper...............................................    18
    Senator Johnson..............................................    20
    Senator Hassan...............................................    23
    Senator Lankford.............................................    25
    Senator Paul.................................................    28
    Senator Scott................................................    31
    Senator Romney...............................................    34
    Senator Ossoff...............................................    36
    Senator Hawley...............................................    38
    Senator Rosen................................................    41
    Senator Sinema...............................................    44
    Senator Padilla..............................................    47
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    69
    Senator Portman..............................................    71

                               WITNESSES
                      Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Hon. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary, U.S. Department of 
  Homeland Security..............................................     5
Hon. Christopher A. Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of 
  Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice......................     8
Hon. Christine Abizaid, Director, National Counterrorism Center, 
  Office of the Director of National Intelligence................    10

                     Alphabetical List of Witnesses

Abizaid, Hon. Christine:
    Testimony....................................................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    98
Mayorkas, Hon. Alejandro N.:
    Testimony....................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    74
Wray, Hon. Christopher A.:
    Testimony....................................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    85

                                APPENDIX

Encounters at the Southwest Border chart.........................   105
SW Border Apprehensions..........................................   109
Seeking Information poster.......................................   110
Rodney S. Scott letter...........................................   111
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
    Mr. Mayorkas.................................................   116
    Mr. Wray.....................................................   194
    Ms. Abizaid..................................................   208








 
                THREATS TO THE HOMELAND: EVALUATING THE
                     LANDSCAPE 20 YEARS AFTER 9/11

                              ----------                              


                      TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., via 
Webex and in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. 
Gary Peters, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen, 
Padilla, Ossoff, Portman, Johnson, Paul, Lankford, Romney, 
Scott, and Hawley.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix 
on page 69.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    First I would like to thank to each of our witnesses for 
being here today as well as your service to our Nation. You 
have extremely challenging jobs and have shown an unwavering 
commitment to keeping the American people safe. Every year, 
this Committee hears from our nation's top national security 
and law enforcement leaders to examine critical threats to our 
homeland security.
    Our nation recently marked the 20th anniversary of the 
September 11th (9/11) terrorist attacks, and from the fearless 
first responders who bravely ran into danger to save others, to 
families who were torn apart, we will never forget the 
sacrifice and the sorrow of that tragic day. We must also 
continue to support our selfless servicemembers who fought in 
Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world.
    It was out of the ashes of 9/11 that the Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS) was created, with one primary mission, 
keeping Americans safe from all threats.
    In the 20 years since those horrific attacks, the threats 
to our nation's safety have become increasingly complex and 
widespread. We must stay vigilant to the threat posed by 
foreign terrorism, and we must do more to address the growing 
and deadly threat posed by domestic terrorists.
    Our national security agencies have noted that domestic 
terrorism driven by white supremacist and anti-government 
ideologies pose the most lethal violent threat to our nation's 
safety. In recent years, we have seen the tragic and deadly 
consequences of this threat, including massacres at houses of 
worship and the shocking attack on the U.S. Capitol. We must do 
more to ensure that our counterterrorism resources are being 
used effectively to address this danger and prevent further 
violence.
    Our nation also continues to experience an increasing 
number of cyberattacks, which jeopardize sensitive information 
and have the potential to disrupt our daily lives with just a 
few clicks of a button. From the SolarWinds and Microsoft 
Exchange hacks, to the ransomware attacks on the Colonial 
Pipeline, every sector of our economy and every level of our 
government are at risk of cyberattacks from foreign adversaries 
or criminal organizations.
    Our financial networks, critical infrastructure, and vital 
institutions all remain vulnerable to these relentless attacks, 
and we must ensure that we are taking every possible measure to 
secure our networks, hold these attackers accountable, and 
deter future breaches.
    Finally, one of the most challenging threats to our 
homeland security does not come from a foreign nation or 
criminal group. It does not follow an ideology. Yet year after 
year, we see the destruction caused by severe storms, 
hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters. These 
disasters, driven by worsening climate change, pose an 
existential threat to our nation and to the entire planet.
    The scale and severity of the security threats we are 
facing today can certainly be daunting, and given the 
increasing strains placed on the Department of Homeland 
Security, we must ensure they have the resources and personnel 
to effectively carry out all of these critical missions.
    From securing our borders, including our Southern Border 
that is currently seeing an unprecedented number of migrants 
seeking safety and security in the United States, to responding 
to numerous natural disasters, and taking on the lead role in 
vetting and resettling Afghan refugees, DHS is playing a vital 
role in many of the most urgent issues facing our Nation.
    DHS personnel, along with our Federal Bureau of 
Investigation (FBI) and other national security personnel, are 
on the front lines working to address so many critical 
situations.
    While many of us will never know the names of the thousands 
of personnel working tirelessly behind the scenes at your 
agencies to protect our country, we are all counting on you, 
and I appreciate each of our witnesses for taking the time to 
join us today.
    I look forward to a comprehensive and insightful discussion 
on how we can best safeguard our Nation.
    With that I turn it over to Ranking Member Portman for your 
opening comments.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\

    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
convening this incredibly important annual hearing on threats 
to the homeland, and thanks to our distinguished witnesses for 
attending. We look forward to the opportunity to hear from you 
today. There is a lot to talk about.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the 
Appendix on page 71.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The theme of the hearing is 20 years after 9/11, so our 
focus today is the evolution of the threat landscape since the 
devastating attacks on that fateful day.
    In 2001, it was the Taliban provided a safe haven for al-
Qaeda in Afghanistan, a safe haven to launch a devastating 
attack on our homeland, killing nearly 3,000 people.
    The United States responded. As our nation became all too 
aware, we needed to take the fight to the terrorists overseas 
so that they could not bring their fight here ever again. We 
needed a new security architecture to keep us safe, which 
included the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. 
It also, by the way, was the re-creation of this Committee as 
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee 
(HSGAC).
    To a large degree, you have to say we have been successful. 
We have not had a mass casualty foreign terrorist attack on 
American soil during those intervening 20 years. I do not think 
any of us would have thought that was possible back on 9/11. 
The reason for that success is not because the terrorists have 
stopped trying. It is thanks to our armed forces, intelligence 
community (IC), and law enforcement that we have succeeded in 
stopping those terrorists.
    This hearing is timely. A little more than 20 days ago, the 
last American troops withdrew hastily from Afghanistan, and the 
Taliban once again took back the government of Afghanistan. The 
new Taliban looks very much like the old Taliban, with 
terrorists on the United Nations Security Council's blacklist 
in its highest ranks. In fact, the leader of the Haqqani 
network, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization which 
maintains close ties to al-Qaeda and cooperates with ISIS-K, 
was named the acting Interior Minister. This means the Taliban 
official in charge of combating terrorism is on the FBI's most 
wanted list.
    The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Defense 
Intelligence Agency (DIA), already have moved up the timeline 
of when terror groups operating in Afghanistan are likely to 
threaten the homeland, from ``possibly two years'' to within 
one to two years. The DIA noted that is a conservative 
estimate. The CIA has already seen potential movement of al-
Qaeda into Afghanistan.
    The catastrophic way the Biden administration withdrew from 
Afghanistan, surprising our NATO allies and abandoning our 
Afghan allies, has left us without eyes and ears on the ground. 
It also signaled to the world that the United States is an 
unreliable partner.
    The rushed and unplanned nature of the evacuation also 
resulted in too many left behind, actually some American 
citizens and green card holders, and many of the Afghans who 
had stood by us as drivers, interpreters, or who worked for 
NATO or worked for the United Nations. Because of the chaos at 
the Karzai airport, it appears that many who did get evacuated 
and admitted to the United States do not having a record of 
working with the U.S. Government or our partners and yet are 
not being subject to normal security screening and vetting 
procedures.
    We have a moral responsibility to welcome the Afghan 
evacuees who stood by us, and who have had to flee their 
country because of the feckless actions of the Biden 
administration. I agree with that. We also, though, have a 
moral responsibility to do everything in our power to ensure 
the safety and security of American citizens and American 
communities by doing the proper vetting so we are not releasing 
terrorists or criminals into our ranks.
    I am disappointed, as the administration knows, that 
despite my requests since September 1, the day after the 
withdrawal, Members of this Committee have yet to receive a 
classified briefing on vetting procedures, even as we are told 
that evacuees are being resettled in our States. We cannot do 
proper oversight without basic information. I realize there was 
a classified staff briefing yesterday, a few weeks after the 
request. I was told by the staff that they did not learn 
anything in addition to what was presented in a non-classified 
setting.
    I repeat my request today, that Members of this Committee 
be provided a classified briefing as soon as possible.
    These recent events have put the heightened foreign 
terrorist threat top of mind. In fact, the Director of National 
Intelligence (DNI) has stated that, ``terrorists remain 
interested in using chemical and biological agents in attacks 
against U.S. interests and possibly the U.S. homeland.''
    The broader threat landscape, however, has evolved since 9/
11. We face an elevated terrorist threat from domestic and 
homegrown violent extremists (HVE), including lone actors. We 
have experienced a slew of large-scale cyberattacks from both 
nation-states and criminals, and increasingly, the line between 
the two is blurred. Cybercriminals in countries like Russia 
frequently operate with the tacit blessing of the government, 
where, at a minimum, officials turn a blind eye to ongoing 
crimes.
    I would say that China continues to create an issue for our 
homeland by continuing to recruit U.S.-based scientists and 
researchers to transfer U.S. taxpayer-funded intellectual 
property for China's economic and military gain.
    Further, we cannot ignore the ongoing crisis at the 
Southern Border. This also affects our homeland. The Biden 
administration's decision to dismantle the previous 
administration's border policies with no consideration of the 
consequences and nothing in its place has resulted in a 
historic surge of unlawful migrants, unaccompanied children, 
and deadly narcotics like fentanyl coming into our country. And 
make no mistake, the Mexican cartels are benefiting from this 
and gaining strength on both sides of the border.
    The trafficking of dangerous drugs across our border has 
helped fuel an addiction epidemic that has hit communities in 
my home State of Ohio particularly hard, with overdose deaths 
increasing over the last year after we had made so much 
progress in saving lives over the few years before the 
pandemic. We must redouble our efforts to stop these drugs from 
flooding our communities. As far as I am concerned, demand 
reduction remains the key, but the higher volumes reduces the 
prices of these drugs on the streets, expands the number of 
drugs available, and causes, therefore, more devastation.
    It is clear that the border is a public health and 
humanitarian crisis, and has been for months, but particularly 
now. Just look at Del Rio, Texas, where more than 10,000 
migrants, mostly Haitians who had been living in Latin America, 
some for years, have been living in squalor under a bridge. 
This is not new, by the way. It is a logical extension of what 
has been happening on the border since the Biden administration 
came to office and reversed the policies that were in place, 
again without putting in place policies to deal with what was 
totally predictable--a surge.
    It is also a national security threat. More than one in 
four migrants encountered at our border last month were not 
from Mexico or the three Central American countries sometimes 
called the Northern Triangle. Twenty-five percent were not from 
any of those countries. Nearly all of them avoided going to a 
port of entry (POE) and instead were apprehended by Border 
Patrol agents.
    The Border Patrol has now made more than one million 
apprehensions of unlawful migrants at our Southern Border since 
President Biden was inaugurated, and they will tell you a lot 
of folks got away.
    We have a lot to talk about today. We certainly have the 
right people here to talk about all of these issues, and again, 
I appreciate you being here, in person, to provide answers to 
the tough questions I imagine you will get from both sides of 
the aisle, given all the crises we face, that I mentioned.
    I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to a productive conversation 
about the threats we face and about the actions being taken to 
prevent them.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
    It is the practice of the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee to swear in witnesses, so if 
each of you will please stand and raise your right hands.
    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?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I do.
    Mr. Wray. I do.
    Ms. Abizaid. I do.
    Chairman Peters. You may be seated.
    Our first witness is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is 
the seventh Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. 
Previously he served as the Department's Deputy Secretary and 
as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 
(USCIS), and began his public service at the Department of 
Justice (DOJ).
    Mr. Secretary, thank you for appearing before this 
Committee today, and you are recognized for your opening 
statement.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ALEJANDRO N. MAYORKAS,\1\ SECRETARY, 
              U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters, 
Ranking Member Portman, and distinguished members of the 
Committee. Good morning and thank you for inviting me here 
today to discuss the threat landscape facing our homeland 20 
years after 9/11, alongside my colleagues from the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation and the National Counterterrorism 
Center (NCTC).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Mayorkas appears in the Appendix 
on page 74.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    During the past few weeks, I have attended numerous events 
to remember that tragic assault on our democracy. Each 
commemoration was a powerful reminder of why we serve, in 
memory of those whom we lost and in pursuit if our noble 
mission to protect the homeland.
    Today we face a diverse and evolving threat landscape that 
includes domestic and international terrorism, malicious cyber 
activities, an ongoing global pandemic, transnational crime, 
climate change, and more. Through the extraordinary talent and 
dedication of the more than 250,000 individuals who comprise 
our Department, we are meeting the challenge to protect our 
homeland and keep our communities safe. Every day our 
Department's personnel make tremendous sacrifices to achieve 
this mission.
    I would like to take a moment to describe the major threats 
facing our country today and the work we are doing to combat 
them.
    First, we have built a multilayered security, screening, 
and vetting architecture to combat the evolving terrorist 
threat. We remain ever vigilant to protecting the homeland from 
foreign terrorists seeking to do us harm, the very reason for 
the Department's creation, while combating the most significant 
and persistent terrorism-related threat facing our country 
today, which stems from both homegrown and domestic violent 
extremists (DVE) who are inspired by a broad range of 
ideological motivations.
    To meet this challenge, DHS has established a dedicated 
Domestic Terrorism Branch within our Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis (I&A), launched the Center for Prevention Programs and 
Partnerships (CP3) to provide communities with evidence-based 
tools and resources to address early risk factors, and 
redoubled our efforts to share timely and actionable 
information and intelligence with our partners across every 
level of government.
    This year, for the first time, we designed combating 
domestic violent extremism as a national priority area in the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant programs, 
resulting in at least $77 million being spent on capabilities 
to detect and protect against these threats in communities 
nationwide.
    At the same time, we are working with our partners in the 
intelligence community to assess the security and 
counterterrorism threats that could develop over the coming 
months and years, including those potentially related to the 
fall of the government of Afghanistan and the risks associated 
with the more permissive environments being exploited to plot 
attacks against the United States.
    Second, we continue to combat counterintelligence and 
malign threats from nation-state adversaries. These adversaries 
include the People's Republic of China (PRC), which continues 
to engage in intellectual property theft, the exploitation of 
vulnerable supply chains, and use of economic coercion to 
threaten our economic security. During the pandemic, for 
example, DHS has targeted PRC-based manufacturers to prevent 
the PRC from exploiting Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) to 
profit from the production of fraudulent personal protective 
equipment (PPE) and medical supplies that especially endanger 
our country's frontline workers. DHS has also prevented goods 
produced by forced labor from entering our markets, and 
continues to work closely with the Department of State to 
prevent the PRC's exploitation of our academic system.
    Third, as cyber threats have grown, so have our efforts to 
increase our nation's cybersecurity resilience and protect our 
critical infrastructure. Ransomware incidents are on the rise. 
Last year, victims paid an estimated $350 million in ransoms, a 
311 percent increase over the prior year, with the average 
payment exceeding $300,000.
    In July, partnership with the Department of Justice and 
other Federal agencies, DHS launched StopRansomware.gov, to 
help private and public organizations of all sizes combat 
ransomware and adopt cybersecurity best practices. Our experts 
at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), 
stood up the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) to bring 
together partners from every level of government and the 
private sector to reduce cyber risks.
    To better protect our critical infrastructure, 
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently issued 
two new security directives after soliciting industry feedback 
to strengthen the cybersecurity and resilience of our nation's 
pipelines.
    CISA and our Office of Intelligence and Analysis are also 
working with all 50 States, local jurisdictions, and election 
technology experts to keep our elections secure.
    To further lead the way, we are building a top-tier 
cybersecurity workforce by investing in the development of 
diverse talent pipelines and building the expertise to keep 
addressing changing threats. We are also increasing and 
optimizing grant programs to improve cybersecurity capabilities 
across every level of government and in local communities.
    Fourth, we continue making risk-based investments to keep 
our borders secure, including from threats posed by 
transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). We are 
collaborating with our international partners to disrupt these 
groups, combat their illicit activities like drug trafficking 
and human smuggling, and hold accountable those with ties to 
their logistical operations, while streamlining multinational 
cooperation on investigations and prosecutions.
    Fifth, DHS continues to support nationwide efforts to 
combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. FEMA has helped stand up 
more than 800 community vaccination centers, including almost 
200 mobile sites, to more equitably increase access to COVID-19 
vaccines across vulnerable and rural populations. The 
Transportation Security Administration acted to protect the 
health of the traveling public and transportation personnel by 
implementing a Federal mask mandate at airports, on commercial 
aircraft, and in various modes of service transportation.
    Meanwhile, the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and U.S. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have partnered with 
other Federal agencies to protect Americans from COVID-19-
related fraud and criminal activity, including by preventing 
more than $3 billion worth of much-needed COVID-19 relief from 
fraudulently ending up in the pockets of criminals.
    Finally, we are countering the current and growing 
existential threat posed by climate change. Hurricane Ida was 
the latest manifestation of a devastating reality, natural 
disasters rising in intensity and destructive reach. However, 
this threat is not new nor is it unique to any region.
    To help communities recover and remain resilient, President 
Biden doubled the size of the Building Resilient Infrastructure 
and Communities Program, pouring $1 billion into wildfire 
resilience efforts, flood control initiatives, and much more.
    DHS also authorized nearly $3.5 billion in hazard 
mitigation grant program funding to help States, tribes, and 
territories adapt and prepare for the impacts of the climate 
crisis.
    Further, FEMA revised its policies to overcome historical 
inequities in its aid programs and ensure a fairer and more 
equitable distribution of assistance to minority, low-income, 
and other disenfranchised communities.
    Two decades after 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security 
remains focused on protecting our country from evolving 
threats, both seen and unseen, and safeguarding our 
communities. We can execute this critical mission because of 
our incredible workforce and because of our key partners, the 
Members of this Committee, our counterparts abroad, the private 
sector, nongovernmental organizations, and local communities. 
We will remain vigilant, resilient, and agile. We will do so to 
continue countering the threats of today and of the next 20 
years.
    Thank you for your leadership and your continued support, 
and I look forward to answering your questions.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Secretary Mayorkas.
    Our next witness is Director Christopher Wray. Director 
Wray is the eighth Director of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation. Previously, Mr. Wray served as Assistant 
Attorney General (AAG) for the Criminal Division at the 
Department of Justice. He also served on the President's 
Corporate Fraud Tax Force and supervised the Enron Task Force, 
in addition to playing a key role in the national security 
objectives for the Department.
    Director Wray, think you for appearing before the Committee 
here today, and you are now recognized for your opening 
statement.

 TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER A. WRAY,\1\ DIRECTOR, 
  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    Mr. Wray. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Peters, 
Ranking Member Portman, Members of the Committee. I am honored 
to be here today to discuss the threats facing our homeland.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wray appears in the Appendix on 
page 85.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A week and a half ago, we marked a somber, really sacred 
anniversary in this country, 20 years since the September 11th 
attacks. September 11th reminds us of evil and loss, the nearly 
3,000 victims taken from us that day, and their families. But 
9/11 also reminds us of sacrifice and selflessness, of common 
purpose. It reminds us of the first responders and everyday 
heroes we lost that day, and all those who suffered illness as 
a result of their selfless work after the attacks, including 
members of our FBI family.
    Two decades later, our response to September 11th and the 
lessons learned from those attacks drive our approach to 
combating all the threats Americans face today. It was 9/11, 
after all, that turned the FBI into an agency focused on 
disrupting threats, and taught us how to build deeper, more 
effective partnerships, both here at home and around the world.
    Good thing we made those changes, because as we will 
discuss this morning, there is no shortage of dangers to defend 
against, just a flavor before we even get to terrorism. On the 
cyber front, we are now investigating over 100 different types 
of ransomware, each with scores of victims, and that is on top 
of hundreds of other national security and criminal cyber 
threats we are working against every day.
    In our violent crime work, we recently arrested over 600 
gang members in a single month. That is just one month.
    Protecting our nation's innovation, we are opening a new 
China counterintelligence investigation every 12 hours.
    Every day we receive thousands of tips into our National 
Threat Operations Center, many of which involve imminent 
threats to life, requiring swift action.
    The list goes on and on. I am not going to have time to 
discuss most of them before we get started, but I do want to 
spend a few minutes on terrorism and the challenges facing 
those protecting against it.
    Preventing terrorist attacks remains our top priority, both 
now and for the foreseeable future. Today the greatest 
terrorist threat we face here in the United States is from what 
are, in effect, lone actors. Because they act alone and move 
quickly from radicalization to action, often using easily 
obtainable weapons against soft targets, these attacks do not 
leave a lot of dots for investigators to connect, and not a lot 
of time in which to connect them.
    We continue to see individuals radicalized here at home by 
jihadist ideologies espoused by foreign terrorist organizations 
(FTO) like ISIS and al-Qaeda, what we would call homegrown 
violent extremists. But we are also countering lone domestic 
violent extremists, radicalized by personalized grievances, 
ranging from racial and ethnic bias to anti-government, anti-
authority sentiment, to conspiracy theories.
    There is no doubt about it. Today's threat is different 
from what it was 20 years ago, and it will almost certainly 
continue to change, and to stay in front of it we have to adapt 
too. That is why, over the last year and a half, the FBI has 
pushed even more resources to our domestic terrorism 
investigations. Since the spring of 2020, so the past 16, 18 
months or so, we have more than doubled our domestic terrorism 
caseload, from about 1,000 to around 2,700 investigations, and 
we have surged personnel to match, more than doubling the 
number of people working that threat from a year before.
    But we are also surging against threats by foreign 
terrorist organizations, like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Al-Shabaab. 
Their operatives continue to look for vulnerabilities, and have 
not stopped trying to carry out large-scale attacks against us. 
We are certainly watching the evolving situation in 
Afghanistan.
    Now 9/11 was 20 years ago, but for us, at the FBI, as I 
know it does for my colleagues here with me, it represents a 
danger we focus on every day. And make no mistake--the danger 
is real. Our adversaries are committed, and they are hoping to 
succeed just once, while we are working to bat 1,000.
    We are working with our partners to identify and stop 
would-be attackers before they act. Just within the past couple 
of years, we have thwarted potential terrorist attacks in areas 
like Las Vegas, Tampa, New York, Cleveland, Kansas City, Miami, 
Pittsburgh, and elsewhere.
    Now we are proud of our successes but we need to stay on 
the balls of our feet, relentlessly vigilant against the next 
plot by our adversaries and their next attempts to attack us.
    Our workforce has been battling the threat of terrorism, 
and every other threat we face, right through the teeth of a 
pandemic and rising danger to their own safety. I say that 
because over the past year we have seen a sharp and deeply 
disturbing uptick in violence against the law enforcement 
community. In the first eight months of this year, 52 law 
enforcement officers have been feloniously killed on the job. 
Just to put that in context, that is an officer murdered in 
this country every five days, and already more than it was in 
all of 2020.
    Of course, that does not even count all those who died in 
the line of duty facing the other inherent dangers of the job, 
much less the scores of agents, officers, analysts, and other 
dedicated professionals who died from COVID-19. We will be 
forever indebted for their bravery and sacrifice and are bound 
and determined to honor them all through the way we approach 
our work, while we remain focused on our ultimate mission, 
protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.
    Thank you for taking the time to hear from me today, and I 
look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Director Wray.
    Our next witness is Director Christine Abizaid. Director 
Abizaid is the Director of the National Counterterrorism 
Center. With 14 years of national security experience, she is 
the eighth Senate-confirmed Director and the first woman to 
lead the United States counterterrorism enterprise. Formerly 
she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, and as Senior 
Intelligence Analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
    Director Abizaid, thank you for appearing before this 
Committee. You are now recognized for your opening comments.

  TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTINE ABIZAID,\1\ DIRECTOR, 
  NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF 
                     NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

    Ms. Abizaid. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters, Ranking 
Member Portman, and the distinguished Members of this 
Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 
today to discuss global counterterrorism environment and to 
highlight the tireless work of the NCTC's professionals and the 
work they do to protect the homeland.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Abizaid appears in the Appendix 
on page 98.
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    As noted in my statement for the record, 20 years after 9/
11 the United States faces a changed threat from foreign 
terrorist organizations. The threat today is less acute to the 
homeland but it continues to become more ideologically diffuse 
and geographically diverse.
    Even as the United States has ended its longest war, in 
Afghanistan, and takes on a broader array of national security 
priorities, NCTC remains committed to our mission to deter and 
disrupt terrorist efforts to harm the United States, both at 
home and abroad.
    The United States continues to have success in degrading 
foreign terrorist operations, including their threat to the 
homeland, though these terrorists have proven adaptive over 
years of CT pressure.
    Turning first to the international counterterrorism 
landscape, the 26 August suicide bombing by ISIS Khorasan at 
the international airport in Kabul, which tragically killed 13 
U.S. servicemembers and scores of Afghans, illustrates that 
foreign terrorist groups continue to place a premium on attacks 
against the United States. ISIS-Khor in Iraq and Syria, in 
addition to maintaining a strategic interest in conducting 
attacks in the West, remains committed to its long-term goals 
of establishing an Islamic caliphate and is fomenting sectarian 
discord, eroding confidence in governments, and exploiting 
security gaps to create conditions favorable for seizing 
territory again after significant losses several years ago.
    For its part, al-Qaeda has changed significantly since 9/
11. The group and its affiliates and allies have repeatedly 
demonstrated their ability to adapt to changing CT environments 
and geopolitical realities. Part of this adaptation has 
included shifting from its core leadership structure in the 
Afghanistan-Pakistan region to a more geographically dispersed 
network of affiliates and veteran leaders across Africa, the 
Middle East, and South Asia.
    While years of CT pressure has degraded the al-Qaeda 
network, the group and its affiliates remain intent on using 
individuals with access to the United States to conduct 
attacks. This was most recently demonstrated by al-Qaeda in the 
Arabian Peninsula in their probably approval of a 2019 attack 
in Pensacola, Florida, where a Saudi Air Force office killed 
three and wounded eight U.S. servicemembers.
    Here in the United States, the primary threat in the 
homeland comes from individuals inspired to violence, either by 
foreign terrorist groups or other domestic grievances and 
ideologies. U.S.-based homegrown violent extremists, who are 
largely inspired by al-Qaeda or ISIS, will likely continue to 
attempt attacks because their personal and ideological 
grievances, their attraction to foreign terrorist messaging, 
and their access to weapons and targets. HVEs, they mobilize 
without specific direction from foreign terrorist and they act 
independently and often with few associates, which makes 
detection and disruption very difficult.
    Separately, one of the other most pressing threats to the 
homeland comes from domestic violent extremists, and in 
particular, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists 
and militia violent extremists, who often mobilize to violence 
independent from direction of a formal or centralized 
organization. Since 2015, the threat from these individuals has 
increased, and since 2018, we saw DVEs pose the most lethal 
terrorist threat inside the homeland.
    We assess that DVEs will continue to pose a heightened 
threat for years to come, in part because many of the factors 
that underpin their motivations are likely to endure. Social 
polarization, negative perceptions about immigration, 
conspiracy theories promoting violence, distrust of government 
institutions, and biases against minority groups will likely 
drive some DVEs to conduct attacks this year.
    We also remain vigilant against Iran and its agents and 
proxies, principally Lebanese Hizballah, and their intent in 
retaliating in the United States for the January 2020 killing 
of former Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force 
(IRGC-QF) Commander Qasem Soleimani.
    The threat from Iran also faces us overseas, and 
particularly in Iraq, where Iraqi Shia militant groups pose the 
most immediate threat to U.S. interests. These militants have 
conducted an increasing number of indirect fire and unmanned 
aerial systems (UAS) attacks against U.S. facilities in the 
past several months, with the objective of expelling U.S. 
forces from the country.
    Now looking ahead, we will continue to face a diverse range 
of threats that will play out against the backdrop of complex 
global trends, including ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, 
great power competition, and the disruptive effects of a 
changing climate and rapidly evolving technology.
    More than 15 years after its establishment, the National 
Counterterrorism Center is uniquely positioned to lead in this 
environment, working alongside our partners across the 
intelligence community, and importantly, the FBI and DHS, as we 
move into the next phase of our counterterrorism fight. We will 
continue to discover, analyze, and warn about ongoing and 
future threats as a part of a broader set of foreign policy 
challenges that the United States will face in the 21st 
Century, and we will continue to find innovative ways to 
synthesize, manage, and exploit our unique access to terrorism 
data from across a spectrum of sources to identify threats that 
might otherwise go unnoticed.
    We mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 recognizing the 
remarkable CT successes of the last two decades, and with deep 
gratitude, to the military, law enforcement, diplomatic and 
intelligence professionals who made these successes possible. 
Working together, we have succeeded in preventing another major 
9/11-style attack in the homeland, but we must not be 
complacent. NCTC and the larger intelligence community and 
homeland security infrastructure must continue to collaborate 
and maintain the ability to innovate in an era of rapid 
technological change, and stay ahead of the next evolution of 
the terrorist threat.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today. I 
look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Director Abizaid, for your 
opening comments.
    Director Wray, this morning it was reported that the FBI 
held back the digital key necessary to unlock the computers of 
hundreds of businesses and organizations that were subjects of 
a Kaseya cyberattack for almost three weeks. I want to hear why 
the Bureau would do this. Sharing the key sooner certainly 
could have potentially avoided millions of dollars in recovery 
costs, and I understand we need to both support cyberattack 
victims and bring perpetrators to justice. I understand that 
dual task that you have. But certainly I think this Committee 
would like to hear your explanation for the Bureau's actions 
related to this key.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start by saying 
that, as I am sure you can appreciate, since we are talking 
about an ongoing investigation, I am somewhat limited in what I 
can say here. But first let me say that Kaseya, in particular, 
has been a great help to law enforcement and CISA, and they 
have joined in our response to the threat, and I will say there 
is no substitute, as you and I have discussed previously, for 
private sector partnership in this space, to stop the avalanche 
of ransomware attacks that we continue to see.
    We are constantly using technical information that we 
obtain through our investigations and pushing it out to enable 
effective defense, and we do not wait for our investigation to 
be done to do it. But when it comes to the issue of encryption 
keys, or decryption keys, there is a lot of testing and 
validating that is required to make sure that they are going to 
actually do what they are supposed to do, and there is a lot of 
engineering that is required to develop a tool that is 
required, to put the tool to use. Sometimes we have to make 
calculations about how best to help the most people, because 
maximizing impact is always the goal.
    But whenever we do that, in these joint-enabled sequenced 
operations, we are doing it in conjunction with other 
government agencies, CISA and others, we make the decisions as 
a group, not unilaterally. These are complex, case-specific 
decisions designed to create maximum impact, and that takes 
time, in going against adversaries where we have to marshal 
resources, not just around the country but all over the world.
    Chairman Peters. Director Wray, you mentioned there were 
other Federal agencies that were consulted. What other Federal 
agencies were consulted in making this decision.
    Mr. Wray. Again, I want to be careful here in not talking 
about a specific ongoing investigation, other than to say that 
when we are working, as a general matter, in joint-sequenced 
operations designed to maximize impact against an adversary we, 
of course, work closely with our usual partners--prominent 
among them is CISA--but also members of the intelligence 
community and other agencies as well. Then it depends upon the 
industry whether there might be other agencies involved.
    Chairman Peters. I want to characterize your comments in 
explaining your actions. Are you saying that the key was not 
ready for the last three weeks, as was reported?
    Mr. Wray. Again, Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand why 
the keen interest in the topic, and I am trying to be as 
responsive as I can because while trying to be sensitive to an 
ongoing investigation. I am doing my best to try to be 
responsive and informative while also being careful not to, as 
Department of Justice policy prohibits me from, discussing an 
ongoing, specific investigation.
    Chairman Peters. I understand that, Director Wray, but I 
believe, this Committee certainly deserves and needs a full 
accounting of FBI cyber activities, including classified 
activities. I would hope today you could commit to me and to 
this Committee that you would provide us with a complete 
briefing on this operation, but also the broader FBI 
cybersecurity operations and plans. Would you please commit to 
the Committee that you would be willing to do that?
    Mr. Wray. I am happy to work with the Committee to see what 
more information we can provide to be helpful and responsive, 
and I certainly agree that some of that might be better done in 
a classified setting. I will have my staff follow up with yours 
to see what we can do to be more illuminating, recognizing, 
again, that some of this has to do with a very sensitive, 
ongoing, very much ongoing investigation.
    Chairman Peters. I would appreciate that.
    Secretary Mayorkas, on numerous occasions during this 
administration as well as the last administration I have asked 
for additional transparency regarding the ongoing border 
restrictions between the United States and Canada. I will tell 
you that my constituents are deeply frustrated by this, 
particularly given the trade and the relationships that people 
have across the border. Two of the busiest border crossings in 
North American are in Michigan, between Michigan and Canada. 
Those restrictions remain in place for Canadians to come 
across, who have been fully vaccinated, to enter the United 
States at land ports of entry (LPOE).
    My question to you, Mr. Secretary, will you commit to 
provide my office and the public with the specific criteria the 
administration is using to justify ongoing restrictions for 
fully vaccinated Canadians at land ports of entry?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Mr. Chairman, I most certainly will. I 
know that you have expressed your concerns directly to me on a 
number of occasions, and I can assure you that we are reviewing 
our exercise of the Title 19 authorities to restrict travel 
through the ports of entry in light of the pandemic. We are 
very mindful of the economic consequences, and not only the 
economic consequences but the consequences on family members 
who have not seen one another for quite some time. I do make 
that commitment to you.
    Chairman Peters. Could you tell us some of the criteria 
now?
    Secretary Mayorkas. We are looking primarily, Mr. Chairman, 
at the public health rationale, the fact that the arc of the 
Delta variant is not yet where we need it to be. However, the 
President did make an important announcement yesterday to 
provide relief to the 212(f) international travel restrictions 
in early November to vaccinated individuals. That is a first 
step in our ongoing review of the travel restrictions borne of 
the pandemic in its current situation here domestically.
    Chairman Peters. So why those but not Canadians?
    Secretary Mayorkas. We are taking it iteratively. We are 
looking at the situation not only at the ports of entry on our 
Northern Border but also on our Southern Border. We have heard 
similar concerns with respect to border communities on the 
south and the impact, economic and family impact of the 
restrictions. We are looking at what we can do operationally, 
and we are moving in a very sequential and controlled manner. I 
would be happy to provide more information to you after this 
hearing, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. I appreciate it, Mr. Secretary. We will 
want that information provided as quickly as possible, and we 
will look forward to meeting with your folks on it.
    I need to step aside for an Armed Services Committee 
meeting. Many of us know what it is like to be double booked. I 
will pass the gavel to Senator Hassan, who will take the gavel. 
But before I leave, I recognize Ranking Member Portman for your 
questions.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have discussed 
a broad array of threats already this morning, and I agree with 
the Chairman on the necessity for us to have the information on 
the cyber front, which is, of course, something that continues 
to grow every year in terms of a threat to our homeland. We 
talked about domestic extremists. Certainly that is a threat, 
as we have said today.
    I want to focus on the enhanced threat that just occurred 
in the past month, and that is, again, the way we left 
Afghanistan in a chaotic rushed way, and what we created in the 
meantime.
    Director Abizaid, you said in your testimony this morning 
the United States has ended its longest war. I suppose that is 
true. But in a way, we have not, have we? I mean, the war was 
about terrorism and keeping Afghanistan from being a platform 
for terrorist attacks against the United States. What we lost a 
month ago was eyes and ears on the ground and the ability to do 
just that. We had 2,500 troops there. Prior to the evacuation, 
we had not had a single casualty, thank God, in 18 months. We 
had 7,500 NATO troops with us. We had the ability to do what we 
do not have now.
    The best example of that might be what happened, 
tragically, with the drone attacks. The so-called ``over the 
horizon'' alternative that the Biden administration keeps 
talking about failed miserably, didn't it? Again, not having 
those eyes and ears on the ground makes it harder for us to 
protect the homeland. I guess in a way we ended the longest war 
but in another way we have made things more dangerous.
    Let me ask you about that. You talked about the ISIS-K 
suicide bombing as an example of a threat. That happened during 
the evacuation. Again, we had not had, thank God, a casualty in 
18 months, until we lost those 13 brave soldiers, sailors, and 
Marines. You also said in your testimony that the terrorist 
around the world are, ``using individuals who have access to 
the United States to conduct attacks.'' I look at what is going 
on with the evacuation and us not knowing who is coming to this 
country, and that is a statement of fact. We do not know, 
having tried my darndest to find out from the State Department 
and the Department of Homeland Security. It is happening so 
quickly and it was so chaotic, we just do not know.
    I would ask you, Director Abizaid, is our homeland more or 
less safe from attack following the U.S. withdrawal from 
Afghanistan?
    Ms. Abizaid. Thank you, Senator, for the question. With 
respect to Afghanistan, as I mentioned, the terrorist groups 
that we are most concerned about presenting a threat, both in 
the region but also a future external threat, is, obviously, 
one, ISIS-K, Isis-Khorasan, and two, al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda's 
affiliate there.
    Now over the years and sustained CT pressure on both 
groups, principally al-Qaeda but given ISIS-K's more recent 
arrival on the scene, also significant counterterrorism 
pressure there, has really relegated those two groups to 
primarily a regional threat.
    Now in the wake of our withdrawal, the question is at what 
point does that regional threat build to a capability and 
intent that is focused externally and particularly focused on 
the homeland, and I would say from an intelligence community 
perspective that is one of our highest priorities, which is to 
monitor and assess the degree to which those groups actually 
present an external threat.
    Senator Portman. You have done some monitoring and 
assessment of it already. I mentioned the Defense Intelligence 
Agency and CIA have adjusted their projections as to their 
threat to the homeland, and particular al-Qaeda moving back 
into Afghanistan. So would you say, again, is our homeland safe 
or less safe?
    Ms. Abizaid. The CIA and DIA assessments that I am aware of 
are within the range that we had assessed prior to the 
drawdown, one to three years. I think it is fair to say that--
--
    Senator Portman. They are saying that it is less time now, 
and they are saying that is a conservative estimate.
    Ms. Abizaid. I think it is fair to assess that it is--the 
development of those groups' external operations capability, we 
have to monitor and assess whether that is going to happen 
faster than we had predicted otherwise.
    Senator Portman. I will take that----
    Ms. Abizaid. Afghanistan is a very dynamic environment 
right now, and----
    Senator Portman [continuing]. I will take that as a yes, 
that we are less safe following the U.S. withdrawal from 
Afghanistan. I mean, I think it is pretty obviously.
    Director Wray, do you have any comments on that? Do you 
think we are more or less safe following the U.S. withdrawal 
from Afghanistan?
    Mr. Wray. I think I would share most of Director Abizaid's 
summary, and, of course, you have cited some of the information 
you have gotten from our intelligence community partners. 
Obviously, we are concerned about what the future holds, 
whether it is the possibility of another safe haven, whether it 
is the possibility of ISIS-K being able to operate more freely 
in a less secure environment, whether it is the possibility of 
events in Afghanistan serving as some kind of catalyst or 
inspiration for terrorist attacks elsewhere in the region, or 
potentially with homegrown violent extremists.
    Senator Portman. Does it concern you that the Haqqani 
Network leader, whose name is Haqqani, is now the acting 
Secretary of the Interior of Afghanistan?
    Mr. Wray. It certainly concerns me.
    Senator Portman. He is on your Most Wanted List, is he not?
    Mr. Wray. I believe so.
    Senator Portman. Look. The question is what do we do now, 
and I hope that we have an enhanced response to the enhance 
threat, and not just the kind of feckless drone strike that we 
saw, and tragic drone strike that we saw.
    With regard to the evacuees, Mr. Secretary, we have not had 
a chance to talk yet. I know you tried to reach me, and I 
appreciate that. I do think that we have a real problem here. I 
mean, the best numbers we have are that very few of the people 
who have come over are so-called Special Immigrant Visas 
(SIVs), meaning the people who actually helped us, who were 
drivers or interpreters or otherwise assisted the U.S. effort. 
Secretary Blinken, in his testimony last week, said there are 
about 20,000 people who had applied for SIV, and 708 of them 
have come through the evacuation, as far as we know. Those are 
the best numbers we have.
    In fact, when you look at who has come, not only did we 
leave American citizens behind, and obviously leave a lot of 
these SIVs behind who, stood by us, but it looks like there are 
about 6,500 American citizens who came. That is about 11 
percent, about 3,500 lawful permanent residents. That is under 
six percent. There are about 3,000 people with visas, including 
these SIVs. That is about 5.5 percent. The rest, around 75 
percent, of the people who came are called ``parolees,'' 
meaning they do not fit in any of those categories. We are 
pushing very hard to get the information. Again, we are 
desperate to have a classified briefing to be able to get into 
that, because apparently you cannot provide it in an open 
setting, or maybe just do not have the information.
    But does that concern you, that three-quarters of the 
people who we have brought into this country--and, by the way, 
we have brought about half the people into America, about 
60,000, and about 120,000 are still overseas, and we are told 
that among those people overseas there are even fewer American 
citizens or permit green card holders, or SIVs. But does it 
concern you that we do not have in place a way to properly vet 
and handle these individuals, including allowing those 
individuals to walk off of military bases if they choose to do 
so today?
    Mr. Wray. Ranking Member Portman, first of all, as a 
preliminary matter, I was disappointed to learn of your 
disappointment with respect to the information that you have 
received, even in the classified context, and I will----
    Senator Portman. We have not had a classified briefing yet.
    Mr. Wray. Yesterday, I understand, the staff----
    Senator Portman. The staff had one, and their report to me, 
at least, was that they did not receive anything new that they 
had not already received, including in our phone call 
yesterday, which was not classified.
    The point is, we would get whatever you all need to do to 
get us the information. We do not have the information.
    Mr. Wray. Precisely why I wanted to articulate my apology 
and make sure that we remedy that situation right away.
    Senator Portman. Thank you.
    Mr. Wray. You are entitled to that information.
    Senator Portman. Thank you.
    Mr. Wray. We do have a robust screening and vetting 
process, in addition to expertise both in the transit countries 
and here domestically, to ensure the safety and security of the 
American people. Let me say, with respect to the population of 
individuals who are not American citizens, lawful, permanent 
residents, or special immigrant visa holders, we also have, in 
that remaining population, individuals who applied for special 
immigrant visas but whose applications had not yet been 
completed at the time of the evacuation. We have individuals 
who have been employed locally in Afghanistan by the United 
States who have assisted us in Afghanistan. We have other 
individuals who qualify for special immigrant visa status, 
individual who qualify for P-1 or P-2 classification of 
refugees. It is a very mixed population, and we screen and vet 
that remaining group as we screen and vet all.
    Senator Hassan. [Presiding.] Thank you.
    Senator Portman. We will have a chance to get into this 
more later, but there is some discrepancy there, but we look 
forward to talking more.
    Senator Hassan. Senator, I will note that there is going to 
be a second round of questions, and we have gone well over 
here, so I am going to turn to Senator Carper now.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

    Senator Carper. Thanks very much. I am the last Vietnam 
veteran serving in the U.S. Senate. I remember full well our 
withdrawal from Vietnam. I remember watching on television as 
the American helicopters rose from the ground in Saigon, and 
attached to them, all over those helicopters, were Vietnamese 
people trying to get out of that country.
    I remember watching those helicopters rise into the sky and 
people fall off of those helicopters to their death. As I 
watched the withdrawal and the effort to try to get 125,000 
people out of Afghanistan a month or so again, I was reminded 
of what happened in Vietnam, I think in 1974.
    I think from the time that Donald Trump--and I am not a 
real political guy, as my collogues know--but from the moment 
he sat down with the Taliban and began a negotiation, cut our 
presence to 2,500 people, I think the die was well cast. I 
think the pitch was pretty well telegraphed. I said to myself, 
this may not end well, and it did not.
    I think the question for us now is what do we do now? What 
do we do now? We are out of Afghanistan. We are trying to make 
sure that about 125,000 other people, Afghans who helped us, 
that they have a chance to get out of there and to be resettled 
here, and I think our challenge is how do we handle the 
resettlement? How do we handle that? Mr. Secretary, that is a 
big part of your help, helped by Delaware and Jack Markell, our 
former Governor, to make it go well.
    I think one of the questions for me today is what do we 
need to be doing, not just in this Committee, and not just in 
the Senate, but what do we need to be doing as a body writ 
large to help make sure that the folks that are coming here 
have a new chance in their lives, have a chance to get settled. 
A lot of them want to work. We have a lot of employers that are 
looking for workers. Maybe at the end of the day something 
good, hopefully, can come out of something very tragic.
    I stood on the tarmac with the President, military 
leadership, my congressional delegation, about a month ago as 
we received the sacred remains of 12 of our heroes--Navy, 
Marines, Army--and it was a sad and hard day.
    What do we do now, going forward? There is a lot to do. We 
need to work together to make sure that we learn from what has 
happened in the past, we learn from what has happened in the 
last 20-some years, and go forward.
    With that having been said, I want to ask my first 
question, if I could, to Director Wray. In 2020, the FBI 
arrested 180 individuals on domestic terrorism-related matters. 
Of these arrests, 75 percent were identified as white 
supremacist extremists. For years now we have been hearing 
about the rising threat of racially motivated attacks, 
specifically attacks carried out by white supremacists. You may 
have heard me say before that in order to address a problem we 
must understand and address the root causes of that problem.
    Director Wray and Secretary Mayorkas, why have we seen such 
a rise in racially and ethnically motivated extremism and 
violence in this country in recent years, and what is the root 
cause and how are we tackling it? Mr. Secretary.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator Carper, let me, if I may, take 
a moment to answer a point you made, or respond to a point you 
made. There is important legislation that is pending that would 
bestow upon individuals evacuated from Afghanistan the same 
benefits that refugees receive, and that would assist in their 
resettlement here in the United States and their integration 
into our communities. We are extraordinarily proud and inspired 
by the unity that we see across the country.
    We have seen, regrettably, over the last several years, 
Senator, a rise in the manifestation of hate. We have seen the 
propagation of false narratives. We have seen an increase in 
anti-government sentiments. We are very watchful of, and 
vigilant in response to any signs of connectivity between those 
ideologies and acts of violence. That is where our focus is.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Director Wray, 
please, same question. Root cause--what is it and what are we 
doing about it?
    Mr. Wray. I think our focus is, of course, on the violence, 
not on the ideology itself. I would say that one of the things 
that we have done, about now two years ago, is create a 
domestic terrorism hate crimes fusion cell, which was designed 
to bring together both our domestic terrorism experts as well 
as our hate crimes experts, and try to get ahead of the threat 
and be more proactive in going against the threat. We are very 
proud, for example, of the work of that fusion cell in 
preventing an attempted attack on a synagogue outside of Las 
Vegas, for example.
    I will say that a big part of the threat that you are 
asking about is the social media dimension. Some of these same 
people before might have been stewing away in the basement or 
the attic, in one part of the country, and not communication 
with each other. But today terrorism moves at the speed of 
social media, and you have the ability of lone actors, 
disgruntled in one part of the country, to spin up similar, 
like-minded individuals in other parts of the country, and urge 
them into action or inspire them into action. I think that is a 
huge part of the threat that you are asking about.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
    Another question, if I could, with respect to Afghanistan 
and counterterrorism. This would be for all three witnesses. I 
would like to start, if I could, with Director Abizaid, please.
    The question. As we grapple with the fall of the government 
of Afghanistan, our focus remains on how to get Americans and 
our at-risk allies to safety. However, as we know, and as I 
believe you have mentioned in your testimony, ma'am, terrorist 
organizations thrive when they can exploit instability and weak 
government institutions. That said, it is important that we 
look ahead to our ever-changing landscape in that region, 
following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
    To that end, I would like to ask each of you to take a 
moment to address the following: How has our threat landscape 
changed since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan just three 
weeks ago, and how are your agencies working to address the 
shifting threat landscape that will undoubtedly continue to 
evolve?
    I have a follow-up, that is the one I would like you to 
tackle. Please, if you would.
    Senator Hassan. I would ask each of you to try to be 
relatively brief. There will be a second round of questions.
    Senator Carper. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Abizaid. Thank you very much. The threat from 
Afghanistan I think is the top of our priority in terms of 
understanding what that dynamic landscape is likely to produce 
in terms of an external threat. We do think that, principally, 
the operating groups--ISIS-K and al Qaeda--present a 
significant threat in the region. They are going to have to 
contend with the new de facto government in Afghanistan, the 
Taliban, principally ISIS-K. This will be an absolute top 
priority as we develop our intelligence capabilities, our over-
the-horizon capabilities, to make sure that we are monitoring 
any changes in the threat landscape and able to arm 
policymakers to address that.
    Senator Carper. Thank you. Thank you very much. Madam 
Chair, I am going to ask that our other two witnesses respond 
for the record to that same question. Thanks very much. It is 
good to see you all. Thank you very much for being here, for 
your service, and for your leadership of the men and women with 
whom you serve. Thank you.
    Senator Hassan. I will note in addition to the response for 
the record I am sure others will be asking you a similar 
question and you can elaborate on Senator Carper's question.
    Senator Johnson.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Secretary Mayorkas, I am putting up a 
chart that I have been keeping on apprehensions at the 
southwest border.\1\ Just to give you some quick numbers here, 
to date, this calendar year, there have been almost 1.3 million 
apprehensions. We are averaging, over the last two months, 
6,700 to 6,800 people per day. That is a large caravan per day 
being apprehended by Border Patrol. Eight hundred to 1,100 
known got-aways, which would equate to somewhere over 300,000 
got-aways, known got-aways, for the year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix 
on page 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    If you annualize these figures, a couple hundred thousand 
people per month, we will be up to about 2.1 million 
apprehensions. Add the getaways--300,000 to 400,000--and we are 
up to 2.5 million people.
    You have repeatedly stated that our borders are not open; 
they are closed. Do you honestly believe that our borders are 
closed?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I do, and let me speak to 
that.
    Senator Johnson. Now let me ask you a couple of questions 
here. This Committee received--it was dated September 11th, but 
apparently this letter was not received until Thursday. I did 
not find out about it until yesterday. I released it to the 
public immediately--by recently retired U.S. Border Patrol 
Chief Rodney Scott. In this letter, former Chief Scott states 
he is sickened by the avoidable and rapid disintegration of 
what was arguably the most effective border security in our 
nation's history, and, of course, the chart shows it.
    We had pretty well secured the border. We had stopped the 
flow of unaccompanied children. We had stopped the flow of 
family units, because of the migrant protection protocols 
(MPP), the agreements that President Trump put in place, the 
building of the wall. We were serious about border security 
until your administration took office. You stood before this 
Committee and said that you would enforce the laws. You have 
not done that.
    Let me go on. Chief Scott says, ``To think that well-
resourced terrorist networks, criminal organizations, and 
hostile nations are not going to do the same''--in other words, 
exploit the open border--``is naive.''
    Here is what is very troubling. He said, ``The Secretary 
and other political appointees within DHS have provided 
factually incorrect information to congressional 
representatives and to the American public.''
    Let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, of the 1.3 million people 
that we have apprehended, how many people have been returned, 
how many people are being detained, and how many people have 
been dispersed? I want some numbers here. We have 1.3 million 
people. How many people have been returned, how many people are 
being detained, and how many people have been dispersed to all 
points around America?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I would be pleased to provide 
you with that data.
    Senator Johnson. I want them now. Why don't you have that 
information now?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I do not have that data in 
front of me.
    Senator Johnson. Why not? Why don't you have that basic 
information?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I want to be accurate in the 
information.
    Senator Johnson. I am looking for ballpark figures. Is it 
about half? Have we dispersed about half of that? Are we up to 
about 600,000 people we have dispersed?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, these are the tools that we 
employ. We use the Title 42 authority, that is the public 
health authority empowered by the Centers for Disease Control 
(CDC), to expel individuals in light of the----
    Senator Johnson. I am hearing that you are not using that 
to the full extent, and that we have 40, 50 percent of people, 
even apprehended under Title 42, that are not being returned. 
Is that accurate?
    Secretary Mayorkas. That is actually inaccurate.
    Senator Johnson. OK. I you are saying that is inaccurate--
--
    Senator Hassan. Senator, would you care to let the witness 
finish an answer?
    Senator Johnson. I actually want answers to my questions. 
What is the real figure then?
    Secretary Mayorkas. If I may say, Senator, we use the Title 
42 authority, the public health authority, of the Centers for 
Disease Control to the fullest extent we are able to.
    Senator Johnson. What is the percent that you are returning 
under Title 42? It is about 750,000 people apprehended under 
Title 42. How many of those individuals have been returned, 
under Title 42?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I will provide that data to 
you.
    Senator Johnson. You are saying that 40 to 50 percent is 
not accurate. If you know that that is not accurate you must 
have the real number.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, what I said was not accurate 
was your assertion that we are not using Title 42 authority to 
the fullest extent that we can.
    Senator Johnson. No, that is not what I said at all. I said 
we are not returning everybody under Title 42.
    We are dispersing a number of those individuals.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, we are not doing that, not for 
reasons of our limitation of use that we impose on ourselves, 
but rather because certain of our capacity to return people 
under Title 42 is constrained by the Mexican authority's 
ability to receive them. This is a matter of bilateral and 
multilateral relationships. We exercise the Title 42 authority 
to the fullest extent that we can. We then work with Mexico to 
assess what its capacity to receive individuals is----
    Senator Johnson. OK. You are talking about the process. I 
want numbers. I am going to expect numbers.
    By the way, in our last hearing, which you did not stick 
around for a second round of questions and you did not come in 
here in person, I sent you questions for the record. I have 
gotten no response whatsoever. You came before this Committee 
and you committed to responding to congressional oversight, and 
you have not done so. According to former Chief Scott, you have 
provided factually incorrect information to Congress. We are 
expecting you to up your game as it relates to congressional 
oversight.
    Let me quick switch to Afghanistan. We had a briefing 
yesterday morning, a telephone briefing, and one of the 
assertions is that of the 124,000 Afghans that were evacuated 
out of Afghanistan, the vast majority, are almost all worked 
for some government agency, the military or whatever.
    I asked the question, ``How do you know that?'' I did not 
get an answer. I have also talked to the commanding general and 
the people on the ground at Fort McCoy that have about 13,000 
of these Afghans in their custody right now in Tomah, 
Wisconsin, or Sparta, Wisconsin. I continue to ask. I 
understand the screening, that we are screening against the 
terrorist watch list and the no-fly list, that type of thing. I 
understand how if, for example, an ISIS fighter or al-Qaeda 
terrorist, if they just happened to be on one of those watch 
lists, if we have a match we are going to keep them out of the 
country.
    What are we doing to positively identify people, to connect 
them to these agencies or the members of the military that they 
did have a connection with, so that we have positive ID before 
we disperse? Because let's face it, 124,000 people, we have 
700,000 SIVs, we have about 6,000 U.S. citizens. That leaves 
117,000 people, we do not know who they are. How do we know who 
they are, positively, not in terms of derogatory information?
    Secretary Mayorkas. So not only do we vet individuals 
against our intelligence databases but we also vet them against 
the Department of Defense databases. We capture their 
biographic and biometric information in the transit countries 
before they are allowed to board flights to the United States. 
We have expert screeners and vetters whom we have deployed to 
those transit countries, so that they can use their expertise 
in addition to the information that we have captured, 
biometrically and biographically, before they board their 
flights.
    Senator Johnson. Many do not even have IDs.
    Senator Hassan. The Senator's time has expired. I will now 
recognize myself for my round of questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN

    I want to thank the Ranking Member as well as Chair Peters 
for this hearing. I want to thank the witnesses today not only 
for being here but for your service to our country, and I hope 
you will thank all the women and men you work with for their 
service, as well.
    Secretary Mayorkas, I want to start where Senator Peters 
left off on the issue of the current status of the Northern 
Border. As you know, I asked you about this in July. You and 
your staff were part of a Zoom meeting that we had with 
business leaders in New Hampshire as well as representatives of 
the Canadian Consul General's office in August. I have to say I 
was very disappointed with the administration's decision 
yesterday about the Canadian border.
    Right now--I want to be clear--non-vaccinated Canadians who 
have a negative COVID test can get on a plane and fly to the 
United States, but vaccinated Canadians--and they have a higher 
vaccination rate that we cannot cross a point of entry into our 
country.
    One of the things that came up in August, in our meeting, 
was the Department's obligation to assess the economic impact 
of border closures on the domestic economy. For States like 
mine, where tourism is the second-largest sector, I want to 
understand whether you have provided that analysis to the White 
House--you said in our meeting that ultimately this is a White 
House task force decision--because I do not understand the 
public health rationale here at all for closing the Northern 
Border to vehicular traffic when it is essentially open to air 
traffic.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I know of your disappointment. 
You have expressed it quite clearly to me. I should say that 
the decision is an all-of-government decision. The relevant 
equity holders are involved in the decisionmaking. We are very 
mindful of the economic impact. We are reviewing both the 
public health and the family impact consequences of our 
decision on a daily basis, and we are proceeding iteratively in 
light of, quite frankly, the arc of the Delta----
    Senator Hassan. I understand that, and I am going to turn 
to some other questions now. But this is the same response we 
have gotten for weeks and months, without anybody explaining to 
use the public health rationale for a decision that is keeping 
Canadians and Americans from seeing each other, businesses from 
doing their business with each other, tourists from coming to 
States like mine.
    Nothing like being at National Association for Stock Car 
Auto Racing (NASCAR) in mid-July in Loudon, New Hampshire, our 
biggest single event of the year, and realizing that our stands 
were partly empty because the Canadians who usually visit and 
enjoy the Magic Mile could not come, even though they had a 
high vaccination rate and the public health threat was not 
explained at all, and especially in light of the fact that we 
were allowing Canadians to fly in, just not drive in.
    I will look forward to getting some more detailed response 
from the administration.
    Now I want to turn to both Secretary Mayorkas and Director 
Wray about the issue of al-Qaeda. Some assessments indicate 
that al-Qaeda could reconstitute itself and be capable of 
threatening the U.S. homeland in the next one to two years. 
What are the FBI and DHS each doing to detect, investigate, and 
disrupt possible al-Qaeda attacks on the homeland amid 
assessments of their resurgence?
    We will start with you, Director Wray.
    Mr. Wray. I appreciate the question. Certainly as we get to 
the 20th anniversary here now, it is worth remembering that al-
Qaeda has not stopped trying to hit us. For us, if there is 
good news, the good news is that we are in a fundamentally 
different posture here in terms of the FBI's stance than we 
were at the time of 9/11, and that starts with our over 200 
joint terrorism task forces, which encompass something like 
4,500 different Federal, State, and local partners.
    We are aggressively using those task forces all over the 
country to engage with sources, follow up with ties between 
subjects that we have under investigation with individuals 
overseas, working with our foreign partners to put information 
together. We are putting a heavy focus on community outreach as 
the evacuees settle here in the United States, to both try to 
get in front of any radicalization that could occur while they 
are here, but also to try to open up the lines of communication 
to make sure that if somebody sees something about someone in 
those communities that they will say something to us about it.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. Secretary Mayorkas?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, we continue to screen and vet 
individuals seeking to arrive in the United States by any 
means--sea, land, and air. We have not relaxed our vigilance 
over the years.
    We speak very frequently about a rise in prominence of 
certain types of threats--the domestic violent extremists, the 
homegrown violent extremist. That does not mean that that rise 
in prominence suggests that we have taken our eye, our focus, 
off the prior iteration that is ever present.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. Another question for you both. 
Terrorists and criminals are using cryptocurrency to facilitate 
their activities. Foreign terrorist organizations have used 
cryptocurrency to directly solicit donations to their 
organizations and to launder money through the cover of 
charities to further their goals.
    Director Wray and Secretary Mayorkas, are the FBI and DHS 
tracking the use of cryptocurrencies for the financing of 
terrorism and other homeland security threats? What are you 
doing to combat the use of cryptocurrencies for terrorist 
financing? Director?
    Mr. Wray. You are exactly right--cryptocurrency now being 
used across a wide range of threats, both the ones you 
mentioned and others. We are seeing it in everything from 
buying criminal tools like botnets to laundering proceeds, 
evading sanctions, as you say, raising money for terrorist 
operations, darknet marketplaces. Then, of course, all of it 
boils down to making it harder and harder for us to follow, and 
then ideally seize the money.
    Some of the things that we are doing are we have created a 
virtual currency evolving threat team at headquarters that has 
our subject matter experts designed to help with training and 
investigations in all of our field offices. We have a virtual 
currency response team to assist with that. We are engaged with 
academia and the expert community, looking at new tools, 
technical tools and techniques.
    But it is becoming, I think, a phenomenon that permeates 
pretty much every program we have, and I do not expect that to 
change. In fact, if anything, I expect it to increase.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you. And just briefly, Secretary 
Mayorkas.
    Secretary Mayorkas. The Director and I have spoken about 
this very issue a number of times, Senator. It is a concern of 
ours, an increasing concern. We, in the Department of Homeland 
Security, our United States Secret Service conducts 
investigations alongside with the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, and just a few weeks ago I met with Chief 
Executive Officers (CEOs) of major financial institutions to 
see what more we can do to address this challenge.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you very much. Senator Lankford.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD

    Senator Lankford. Thank you. Thank you all for being here.
    Secretary Mayorkas, let me run through some quick numbers 
of things that are just requests that we have outstanding, 
trying to be able to get additional information. None of this 
should be difficult, but we are trying to get our hands around 
what is happening with the refugees and parolees that are 
coming from Afghanistan.
    So just some quick things that we want to be able to follow 
up on. I am not expecting an answer right now, but we do need a 
follow-up on it. We understand from the administration over 
100,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan. We have 
heard a second number that 37,500 are actually coming into the 
United States and going through process. We do not know the 
remaining, where they are going, who they are. Are they coming 
here, or not?
    We do not know the breakdown of refugees and parolees. We 
do not know the breakdown of SIVs and what are called ``partial 
SIV'' immigrant visas, or folks that were American citizens and 
green card holders. There are some very basic pieces of 
information that we keep trying to be able to get that we 
cannot get at this point.
    We are also trying to get information about for individuals 
that come into the United States, that go through the vetting 
process, that fail the vetting process, what will happen to 
them, or for individuals that come in as parolees but then 
commit criminal acts, what will happen to those individuals? We 
already have reports of some of the locations where some Afghan 
parolees are being held that there have been some sexual 
assaults that have happened in those locations, and we are 
trying to get more information about that, and to find out what 
happens to those individuals and where things go.
    None of those should be unrealistic questions. Those all 
should be data points that should be coming to you, and we want 
to know if we can get those and how quickly we can get those.
    Secretary Mayorkas. May I share some of that data with you 
now, Senator?
    Senator Lankford. Yes.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Over 60,000 individuals actually 
arrived in the United States, after screening and vetting. 
There are approximately 12,000 Afghan evacuees located in the 
transit third countries.
    Chairman Peters [Presiding.] Mr. Secretary, your 
microphone, I think, is off.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I apologize. Of the over 60,000 
individuals who have been brought into the United States--and I 
will give you approximate figures and I will verify them--
approximately 7 percent have been United States citizens, about 
6 percent have been lawful permanent residents, approximately 3 
percent have been individuals who are in receipt of their 
special immigrant visas. The balance of that population are 
individuals whose applications have not yet been processed for 
approval, who may qualify as SIVs and have not yet applied, who 
qualified, or would qualify, I should say, as P-1 or P-2 
refugees, who have been employed by the United States 
government in Afghanistan, and are otherwise vulnerable Afghan 
nationals, such as journalists, human rights advocates, et 
cetera.
    Senator Lankford. Right. But those individuals, we need to 
know how their vetting process is going. This goes back to 
Senator Johnson's question earlier. How are we getting a 
positive ID on who this person is, not just saying they are not 
on the terrorist watch list so they must be OK. Do we really 
know this is a journalist? Do we really know--what is the 
connection point on it?
    There is also a very odd request that came in. By the way, 
thank you for the data on that. We will follow up on the rest. 
There was an odd request that came in from the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB). OMB asked Congress to include in 
the continuing resolution (CR) that is coming up next week, 
asked Congress to waive all grounds of inadmissibility for 
Afghan parolees.
    I have to tell you, I was a little astounded when I saw 
that, to say they would like to include that in there, because 
the grounds for inadmissibility for Afghan parolees are things 
like terrorism, association with terrorist organizations, money 
laundering, human trafficking, drug trafficking, polygamy, 
prostitution, persecutive religious or individuals based on 
religious or political opinion, those who have commissioned 
torture or extrajudicial killings.
    I was a little astounded that OMB asked would you waive all 
these grounds and allow us to be able to move people, 
regardless of these. Where did that request come from?
    Secretary Mayorkas. There must be a miscommunication, 
because we actually deny entry, we deny admission to 
individuals in many of those categories.
    Senator Lankford. Right, and should.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I will have to drill down on that.
    Senator Lankford. Yes. This was the request that came from 
OMB, a request to be able to put it into the continuing 
resolution so future parolees would not be denied based on 
these things. I have to tell you, I am a little bit confused by 
that, and I would tell you, I would adamantly oppose 
withdrawing any of those, and I would assume you would as well.
    Secretary Mayorkas. There must be some miscommunication 
there, Senator, and I will look into that immediately.
    Senator Lankford. OK. Let's follow up on that, to be able 
to make sure that stays clear, that Congress is not going to 
give up that restriction for any of those individuals that are 
coming into the country.
    You and I have spoken before--shifting subjects on our 
Southwest Border, about MPP, that the Federal courts have 
stepped back in and said to you, you have to reinstate the 
Trump policy for the Migrant Protection Protocols, and to be 
able to put those back in place. You told me you were going to 
deliver to me a timeline and the process of where that was 
going to go, how you were going to follow the Federal courts to 
be able to reinstate that policy.
    I have not received that document yet. Where is that 
document and that timeline?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I owe you that timeline. The 
difficulty is, of course, that a predicate to the 
implementation of MPP, as we are required to do, pursuant to 
court order, is our ongoing negotiations with Mexico. I do owe 
that to you.
    Senator Lankford. That would be great. I would like to be 
able to see that timeline and be able to know what status we 
have in that.
    Last summer you also told me that you were going to get to 
me by mid-August, during our budget hearing, you were going to 
get to me by mid-August the ICE enforcement guideline update. 
That has been a preliminary document that has been sitting out 
there for a while that you and I have both spoken about.
    I do not have that final document yet. You had told me 
before it would be done by mid-August. Where are we on that?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I expect to publish new guidelines by 
September 30th. That is my goal.
    Senator Lankford. Do you expect that recent crossers will 
still be a priority on that?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I do.
    Senator Lankford. Where are we on enforcement for recent 
crossers? We had some information that we got in late last 
night from the Enforcement Removal Office (ERO), saying that 
107,817 individuals have been released into the United States, 
with different statuses, and that has been changed. That was 
the notice to report. That has now been changed to different 
notations on that. But 107,000 of those individuals. We have 
quite a few of those, tens of thousands, that have now not 
reported. That would be recent crossings.
    One of the questions I am going to have is, are we in 
pursuit of any of those individuals that did get a notice to 
report but then have not actually reported? Are those in the 
priorities, and have we actually picked up any of those folks 
for detention?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, my understanding is of that 
figure, approximately 75 percent have indeed reported within 
the timeframe or within their reporting timeframe. As to those 
who have failed to report, that would qualify as an enforcement 
priority of ours.
    Senator Lankford. The best guess that we have at this point 
is about 28,963, as of last night, are beyond their reporting 
timeframe. That is around 29,000 people so far that have not 
reported, that were given a notice to report, that I want to 
know where are they and are we actually pursuing those 
individuals.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Those individuals we do consider to be 
a priority for enforcement, Senator.
    Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you. I will wait for a second 
round.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Senator Paul, 
you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL

    Senator Paul. Thank you. Director Wray, when Orwell first 
wrote 1984 people were concerned about that dystopian future, 
what it might mean, Big Brother invaded our privacy, our homes, 
our communications. But defenders of privacy took some 
consolation in the fact that the technology did not exist for 
two-way TVs, and so much of it seemed so futuristic.
    Now U.S. intelligence agencies have the ability to record 
and listen to every phone call in the world. We have sometimes 
collected phone calls from an entire country, for an entire 
month at a time. We even have done it here at home, in America. 
For years, the National Security Agency (NSA) collected 
millions of Americans' data without first having an 
individualized warrant.
    James Clapper notoriously lied, as we all know, to Congress 
about this massive surveillance program. He is now paid to 
deliver highly partisan rhetoric on a left-wing news outlet. 
Many in the FBI have been accused of bias. Some have been 
convicted. Some have been let go--McCabe, Kleinsmith, Peter 
Strzok, Lisa Page.
    It is kind of hard to argue that somehow we can get people 
in the FBI that are above bias. It seems to be something that 
goes with the territory. Maybe it was a bad spate of time where 
we had a whole bunch of them all at once. But it is a problem.
    When we investigate a Presidential campaign, I think it is 
important that we realize the potential for bias that exists in 
the people bring an investigation forward, but also incredibly 
important that we should devolve, or at least consider using 
the Constitution and not using warrants that are used on 
foreigners.
    We have two different standards. We have a constitutional 
standard, which is typically used for Americans, or we use the 
Fourth Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment says you have to 
have probable cause, of a crime.
    The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court 
standard is not a Fourth Amendment. It is an extra-
constitutional standard. It is less than the Constitution. It 
is probably cause of being associated with a foreign 
government. The problem is, is that when we have Presidential 
candidates they are all going to have foreign policy advisors. 
Most of them will have longstanding history in either 
government of some sort. They will have people who do talk to 
foreigners all of the time.
    So you can see how someone with bias--and I think that is 
what happened during the investigation that turned out to be 
untrue on the Russia collusion--so we had a massive 
investigation of a Presidential campaign, and I do not think 
enough of us have stepped back to say, ``My goodness. Should we 
be using FISA warrants for the foreign intelligence 
surveillance court? Should we be using that kind of warrant on 
an American?'' particularly an American running for office who 
has all of these contacts.
    Do you think it is appropriate that we use FISA court 
warrants to investigate Presidential campaigns?
    Mr. Wray. What I do think is appropriate is that we use 
FISA warrants to investigate counter-intelligence threats to 
the United States, as long as it is done consistent with the 
minimization and querying procedures that are carefully 
approved by----
    Senator Paul. You do not think there was any problem with 
this investigation with the Crossfire Hurricane? You think it 
was all completely appropriate, nobody in the chain of command 
was biased, and it occurred because they were curious? We just 
indicted one of the Clinton lawyers yesterday for lying to you 
guys. You guys took it, hook, line, and sinker, and said, ``Oh 
well, we will investigate a major Presidential candidate.'' Of 
course it is a huge problem, and if you do not see that there 
is a problem, and that we need more controls on this, and that 
we need to somehow obey the Constitution, I would say the same 
for President Biden. I would say the same for a President of 
any party. What a crazy, upturned world.
    The bias is there. There is no way to--the reason we have 
checks and balance with the Judiciary is so we can kind of get 
over the potential bias that occurs, in the FBI, the CIA, or 
anywhere else. If you do not have to go to a court, and you go 
to a court that does not obey the Constitution, that is held in 
secret, that is not justice, and it is going to be ripe for 
abuse.
    You do not agree with that?
    Mr. Wray. There are parts of what you said that I would 
like to weigh in on. First, as to what happened in the so-
called Crossfire Hurricane matter, I would say to you today, 
and I have said publicly on a number of occasions, that what 
that inspector general report describes, by certain FBI 
personnel, I consider to be unacceptable and unrepresentative 
of the FBI that I see every day, having joined in 2017, and not 
something that I think can ever happen again. I want to make 
sure that you and I are talking not past each other on that.
    Senator Paul. I think----
    Mr. Wray. Second, I have put in place over 40 corrective 
measures, everything the inspector general has recommended, and 
then some, to make sure that what happened there does not 
happen again.
    Senator Paul. I think that is admirable, and I appreciate 
that point of view. But, when Hamilton wrote that if men were 
angels, we would not need the Constitution, we still are 
relying on angels working at the FBI. We are relying on you 
saying we are going to get a better set of people, we are not 
going to have that bias anymore. I think that is admirable. 
That is what I would want in someone being the director.
    But what we need is something beyond that, and this is what 
our Founding Fathers did when they set up the Fourth Amendment, 
is we had a Constitution, and we had the Fourth Amendment, an 
incredibly important amendment, and then we had a judicial 
system. The FISA court does not obey the Fourth Amendment. It 
has a less-than-constitutional standard. It allows you to have 
warrants without obeying the Fourth Amendment, and people do 
not realize this. You use FISA warrants that do not obey the 
Fourth Amendment. You have a lower standard for going after 
foreigners.
    I am actually OK with that. If you are not a U.S. citizen 
and you are investigating someone overseas, and you are 
eavesdropping on them, I am actually fine with the FISA 
standard. But I am not fine with a FISA standard for Americans, 
particularly Americans who are running for office, particularly 
for the person running for the highest office, who is 
interconnected with all kinds of countries, and always will be. 
Once you get biased people, once there is not perfection and we 
get biased people in the FBI, the problem is the system can be 
abused.
    I think the only fix, it is admirable to have some 
regulations and some checks and balances you put in place, but 
the only real fix would be we should obey the Constitution. I 
do not think Americans nor political candidates should be 
investigated using a foreign intelligence surveillance court.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Senator, for your kind words about the 
corrective measures we have put in place. I would say to you 
that I believe the FISA court operates within the Constitution, 
so we might have a difference of opinion on how we characterize 
it.
    I would also say to you that as we sit here, 20 years after 
9/11, and as somebody who was in FBI Headquarters on the day of 
those attacks and saw the immediate aftermath as we started to 
reverse-engineer what went wrong on 9/11, much has been 
discussed back in those year about the so-called wall that was 
built up between law enforcement and intelligence. A lot of the 
reforms that have occurred, thanks to this Congress, thanks to 
the courts, thanks to the Executive Branch, to make sure that 
there is not a wall between the information-sharing that has to 
occur, has been part of what has kept Americans safe since 
then.
    I would want, of course, to work with you on any ideas that 
you have, but also to make sure that we do not rebuild the wall 
that made us all less safe and cost 3,000 innocent lives on the 
day of those attacks. Thank you.
    Senator Paul. I appreciate your opinion on the FISA court 
having the same standard as the Constitution. They do not. The 
Fourth Amendment says you have to have probable cause that 
someone has committed a crime, or is committing a crime. It is 
a much different standard. The FISA court standard is probable 
cause that you have a relationship with a foreign government. 
It is a much lower standard, much more open to abuse, and you 
do not have a public court, a public court or judges, which 
might protect the rights of an individual.
    If what happened in Crossfire Hurricane is allowed to 
stand, and would allow the FBI to do this again, we can see a 
time when the intelligence agencies can completely take over 
our political process. It is a very dangerous thing, and I 
think most people got caught up in the partisanship of the 
time, whether they liked or disliked President Trump, and 
instead of really thinking about this, there still is a 
problem, and to my mind we need to reform the FISA system. We 
should not use FISA warrants on Americans, and it should be 
reserved--because it is a lower constitutional standard, it 
should be reserved for foreigners.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Paul. Senator Scott, 
you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT

    Senator Scott. I thank each of you for being here.
    Secretary Mayorkas, are you responsible for DHS, 
responsible for vetting all of the Afghan refugees coming in?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I am responsible for the work of the 
Department, sure.
    Senator Scott. Let us say since the 1st of August, how many 
Afghan refugees have been denied entrance into the United 
States?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I do not have that number at my 
fingertips. I know it is very de minimis. In terms of----
    Senator Scott. Why would that be?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Because we have not found many people 
with derogatory information relative to those who qualify for 
admission to the United States by reason of their status.
    Senator Scott. The Afghan refugees that have gotten into 
the United States and our bases, if you found something, what 
is your process? How could you send them home? What is your 
process for doing that?
    Secretary Mayorkas. There are a number of options available 
to us, Senator. No. 1, we can, of course, seek their voluntary 
return, to a third country. No. 2, we place them, if there is a 
reason to do so, we would place them in enforcement proceedings 
and seek their removal immediately.
    Senator Scott. Do you believe you would be able to send 
them back to Afghanistan?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Whether it is Afghanistan, that is 
something under review, but whether it is Afghanistan or 
another country, we would indeed seek their removal from the 
United States.
    Senator Scott. DHS was set up as a result of 9/11, right? 
We have had significant military presence in Afghanistan for 
quite a while. That is gone. Now we do not have the same 
ability to defend the homeland that we did when we had military 
in Afghanistan. What changes have you made to make sure that 
DHS is doing its job, to make sure Americans are safe?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, the architecture that has been 
built over 20 years since 9/11 remains in place and has only 
strengthened. We have a screening and vetting architecture. We 
have greater cooperation amongst the Federal agencies in the 
counterterrorism, intelligence, and law enforcement 
communities. We remain ever vigilant in that regard.
    Senator Scott. OK. Do you, and Director Wray, do you agree 
that the Taliban is a terrorist organization?
    Mr. Wray. I agree that the Taliban is a terrorist 
organization.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I believe it is identified as such, 
Senator, sure.
    Senator Scott. Earlier this month, the Taliban announced 
the senior leadership. One notable appointment was Sirajuddin 
Haqqani to be Afghan's interior minister. He is on the FBI's 
Most Wanted List\1\ and designated as a global terrorist due to 
his role in the January 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul. He 
killed six people, including an American citizen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The Seeking Information poster appears in the Appendix on page 
110.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Director Wray, is there still a $2 million reward for 
information leading to the arrest of Haqqani?
    Mr. Wray. To my knowledge he remains on the list and the 
reward is still out there.
    Senator Scott. All right. Do each of you agree that it 
seems to be counterintuitive that it would be against national 
security interests for somebody like that to be in senior 
leadership of the Taliban? You all agree with that, right?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Yes.
    Mr. Wray. Yes.
    Senator Scott. We have had conflicting testimony about how 
many people are left there. Secretary Blinken said 100 citizens 
to 200. We have had earlier that it could be as much as 9,000. 
We do not know exactly what it is.
    First off, were the two of you disappointed when our 
military came home without all of the American citizens?
    Secretary Mayorkas. If I may, Senator, the United States 
government's enduring commitment is to bring every United 
States citizen that wants to return to the United States, to 
bring them home. That is our enduring and continuing 
commitment.
    Senator Scott. But were you disappointed that it did not 
happen before we brought our military home?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Our goal was to return every willing 
American citizen home, and, of course, we were disappointed if 
we were not able to accomplish that, but we have not stopped in 
our efforts.
    Senator Scott. Director Wray?
    Mr. Wray. Certainly I would be disappointed if we do not do 
right by all those Afghans who worked so bravely, side by side, 
with us over the past 20 years, and that is why we are all 
working so hard, as Secretary Mayorkas said, to try to make 
sure that we get the right people--underline, the right 
people--out, where they can be brought to safety.
    I do want to clarify my answer to an earlier question. I 
have been handed a note on the Haqqani question, that while the 
reward is definitely still out there, as I understand it 
Haqqani may no longer be on the top 10 most wanted terrorists.
    Senator Scott. But he is still on the list.
    Mr. Wray. But still to have the reward, is still posted.
    Senator Scott. First off, Director Wray, were you 
disappointed that we did not get all of our American citizens, 
let alone all the individuals that helped us. Were you 
disappointed that those all did not come home before military 
left?
    Mr. Wray. Obviously we want to make sure that we get all 
the right people out, including American citizens. I know that 
everybody worked very hard to move a massive amount of people 
in a very short period of time, and the FBI was able to play a 
small part in helping other agencies on that.
    Senator Scott. What do the two of you believe is going to 
be our ability to continue to get Americans home, or, on top of 
that, individuals that have helped us, when you have a 
terrorist on our FBI Most Wanted List, or maybe not in the top 
10 but some number, and he is part of the leadership there. 
What is our chance that actually this is going to happen, that 
we are going to get American citizens home, or Afghans that 
helped us?
    Secretary Mayorkas. We are extraordinarily dedicated to 
that, and I think Secretary Blinken has spoken powerfully about 
that, that actions will speak louder than words with respect to 
the Taliban's willingness to work with us to effect the 
evacuation of individuals who have worked with us or United 
States citizens that want to leave Afghanistan. I should say 
that a number of U.S. citizens are Afghan nationals and have 
expressed a desire to stay. But our commitment is enduring and 
unrelenting.
    Senator Scott. Yes. Secretary Mayorkas, let's go to the 
border, just for a second, before I finish. After you were 
nominated we talked. You talked about how you were going to 
enforce the law. Do you realize, when Senator Johnson was 
asking you questions you said that you thought the border was 
secure.
    Do you realize that if you talk to a typical American now 
and you hear the numbers, that over 1 million people have come 
here illegally this year, we only have a little over 300 
million people who live in this country, so 1 out of every 300 
people in this country today have come here illegally in eight 
months, right. Isn't that inconsistent with what you are 
saying, though?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I do not believe so. First of 
all, the number of encounters is not necessarily individual 
encounters but rather we see some level of recidivism in light 
of our exercise of the Title 42 expulsion authority under the 
CDC's legal powers.
    We apprehend, expel, and remove a considerable number of 
people. I know Senator Johnson took me to task for not having 
the data immediately at my fingertips in this hearing, but in 
fact I do have some August numbers that I could provide that 
actually reflect the number of apprehensions, the distinction 
between total encounters and number of individuals, unique 
individuals encountered, the number of individuals expelled 
under Title 42, and the number of individuals processed for 
expedited removal under Title 8 of the United States Code. I do 
have those numbers for August.
    Senator Scott. So over 200,000 were apprehended, right?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Total encounters in August 2021 was 
208,887. Unique encounters, meaning unique individuals, were 
156,641.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Scott. I remind our 
members we do have a second round.
    Thank you, Senator. Senator Romney, you are recognized for 
your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROMNEY

    Senator Romney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 
each of you for the work that you do to help keep our homeland 
safe.
    Director Wray, are the threats from domestic violent 
extremists rising, and if they are, are they rising based on 
those that are, if you will, inspired by foreign groups or are 
they rising from those that are inspired by domestic groups? I 
do not know if you distinguish it that way, but my impression 
is that it is substantially increasing but largely domestic, 
but that may not be the case.
    Are the threats greater from these individuals, and by 
source, domestic or international?
    Mr. Wray. When it comes to sort of homeland-based terrorist 
threats we have two buckets, really, that we primarily focus on 
as the highest priority right now. What we call homegrown 
violent extremists, which is a reference to people here 
radicalized by foreign terrorist organizations and ideologies, 
and then domestic violent extremists, who are radicalized more 
by everything from racial animus all the way over to anti-
government, anti-authority.
    Senator Romney. Right.
    Mr. Wray. The first bucket, the homegrown violent 
extremist, has been humming along fairly consistently at about 
1,000 investigations, sometimes a little more, sometimes a 
little less, over the last few years. The domestic violent 
extremist bucket has been going up quite significantly over the 
last few years, which is why we are now at 2,700 domestic 
terrorism investigations when, if you went back two and half 
years ago, we were probably at more about 1,000. It has been a 
really significant jump there.
    We are concerned that with developments in Afghanistan, 
among other things, that there will be more inspiration to the 
first bucket as well. I think we anticipate, unfortunately, 
growth in both categories as we look ahead over the next couple 
of years.
    Senator Romney. Yes, that is daunting, and we may get a 
chance to talk about why you might believe that the latter 
group, the homegrown domestic-inspired violent extremist is 
rising.
    Secretary Mayorkas, I think any unbiased person would say 
that the Biden administration's border and immigration policies 
have been nothing short of a monumental disaster, and were 
there not so many other disasters that the administration is 
encountering it probably would be, by itself, enough for a 
government to be hanging on by a thread.
    We have had our disagreements in the past about how much of 
the illegal immigration problem is caused by pull versus push 
factors and your view that we need to address so-called root 
causes, which is poverty and corruption in other countries. My 
view is that we cannot solve the problems of the rest of the 
world, and, in fact, we cannot solve all of our own problems, 
let alone for the rest of the world.
    But what we can address are the unnecessary pull factors, 
if you will, the unnecessary features that we have in place 
that draw people into coming to our country illegally. Let me 
just discuss, with taxes, if an illegal individual wants to 
work here and wants to pay U.S. taxes, they are able to do 
that. Is that right? They are able to do that by getting an 
identification number. Is that right?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I believe they are, Senator.
    Senator Romney. Yes. I think they are called an I-10. They 
can apply for an I-10. They are able to do so.
    Under the administration's Human Infrastructure Bill, their 
children can also get an I-10, can also get that tax number for 
the same purpose, or for whatever purpose they might have.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I do not know the answer to your 
question, Senator.
    Senator Romney. The answer is yes, they can. The 
President's so-called Human Infrastructure Bill also provides 
$300 per month for every child who obtains such a number. So 
under the bill that is being proposed and considered by 
Congress, we will be paying the illegal immigrant $300 per 
month for each and every one of their children that obtain such 
a number. A family of four who had come here illegally would 
receive as much as $1,200 per month in checks from the U.S. 
Government, of course, well above the wage, the average wage 
throughout major parts of Latin America.
    Do you think that this provision, which would allow the 
children of those that have come here illegally to receive 
monthly payments would represent an unfortunate and damaging 
pull factor that would draw more people into our country 
illegally?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I think that speaks to the 
fact that we have more than 11 million undocumented individuals 
already present in the United States, a population that has 
been growing for decades, by reason of a broken immigration 
system. I do not think it speaks to individuals who have not 
arrived in the United States.
    Senator Romney. Clearly if you can get paid $300 per child, 
even though the child is here illegally and you are here 
illegally, that is going to encourage people to come here. It 
also is going to represent a major expense for our government 
to pay the children of those that are here illegally $300 per 
month. One, it is expensive, and two, it creates a greater draw 
to come to the country.
    Director, question that I would ask you, and perhaps the 
others as well, which is it does strike me that three of you 
all have a very similar responsibility, to protect our homeland 
from violence and extremists of various kinds. Are the lines of 
responsibility clear as to who is doing what, or do things fall 
between the cracks? Is there duplication which is unnecessary? 
Should we be addressing how we organize this effort? Because I 
recognize we are asking all three of you very similar 
questions. You are looking at very similar aspects of the same 
challenge we have, which is protecting the homeland. Should we 
rethink how we do this? Are we duplicating the work, or 
Director Wray, any one of you could respond to that.
    Mr. Wray. I guess I would speak to it from the perspective 
of somebody who was heavily involved in this mission on the day 
of 9/11 and in the first four years afterwards, and then coming 
back from the private sector now. I think we are well organized 
against the terrorist threat. We do have, I would view as not 
overlapping responsibilities but complementary ones.
    I do think that one of the real positive developments, 
learned the hard way from 9/11, is how well we all work 
together, our folks, in particular, work well with other 
agencies as well on the terrorist threat, and I think there are 
valuable lessons to be learned from that. It does not mean that 
it cannot always be improved. I tend to be dissatisfied by 
nature. I expect continued improvement, but I think we are on 
the right track as far as that goes. Lord knows we need it, 
because the threats, as we discussed, are not getting easier. 
They are getting harder.
    Senator Romney. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Romney. Senator Ossoff, 
you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF

    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Secretary 
Mayorkas, I want to thank you and your team for responding to 
the letter, the bipartisan letter that I sent with Senator 
Scott requesting reforms to FEMA disaster relief practices that 
were discriminatory against black Americans, especially in the 
South. I am grateful to you and your team for making those 
reforms.
    I would like to ask you, please, how would you characterize 
the specific mission of the Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis, and what differentiates it from the other 17 
component agencies in the intelligence community?
    Secretary Mayorkas. If I can, it dovetails with the 
question that Senator Romney asked. I think we are cooperating 
more cohesive now than we ever have been before, and I think 
that to the extent that we sometimes have redundancies, those 
are intentional redundancies for a belt-and-suspenders approach 
to our homeland security and our national security.
    The Office of Intelligence and Analysis is really an office 
of partnership. What it does is it gathers information and 
intelligence from across the threat landscape. What it is 
uniquely situated to do is to push that information and 
intelligence out to our State, local, tribal, and territorial 
(SLTT) partners so that the first responder community is 
equipped and empowered to address the threat in its 
communities.
    One of the things that the Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis has become so much better at over the past nine months 
is, in fact, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
in the Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) model, and we partner 
in the dissemination of information bulletins, conference 
calls, and the like, with local law enforcement.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Director Abizaid, how would you 
rate the quality of information sharing across the IC's 18 
component agencies?
    Ms. Abizaid. I actually think it is very strong, especially 
when you are talking about counterterrorism intelligence. I 
think the shift from, in the post-9/11 environment, was the 
shift to a need-to-share sort of mentality across the 
intelligence community but also our State and local partners, 
our lead Federal agencies in the homeland, FBI and DHS as well.
    I have been very impressed as I have come back in to lead 
the center with the degree of information sharing that happens 
across the intelligence community in classified channels, but I 
have also been very impressed by the degree to which we work to 
downgrade as much information as possible and engage directly 
with State, local, tribal, and territorial elements to make 
sure that we are getting the threat information to the right 
individuals so they are then able to take action where they 
need to.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Director Abizaid. Director Wray, 
we spoke March 2nd in the Judiciary Committee about the extent 
of violence in communities across the country, the alarming 
increase in violent crime, particularly from 2019 to 2020, and 
also from 2020 until this year. The city of Atlanta, 113 
homicides this year. That is a 16 percent increase from last 
year, a 64 percent increase from 2019. Georgians are deeply 
concerned by the intensity of violence in our communities.
    When we spoke in March, you said you were going to work to 
refine your assessments of the factors driving this increase in 
violent crime and violence across the United States. What are 
your conclusions?
    Mr. Wray. I do think as much as it is a phenomenon in our 
home State of Georgia, it is also in other parts of the country 
as well. While there might be variations from city to city, I 
think there are a number of factors that contribute to it. I 
think the impact of COVID cannot be underestimated, whether it 
is trial backlogs, early inmate releases, unemployment, et 
cetera. You have more juveniles committing violent crime. You 
have certain prosecution practices and decreased sentences, 
which put recidivists back out on the street more readily, and 
that adds to its challenge. You also have the prevalence of 
firearms, including interstate trafficking, and by that I mean 
firearms in the hands of those who are legally prohibited from 
having them.
    All of those factors together create a combustible mix. I 
would add into that a number of police departments are close 
partners that we work with every day, who have an incredibly 
challenging job, are experiencing recruiting challenges and 
attrition, as in early retirement. And that, in turn, adds to 
it.
    You put no one factor by itself but you put all those 
things together and that is part of why you are seeing, I 
think, the increase in homicides, but you are also seeing 
increases in carjackings and other violent crimes, not just in 
Atlanta, not just in Georgia but in cities all over the 
country. It is something that I suspect every Member of this 
Committee hears about from its constituents with increasing 
frequency, for good reason.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Director Wray.
    Mr. Secretary, a couple of questions related to 
congressional oversight of the Department. I recognize you have 
a tough job. You and I have spoken, in public and in private, 
about the importance of responsiveness to the Senate, to this 
Committee, to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 
which I chair, and for which Senator Johnson is the Ranking 
Member. But a number of requests that we sent to the Department 
back in July we still have not seen timely production of 
relevant documents and records. I want to ask why.
    I also want to state here publicly, for the record, while 
we have you, that regardless of the administration's party, the 
Senate has an obligation to conduct vigorous oversight and to 
be assertive in using our authorities and prerogatives to 
secure the information necessary to oversee the Executive 
Branch's past and current activities, and in my capacity as 
Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations I intend 
to be assertive in seeking that information.
    But could you comment, please, on why these requests, now 
three months outstanding, remain outstanding?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, your concern is resonant. In 
fact, we have done an internal review of the pace of our 
responsiveness and we have implemented new procedures to ensure 
a greater responsiveness. That is indeed an obligation of ours 
and a commitment of ours and a commitment of mine personally.
    I will say it is quite a daunting challenge. We have over 
90 committees of jurisdiction. It is something about which I 
have spoken with this Committee, both as the Secretary and in 
my prior service as the Deputy Secretary. It is a daunting 
number of requests for information and request for production 
of documents that we receive. Nevertheless, that is a 
commitment and an obligation of ours, and we will do a better 
job of fulfilling it.
    Senator Ossoff. But where are those documents requested in 
July, Mr. Secretary?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I will have to look into that, Senator, 
and I will do so forthwith.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
    For the panel, you have been going a long time, and I know 
that a break is warranted. What I am planning on doing is we 
have Senator Hawley up, Senator Rosen. That gets us really 
close to an expected vote, so it will be a good time to take a 
break at that time. If you could bear with us for at least two 
more questions, unless someone else shows up, but we will take 
a break and then have a second round of questions at that time.
    Senator Hawley, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY

    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks 
to all of the witnesses for being here.
    Secretary Mayorkas, let me start with you. I want to ask 
you about the continued, uncontrolled illegal immigration in 
the country, which I think is a very serious threat to the 
homeland. In July, I asked you about the migrant surge that has 
been occurring on your watch and you said this. I am quoting 
you now. ``We have a plan. We are executing the plan. The plan 
takes time to execute, and we are doing so.''
    Now since that time Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has 
released data that showed two straight months of illegal border 
encounters above 200,000, which, as you know, has not happened 
in decades. My question is when is your plan going to work?
    Secretary Mayorkas. In fact, we are implementing the plan, 
Senator Hawley, and I can walk through some of the measures 
that we have taken.
    Senator Hawley. My question is when is it going to work?
    Secretary Mayorkas. It is, in fact, working. We have seen, 
over the last several weeks, if not the month, a drop in the 
number of encounters at the United States border. We have been 
working very closely with Mexico to increase interdictions. We 
have addressed the issue of recidivism and if, in fact, people 
have been previously removed we are referring them to criminal 
prosecution. We have increased lateral flights across the 
border to facilitate the expulsion of individuals under Title 
42.
    Senator Hawley. I do not mean to interrupt you, Mr. 
Secretary, but our time is so limited. I want to be sure that I 
understand--200,000 border encounters over two straight months, 
a record in decades, for over decades, and you are telling me 
that this is success. Are you happy with what is happening at 
the border now? Is this success?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, as I said then and I say now, 
we have a plan, we are executing on our plan, and we will 
continue to do so.
    Senator Hawley. But you testified that it is working. I am 
trying to understand, is this success? Are you telling me that 
this is successful, your plan is successful currently?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, we are not finished in the 
execution of our plan, and I never suggested otherwise. We 
continue to do the work that we are required to do to secure 
our border. That is an ongoing process, and indeed we are 
executing it.
    Senator Hawley. Are you happy with your progress?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, we need to do better, and we 
need to do more, and we are committed to doing so, and we are 
doing so.
    Senator Hawley. Let me ask you about one of the latest 
crises that we have seen in Del Rio, thousands of migrants 
crossing the border illegally. Reporters have captured images 
of this. Many are now encamped, as you know, on the U.S. side 
of the border. How many migrants have crossed in the United 
States in Del Rio over the past week?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Last week I think the high point was 
13,000 to 15,000. It is now well below 10,000. We continue to 
move individuals from Del Rio to other processing centers to 
facilitate their repatriation.
    Senator Hawley. And how----
    Secretary Mayorkas. If I may, Senator, we have increased 
the number of repatriation flight to Haiti and to other third 
countries. The size of the population in Del Rio, Texas, has 
diminished considerably.
    Let me say two very important things which I observed 
firsthand in Del Rio, Texas, yesterday. No. 1 is the human 
tragedy, just the vulnerability of the individuals who are 
under the bridge in Del Rio. We cannot minimize that is an 
extraordinarily difficult thing to see. No. 2, I met with quite 
a number of Border Patrol agents and officers in Del Rio, 
Texas. I saw them working with members of the Department of 
Health and Human Services (HHS) to deliver medical attention. I 
saw them working with the American Red Cross to deliver medical 
kits.
    Senator Hawley. Mr. Secretary, we have very limited time. 
How many are currently, right now, at the encampment?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I would have to check as to today's 
number. It is below 10,000, is the latest information I have.
    Senator Hawley. I want to go back to your statement earlier 
to me that you have a plan and that it is working. Is 13,000 to 
15,000 people crossing into the United States just last week, 
is that working?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, if you take a look at the 
situation, the discrete situation in Del Rio, Texas, one will 
view it differently than other challenges along the Southern 
Border.
    Senator Hawley. Why?
    Secretary Mayorkas. If I may, Senator, that was a very 
rapid increase, a really unprecedented increase in the number 
of individuals, primarily Haitian nationals, crossing in one 
discrete part of the border. What we did there is we developed 
a plan, and we are executing on that plan, and therefore----
    Senator Hawley. Mr. Secretary, this happened on your watch. 
Listen, here is the problem. Every time before you come before 
this Committee you always say, ``It is going to get better.'' 
``Our plan is going to work at some future point.'' And you 
also usually say it is really not as bad as it looks. Then 
every time you leave it gets worse and worse. This is a 
humanitarian crisis in Del Rio. You can spin it whichever way 
that you want. But you are quite right--we should not minimize 
the humanitarian conditions, for which, frankly, you are 
responsible, you and your administration are responsible. Tens 
of thousands of people living in conditions that are 
startling--brought here because of your policies.
    Let me give you an example. The Washington Post reported on 
Sunday that one Haitian woman said that she and her family 
decided to travel from Chile, where she was residing, to Del 
Rio, because they heard, and I quote, ``President Biden was 
letting people in.'' Of course, you have offered this temporary 
protected status to Haitians illegally residing in the United 
States, starting in May. Then you halted deportation flights 
earlier this summer. Don't you think that you bear 
responsibility for this latest crisis?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, let me speak to a number of 
the things that you have said. No. 1, temporary protected 
status was, in fact, extended to Haitian nationals resident in 
the United States before July 29th. Individuals who arrived 
after July 29th are not eligible for temporary protected 
status. That is a provision of the law that we execute, based 
on the circumstances that are contemplated in the legislation.
    Senator Hawley. But, Mr. Secretary, my time has almost 
expired. I just want an answer. Do you bear responsibility for 
the crisis in Del Rio?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Second, Senator----
    Senator Hawley. Does that mean you are not going to answer 
me?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I am answering, if you would give me 
the opportunity.
    Senator Hawley. That is yes or a no question. Do you bear 
responsibility for the crisis in Del Rio? Yes or no.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, the smuggling organizations--
--
    Senator Hawley. Yes or no, Mr. Secretary? Do you bear 
responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in Del Rio? Yes or 
no.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, it is my responsibility to 
address the human tragedy in Del Rio, to address that, and we 
are doing so. That is my responsibility, and we are executing 
it as the Department of Homeland Security.
    Senator Hawley. But you do not think you played any role, 
and your policies have played any role in fostering and 
fomenting this crisis that has ensnared so many thousands of 
people?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, what we are learning from our 
interviews with individuals is they are receiving false 
information and misinformation from the smuggling organizations 
that traffic in the exploitation of vulnerable individuals.
    Senator Hawley. In other words, it someone else's fault. 
All I can say is, Mr. Secretary, that sooner or later this 
administration is going to have to take responsibility for the 
crisis that you have fomented at the border, that gets worse 
day upon day, and so far every time we hear from you it is 
somebody else's fault, something is going to happen later. It 
is quite unbelievable.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Senator Hawley, thank you. Senator Rosen, 
you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN

    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member 
Portman, for holding this very important hearing here today, 
and I appreciate the difficult service that all of you provide 
to keep our nation safe. Thank you for being here.
    I want to talk a little bit about domestic terrorism. I am 
going to switch up a little bit. Twenty years after 9/11, we 
know threats to the homeland, they have only become more 
diverse, they have become more complex, and the rapidly growing 
threat, we all know this, domestic violent extremism, as you 
have testified before, Director Wray, especially in March, that 
the number of domestic terrorist investigations has doubled 
since 2017, to 2,000 this year. The Bureau has now elevated the 
threat of domestic extremism to the same level as posed by 
ISIS.
    Secretary Mayorkas, you recently stated, and I am going to 
quote, that ``domestic violent extremism is the greatest 
terrorist-related threat we face in our homeland.''
    I applaud the administration for releasing the first-ever 
National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, which 
codifies the national strategy that domestic violent 
extremists, specifically white supremacist extremists, post the 
most persistent and lethal threat to the United States.
    I have a question, of course, for Director Wray, and you, 
Mr. Secretary. I will go first. Secretary Mayorkas, could you 
provide us with an update on the new Center for the Prevention 
Programs and Partnerships, or as they are calling it, CP3, 
which helps prevent individuals from radicalizing into domestic 
violent extremism and interferes when individuals, 
unfortunately, do so?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Senator. That 
office, that Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships is 
really executing a different strategy than as previously been 
undertaken. What we are doing is focused on disseminating 
information to local communities and empowering and equipping 
them to address the reasons why people are driven to extreme 
ideologies and perhaps even acts of violence. We are 
distributing grant funds as well as information. It is all 
about empowering and equipping communities to address the 
situation from the ground up.
    Senator Rosen. Nobody knows their own community better than 
those that work within it. Thank you.
    Director Wray, I want to direct this next question to you. 
I understand the FBI Counterterrorism Division maintains a 
section to specifically investigate, of course, domestic 
terrorism. Are you collecting data specifically on the threat 
from white supremacists, and second, as part of the National 
Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, how does the FBI 
plan to enhance collaborative reporting, that data collection 
that we need and we can collaborate targeting our efforts with 
law enforcement partners to prevent radicalization and attacks?
    Mr. Wray. We do collect information very much about--I 
think the category that you are describing we put in the 
category of racially and ethnically motivated violent 
extremism, of which the biggest chunk by far is racial or 
ethnic motivation favoring white supremacy.
    Senator Rosen. Yes.
    Mr. Wray. We collect information about that threat. We 
have, as you say, prioritized that threat at a national threat 
priority level. We have created a domestic terrorism hate 
crimes fusion cell to bring to bear not just the domestic 
terrorism expertise but the hate crimes expertise, because 
often there is some overlap in the criminal activity, and then 
more importantly, the insights that that gives us to look ahead 
and around the bend, if you will.
    One of the places where that kind of collaboration and 
synergy is already showing great progress is in your home 
State, the attempted attack on a synagogue that we were able 
to, for the first time, prevent, using hate crimes charges, and 
we hope to do more of that.
    I think the big part of the engagement to collaborate on 
data is going to be through the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, 
which, of course, are all over the country, of which there are 
over 200, and that includes Federal, State, and local 
participants, probably about 4,500 or so bodies all working on 
those task forces together, able to share classified 
information, investigative information, and to ensure that we 
are then able to generate bulletins and things like that, 
working collaborative with Secretary Mayorkas' shop in doing 
so.
    Senator Rosen. I am going to move into cybersecurity, but 
before I do that do you have the workforce you need, and what 
are the challenges you have--I guess I could probably address 
this in every area--hiring, training, and retaining workforce?
    Mr. Wray. I would say a couple of things on that. Certainly 
the domestic terrorism caseload has exploded, and meanwhile the 
international terrorism caseload has not subsided, and that is 
within terrorism. We absolutely need more resources there, and 
any resources Congress sees fit to send our way, I can assure 
you they would be quickly put to good use.
    There is a piece of good news, which is that at the FBI the 
last couple of years our recruiting numbers have gone 
exorbitantly up, contrary to the trend you would see more 
generally in the country. We tripled the number of people 
applying to be special agents of the FBI in 1919, 1920, and 
1921, compared to what it was before that. The highest it has 
been in about a decade.
    We are not having too many retirements. Our attrition rate 
is now down to under 1 percent, which is, I would say, pretty 
good.
    But the counterbalancing against that is the unbelievable 
challenge of all these threats that we are dealing with. There 
are a lot of people with great ideas and good ideas, but what 
we should be doing more of, I have not found anybody with much 
in the way of good ideas about what it is we can suddenly do 
less of.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I want to move quickly, and I 
know I will probably have to take this answer off the record, 
by cybersecurity resilience, because the Cyberspace Solarium 
Commission (CSC) said the U.S. Government still lacks rigorous, 
codified, and routinely exercised processes for identifying, 
assessing, and prioritizing critical infrastructure risks 
across the Federal Government between public and private 
sectors.
    Secretary Mayorkas, what infrastructure sectors do you view 
as particularly vulnerable that we should be putting some 
resources into right now?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, thank you so much for your 
question. We are very focused on the critical infrastructure 
sectors. As a matter of fact, I think one of the great moves 
that we made following the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack that 
really galvanized the public attention was for TSA to issue two 
sequential security directives after engaging with the pipeline 
industry, to develop standards of behavior, to increase the 
cybersecurity of that sector.
    I think the Joint Cyber Collaborative that we are employing 
through CISA, is a very significant step in strengthening 
critical infrastructure, because it is a public-private 
partnership. It is not just all of government, but it is all of 
society.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate that. I see my time 
is up.
    Senator Johnson. Mr. Chairman----
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
    Senator Johnson [continuing]. Before we go to break, I ask 
consent that we enter recently retired U.S. Border Patrol Chief 
Rodney Scott's letter into the record.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The letter referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the 
Appendix on page 111.
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    I would also point out that in his letter he describes 
himself as a law enforcement agent for over 29 years. He served 
under five different Presidential administrations, and he said 
he worked diligently securing international borders as a 
nonpartisan civil servant.
    This letter comes from somebody with a great deal of 
credibility and should be taken very seriously.
    But anyway, I ask that it be entered into the record.
    Chairman Peters. Without objection, it will be entered.
    We have another Senator that joined us. Senator Sinema is 
online. This will be the end of the first round. I will 
recognize Senator Sinema. This will end the first round. It 
will come to a close and we will take a break at that time and 
then come back for a second round.
    Senator Sinema, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA

    Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary 
Mayorkas, one of the significant challenges our nation and my 
State of Arizona face is the ongoing crisis at the Southwest 
Border. It remains critical for Congress and the administration 
to work together to secure the border, protect our communities, 
and ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely. I 
appreciate the efforts you have taken to improve DHS operations 
at the border. As we both know, there is more work to do.
    We have seen close to 1.5 million encounters at the border 
this fiscal year (FY), with over 270,000 of those happening in 
the Tucson and Yuma Sectors. CBP officials in those sectors 
consistently talk about the importance of Title 42 authority in 
managing the situation at the border in those sectors. But 
recent court decisions could limit the use of Title 42 
authority in the future, which would put more pressure on our 
border workforce and processing capacity.
    Additionally, with the severe challenges in the Del Rio 
Sector, we learned last week that CBP will be transporting 400 
migrants each week to Arizona for processing.
    What steps does DHS need to take to improve processing 
capacity and capability at the Southwest Border to manage this 
ongoing crisis, including the situation we are seeing in Del 
Rio?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you so much, Senator. We have 
taken a number of steps, some of which I alluded to earlier in 
my response to Senator Hawley's question.
    We are moving individuals across the Southwest Border to 
facilitate the expulsions under the Center for Disease Control 
Title 42 authority. We are using expedited removal under Title 
8 as an additional authority. We have begun prosecution of 
individuals who have prior removal orders and who are 
recidivists. We are sending flights, repatriation flights into 
the interior of Mexico to make recidivism more difficult.
    We are employing quite a number of measures to increase the 
number of encounters and also to deter irregular migration, and 
we are seeing progress in that regard.
    Senator Sinema. Following up specifically on Title 42, 
obviously court decisions will play a significant role in the 
future of Title 42. But this authority was always meant to be 
temporary and will end at some point.
    In June, as you know, I led a bipartisan letter that 
requested a detailed plan for the end of Title 42. I am asking 
today if you will work with my office to schedule an in-depth 
briefing for the Committee on your plans to facilitate a smooth 
and orderly transition for the end of Title 42 when DHS will 
resume relying only on traditional statutory authorities.
    Secretary Mayorkas. We most certainly will do so, Senator.
    Senator Sinema. Thank you. Now as you are aware, 
transnational criminal organizations pose a significant threat 
to our national security by engaging in human trafficking, drug 
trafficking, and violence at our Southwest Border. They may 
also be capitalizing on the DHS resource strain that the 
migrant influx is causing.
    So capabilities or technologies does DHS need additional 
investments in to expand your ability to counter TCO activity?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Senator, for that 
question. I will say that we are already taking, and have 
taken, a number of steps to address the actions of TCOs. We are 
working increasingly in the task force model, as a force 
multiplier. We are using technology, air assets, especially our 
force multipliers and extremely effective tools.
    We can use more resources with respect to our air assets, 
and we have undertaken a number of law enforcement operations 
to address the activities of these transnational criminal 
organizations. Operation Sentinel, which addresses their 
logistical network here in the United States, is but one 
example.
    Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is for Director 
Wray. The pseudonymity afforded to criminal organizations such 
as DarkSide that demands ransom payments in cryptocurrency 
provides significant challenges to Federal law enforcement. How 
has the FBI changed its response capacity at its field offices 
to help families, small businesses, and managers of critical 
infrastructure respond to the rise in ransomware attacks?
    Mr. Wray. I appreciate the question. Certainly ransomware 
attacks, as Secretary Mayorkas referred to earlier, have gone 
up, and the total volume of payments have gone up, both quite 
significantly, and it affects, as you say, Senator, not just 
large organizations but also small ones.
    What the FBI can do and is doing is we have cyber task 
forces in all 56 field offices, and each of them is designed, 
in part, to be able to engage quickly with victims, to be able 
to respond as quickly as possible to help them manage and 
disrupt and mitigate against the threat.
    On the virtual currency side, the cryptocurrency side, we 
have created subject matter teams, experts at headquarters that 
both train, so to create more of a force multiplier effect in 
all of the field offices, but also support investigations, 
because as you say, following the money in that space is 
exceptionally challenging and requires new and more creative, 
innovative tactics, much as we did, for example, in the 
Colonial Pipeline case, where we were able to not only follow 
but seize a big chunk of the ransom that was being paid in 
cryptocurrency before it got to the bad actors.
    We want to do more of that, but that case illustrates, in 
particular, the importance of the private sector, big or small, 
engaging with the FBI as quickly as possible. Speed really 
matters in these instances, and when they do engage that 
quickly there are all kinds of things that we can potentially 
do to follow the money.
    Senator Sinema. Thank you, Director.
    Back to Secretary Mayorkas. The world has changed a great 
deal since DHS was established in the aftermath of the 9/11 
attacks. Today, the Department has a responsibility for a wide 
swath of disparate missions. You handle counterterrorism, 
border security, transportation security, disaster response, as 
well as cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection.
    As new threats confront our country, how is DHS assessing 
and adjusting its structure to respond to the changing threat 
landscape, and what changes do you feel are needed in the short 
term?
    Secretary Mayorkas. One of the things, Senator, that we are 
focused on is making sure that our more than 22 offices and 
agencies are working cohesively together to really bring the 
full force of the Department to bear on any one particular 
threat stream. I think we have made tremendous advances in that 
regard.
    Fundamentally, I think our greatest tool in combating the 
threats of whatever nature is really the more than 250,000 men 
and women who comprise our Department. They are extraordinary, 
not only in meeting the threat that we confront today but in 
their readiness to meet the threat that looms.
    Senator Sinema. Thank you, Secretary. Mr. Chair, I know 
that my time has expired, but I want to note that as we are 
having our first hearing after the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 
attacks, I want to take a moment to express my thanks to all 
the people who work every day to keep our country safe. As our 
threats continue to evolve our government must continue to 
adapt and make changes based on the lessons we have learned 
since September 11th, and I am grateful for the men and women 
across our country who are doing just that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Sinema. I know our 
witnesses, we are thanking you for these answers to all these 
questions, and it is time for a little bit of a break for you. 
We have a second round. That concludes the first round. Not 
every Senator is coming back for a second round, but I know 
there are a number that have other questions they would like to 
ask.
    I will adjourn now briefly for roughly 10 minutes. There 
has been a vote called, so I would urge all of our Members 
please vote early, get back to the Committee hearing room so 
that we can move this forward.
    With that we will adjourn for 10 minutes.
    [Recess.]
    The Committee comes back into order. We will now begin a 
second round of questions, same 7-minute time as the first 
round. Senator Padilla, before I start the second round, you 
were not here for the first round and you have not had a chance 
to ask a question, so you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate this 
opportunity, and thank you to the three leaders participating 
this morning.
    I want to touch on an issue that is an ongoing challenge in 
so many sectors, and that is the power, the danger of 
misinformation. As we all know, despite the arduous journey 
from Central America or elsewhere to the United States, 
migrants continue to make the dangerous trek to the U.S. border 
in hopes for a better life. Many are fleeing unemployment or 
natural disasters, maybe corruption in their home countries, 
violence or other factors, and it certainly makes coming to the 
United States appealing.
    Another factor, however, is misinformation, particularly 
from smugglers who share messages over a variety of platforms, 
including, but not limited to, WhatsApp, with the promise of 
safe passage to the United States for a large sum of money.
    Now while most immigrants are being turned away or expelled 
from the Southern Border because of the CDC's Title 42 rule, 
misinformation continues to spread. I would love to hear from 
Secretary Mayorkas about not just the impacts you are observing 
of misinformation but also what the Department of Homeland 
Security is doing to combat this misinformation, both at the 
border, in Central America, or elsewhere.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, thank you very much for your 
question, because you are focused on a very significant issue. 
Indeed, the smuggling organizations peddle misinformation and 
deceive vulnerable individuals and families into believing that 
the border policies of this administration are different than 
those that we have in place and that we are executing.
    We, of course, disseminate information ourselves, but we 
are very mindful of the fact that that alone is not enough. We 
work very closely with the Department of State to have trusted 
voices in the countries of origin to disseminate accurate 
information with respect to our policies and practices, and the 
critical fact that our border is not open.
    I think one example of that is this past Sunday. I spoke 
with journalists who reached the Haitian community, the Haitian 
diaspora community, and I communicated critically needed 
messages. They then disseminated that in Creole through their 
outlets, to reach the diaspora community, and that was 
propelled further on social media, thanks to the partnership 
with the Department of State and other partners.
    Senator Padilla. That is great, and I know it will be an 
ongoing challenge as well. Second, more of a statement than a 
question but I want to go on record in the following. As most 
will admit, what is happening at the border is unacceptable, on 
so many fronts, and I too want to strongly condemn the inhumane 
treatment of Haitians or anyone else who is fleeing violence or 
natural disasters and seeking protection in our countries. I 
have heard your statements, Mr. Secretary, about the need to 
create safer and more orderly pathways of legal migration to 
the United States so that people do not have to make the 
dangerous journey to the Southern Border by other means.
    I want to make sure I reserve sufficient time for Mr. 
Secretary. Abizaid. As of September 14th, some 64,000 Afghans 
have been brought safely into the United States. Many of these 
individuals were allies of the United States military, have 
familial ties to the United States, or represent vulnerable 
populations who are currently being targeted by the Taliban.
    I understand that many of my colleagues have raised 
questions as to whether or not there has been sufficient 
vetting of these individuals prior to their arrival to the 
United States, or entry into the United States. In your role as 
the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, can you 
please share with us, or give us a better appreciation and 
understanding of the vetting process that Afghan refugees, 
parolees, and evacuees must pass before being allowed to be 
admitted into the United States.
    Ms. Abizaid. Thank you, Senator, for the question, 
especially because it gives me the opportunity to really 
highlight publicly the work that NCTC, but also the entire 
intelligence community, working in collaboration with our FBI, 
DHS, and other partners in the agency did to surge resources to 
make sure that the appropriate screening and vetting of these 
individuals was undertaken.
    Now the intelligence community role and NCTC's role is one 
part of a system of screening and vetting. It is something that 
we typically get information from our partners overseas to 
understand individuals, the information about individuals 
seeking to come to the United States. We use that information 
and run it against our IC databases to make sure that if there 
is any derogatory information that might have bearing on 
whether that individual should come or not that we bring that 
to bear as adjudicators decide the status of an individual.
    The work that we undertook as part of the Afghan evacuation 
operation absolutely considered that screening process as part 
of it, and those screening efforts are ongoing for the 
population of Afghans that are seeking entry into the United 
States.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
    As we have been discussing throughout this hearing, we have 
been subjected to consistent cyberattacks, ransomware in 
particular, and attacks against critical infrastructure. 
Secretary Mayorkas, in your opening statement you discussed a 
number of activities that DHS is engaged in, in an attempt to 
mitigate the impact of these attacks, or prevent these attacks 
from occurring in the first place. As you know, and I believe 
you have been briefed, and your staff has been working with 
Ranking Member Portman and I on legislation to provide the 
government with incident reporting on cyber incidents, and 
ransomware attacks in particular, but broadly encompassing all 
cyberattacks.
    Secretary Mayorkas, could you tell this Committee how this 
kind of authority to collect this information, how will that 
help you prevent cyberattacks from occurring in the first place 
and ensure that our critical infrastructure can operate the way 
it should?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Portman, we are very grateful for this Committee's support of 
the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. That 
legislation, which calls for a new reporting regime, will be of 
tremendous value in elevating the cybersecurity of this 
country, because it really requires a public-private 
partnership.
    In fact, for example, a company that suffers a cyber 
incident provides that information to us in the Federal 
Government, then we can ensure that a replicate of that harm is 
not suffered elsewhere in the country. If everyone is compelled 
to provide incident information to us then we learn from one, 
we learn from two, and collectively then we disseminate to all, 
and that raises the cyber hygiene of the landscape writ large.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. Director Wray, I know ransom 
payment information is of importance to the FBI. Could you tell 
the Committee how important that is and how this legislation 
will help you?
    Mr. Wray. Absolutely. I think the key will be to make sure 
that the information reaches the FBI real time, because as I 
testified in response to one of the earlier questions, speed, 
hours matter in this particular arena.
    Getting the information from the private sector on a more 
consistent and timely basis will be critical for us, at the 
FBI, as well for, I think, five reasons. One, it allows us to 
better understand the full extent of the threat, of particular 
intrusion sets nationwide. Second, it enhances our ability to 
warn about trends, tactics, techniques, procedures in a much 
more meaningful way. Third, it allows us to provide support for 
a greater number of victims and collect more evidence, and, 
therefore, bring more cases. Fourth, it allows us to help 
connect seemingly unrelated incidents into attribution to a 
single actor, which is incredibly valuable in its own right to 
ensure that we are holding them accountable for the full extent 
of their activity.
    But then last but not least, it allows us to follow the 
money and, in many cases, seize it, and I cannot underscore 
enough how important that is. Our strategy is to go after the 
actors, their infrastructure, and their money, and legislation 
like this would help us do that, as long as we get the 
information real time.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. On March 2021, a national 
intelligence report assessed the domestic violent extremists 
were, ``the most persistent and lethal threat,'' to the United 
States. The FBI has found the same, and I helped pass a 
requirement in the fiscal year 2020 National Defense 
Authorization Act (NDAA) that required both the FBI and the DHS 
to report data on this threat.
    Yet both of your agencies took close to a year to provide 
roughly half of the response that we are looking for--a year to 
provide half--and Director Wray, in the case of the FBI, half 
would be a very generous assessment of what the FBI provided. 
It is considerably less than that. If we cannot get that kind 
of data, it is difficult for us to understand what efforts are 
being made and how we might be able to support those efforts.
    You have reporting requirements, under the law, and I would 
hope that you would comply on time and in full. Can I get a 
commitment that we can get the rest of that information that is 
well over a year past the expected date?
    Mr. Wray. Certainly you can have my commitment that we are 
going to do better and work with you as quickly as we can to 
get you the information that we can. Part of the challenge that 
we are not happy about is, of course, the pandemic hit and many 
of the people that were involved in pulling together the 
information were either otherwise occupied with a significant 
domestic terrorism operation that we had or otherwise 
sidelined. The other part of it is, as I understand it, a lot 
of the information may be information that was not collected or 
kept in a way that the Committee might have been looking for.
    So you are absolutely right that we need to do better than 
we have, and you have my commitment that we will do better than 
we have. But I understand we have a regular cadence now of 
engagement with your staff, prioritizing the items that you 
need soonest, and you have my commitment that we will work with 
you on that.
    Chairman Peters. I appreciate that, and we will be 
continuing to reach out to get that to happen.
    Experts have assessed that in the last five years, domestic 
extremist groups have expanded their use of online platforms to 
recruit, plan, export, and spread violence and terrorize 
Americans. Last week, I wrote a letter to the heads of 
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube seeking information, including 
their efforts to coordinate with Federal, State, and local 
governments to detect and to prevent online extremist efforts.
    My question to you, Director Wray, is we are less than a 
year past the violent January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol 
and the attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, 
which is without question a dark stain on our history, all of 
which was planned, organized, and spread online. So my question 
is, what specific steps is the FBI doing now to combat the use 
of social media to plan domestic terrorist attacks? Have you 
stepped up your activities, and give us a sense of what you are 
doing.
    Mr. Wray. Certainly when it comes to social media, when we 
get tips and leads we are trying to make sure that those are 
being prioritized and pursued. We are trying to improve our own 
communications with the social media companies. That 
partnership, as you and I have discussed before, in the 
election influence context, has continued to improve, so we are 
trying to leverage that a little bit.
    Among the other things that we are trying to do are build 
out our human source base better so that we can separate kind 
of the wheat from the chaff within the social media that we 
get, because the volume of this stuff is astounding. The last, 
we are also looking at better use of data analytics, again, to 
try to see if we can separate the wheat from the chaff within 
the information that we get.
    Certainly when it comes to looking at social media there 
are longstanding Department of Justice policies, the so-called 
Attorney General Guidelines and the Domestic Investigations and 
Operations Guide (DIOG) that have been in place for 15, 16, 
maybe more years, that kind of govern what we can and cannot 
do. It is a complicated subject to explain, but we are 
committed to aggressively acting in this space, just as we are 
in others.
    I would say, of course, I know that DHS also plays a very 
important role in looking at social media, and we benefit from 
the partnership with them on that subject. There are things 
that they can do as part of their mission that we cannot and do 
not.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. Ranking Member Portman, you are 
recognized for your questions.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start by 
saying that I appreciate what the men and women who work for 
you do every day. They wake up every morning and try to figure 
out how to keep our country safe. I think every member of this 
panel appreciates that and commends them. I do think our 
policies are making it harder for them, and that is what this 
is really about today is what can we change, policy-wise, to 
reduce rather than enhance the threats to our homeland.
    As I said earlier, I think it is extraordinary that over 
these 20 years we have not had any major mass casualty, foreign 
terrorist event. We certainly have had our share of attacks, 
but not the kind we saw in 9/11, and that is a tribute to them. 
But our policies worry me, and I would like to dig a little 
deeper on a couple of them quickly.
    I appreciate what you said on social media, Director Wray, 
and certainly in the cybersecurity, we look forward to working 
with you, Mr. Secretary, as you know, on that legislation, to 
ensure we have incident reporting, and we get a handle on the 
increasing cyber threat and the ransomware.
    But on these two issues we have already about today, one is 
the Afghan evacuees and the potential problems we may have if 
we do not have a system in place, a policy in place, that makes 
the people, again, who work for you, and others able to do 
their job. I am concerned about it. Second is in regard to 
immigration.
    Getting back to what has been said about those individuals 
who were evacuated in this hasty and chaotic process, we left 
people behind. We all know that. We left American citizens 
behind. But mostly we left behind people who had helped us. But 
we also had people get on these flights to leave who, as far as 
we know at this point, had no connection to us, in the sense of 
helping us or helping our allies.
    Secretary Mayorkas, your information is probably different 
than mine, based on what you have said today. We have pushed 
and pushed, as you know, and as I said I am very frustrated we 
cannot get a classified briefing maybe to dig to the bottom of 
this. But we do not really need, in my view, a classified 
briefing. We need to know who these folks are.
    By the way, it may surprise some of our constituents to 
find out that when these folks come over--and again, about 
60,000 are here, about 120,000 total, 60,000 total overseas--
they are permitted to walk. In other words, when they land at 
Dulles or land in Philadelphia, they are allowed to leave and 
go into the community. Is that accurate, Mr. Secretary? Just a 
yes or no, please.
    Secretary Mayorkas. No, that is not entirely accurate, 
Senator. There are conditions of parole for those who are 
paroled into the United States that are mandatory.
    Senator Portman. But when they land, if they choose not to 
go to the military base and to walk, they are able to do that.
    Secretary Mayorkas. They must receive, for example, certain 
immunizations in order to enter the interior of the United 
States.
    Senator Portman. I mean, OK, so they have to get----
    Secretary Mayorkas. But there are mandatory----
    Senator Portman. They have to get a shot. That is fine. But 
they are permitted to come into our country, and, my staff has 
been out there to see the arrivals. I have a friend who went to 
meet his interpreter, who he served in Afghanistan, and, they 
said, ``You can take him with you, but if you do, he could lose 
his benefits.'' I understand that. But my point is we do not 
have a system in place to keep people who want to walk.
    Now the other question is, who are these people? As I said, 
75 percent of them are not green card holders, are not 
citizens, they are not SIV holders, they are not even 
applicants for SIV. You indicated otherwise. We need to get to 
the bottom of it, because you want to know, I assume, just as 
we want to know, how we can ensure who these people are. This 
notion that they have been vetted as we would normally vet, I 
mean, how can we vet people? Are you going to call the Taliban 
government and say, ``Is this information about this criminal 
record accurate?'' Of course, we cannot.
    Normally we would be able to contact the government. Of 
course, we did not have an embassy because we had evacuated it, 
so we did not go through the normal screening to, Director 
Abizaid, your answer earlier, we did not go through the normal 
screening process that you would for someone applying for a 
visa. You could not, because we did not have the visa officials 
in the foreign office there to do it.
    I am going to leave that out there, because, I have lots 
more questions on it and I could push on what we have heard. 
But let me just say, yesterday, when the State Department was 
pushed on this and we were asked how many of those parolees 
applied for SIV or were family members of former employees, the 
State Department said, ``None of us really know.'' If that is 
the answer, fine, but if the answer is, as you said today, Mr. 
Secretary, they are all accounted for and we know who they are, 
we would certainly like to know that.
    With regard to immigration, this obviously is a huge crisis 
right now on the border. Again, over 200,000 people last month. 
Let me hold up these couple of charts, because they are 
interesting, I think, for a number of reasons. One is with 
regard to encounters at the border.\1\ We have seen this chart. 
Senator Johnson has a much more colorful, interesting chart.\2\ 
But this is where we are, and I have condensed it a little bit, 
just to start in the 2018 time period, this is when President 
Biden was inaugurated, we see this big increase. So we all know 
about that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The chart submitted by Senator Portman appears in the Appendix 
on page 105.
    \2\ The chart submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix 
on page 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This is why policies, again, are making the job much harder 
for the people who you work with to be able to keep an orderly 
and legal process at the border. This is, obviously, a crisis.
    But here is the second one. Maybe keep them together if you 
can. This is the people who are coming to our border from 
outside of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the so-
called Northern Triangle. Look at that. That increase is much 
more dramatic. These are people who come from Latin America, 
but they also come from Romania. I mean, they are coming from 
all over the world. We have obviously seen them coming from 
Haiti. The photos of what is going on there, I mean, look at 
this chart.\1\ I mean, it is obviously a humanitarian crisis. 
It is really discouraging to see.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The chart submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix 
on page 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    But what we are told is very different than what we heard 
today. We are told by ICE, that only 353 Haitians have been 
flown back to Haiti, out of the 13,000 to 15,000 that you said 
were there. Yet you are telling us today, we are taking care of 
it; the number is well below 10,000. That must mean that they 
were either removed to Mexico or released. I do not think they 
we removed to Mexico, because part of the problem with Title 42 
is Mexico is not taking people unless they are Spanish-
speaking, from Latin America.
    Again, we need to have our information clear, and in terms 
of why they came, I think this idea of a pull factor is very 
real. You know how I feel about the asylum system. I think it 
is a pull factor. As I told you, I visited some of these 
countries in Latin America and Central America recently, and 
the presidents of these countries say, ``We don't like what you 
guys are doing because you are pulling our good people away. 
You are pulling our young people away. We want them to stay 
here, actually.''
    But they are coming to the border not because of 
disinformation necessarily, as Senator Padilla talked about, 
and I appreciated his question. But a lot of it is accurate 
information, because the human smuggler can say to this family, 
``Give me ten thousand bucks. I will take your kid. I guarantee 
they can get in. Just say you are seeking asylum.''
    With regard to the Haitians, this is what you hear. The 
mayor of Del Rio, I believe, said this, and others have said 
it, that Section 8, which is not Section 42, which is being 
applied to Haitians, and the word got out, and the smugglers 
heard about it, and they said, ``Haitians are getting in under 
Section 8.'' In other words, they are permitted to come into 
the country--and boom, then they came. Of course.
    On Section 42, the Rodney Scott letter,\1\ which we got by 
snail mail so I did not get it until over the weekend, and we 
have circulated it to all the offices now, and it is part of 
the record today, he says in October 2020, he was told that 91 
percent of total encounters were processed under Title 42, and 
people were expelled in an average of 90 minutes. He said, ``A 
report I received in August 2021, indicated that nearly 53 
percent were granted exemptions from Title 42, with the 
majority ultimately being released into the United States.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The letter submitted by Senator Portman appears in the Appendix 
on page 111.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I understand what you are saying about recidivism, that 
some of these are people who have been stopped more than once 
and that is why the numbers are higher. But if it is because of 
Title 42, then it would have been much more true under the 
previous administration than this administration, because we 
have gone from, if these numbers are right, 91 percent were 
processed under Title 42 and expelled in 90 minutes, and 53 
percent now are being granted exemptions, at least of August.
    Title 42 may be short-lived for reasons that are beyond our 
control, in the Judicial Branch. I understand that. But then we 
need an alternative. We have to figure out a way to discourage 
people from coming to our country by letting them know the 
border is not open. You cannot come and say that you claim 
asylum and be able to come in the United States indefinitely. 
You have to be able to prove that. A you know, Mr. Secretary, 
it is something you and I have talked about a lot, and I think 
until we do that and get to that point those Haitians who were 
told, ``Hey, we are applying Title 8, which means you can come 
into the country,'' rather than 42, are going to keep coming, 
and others will keep coming. It is not in anybody's interest.
    By the way, this notion that this can all be solved by 
investing in Latin America, particularly in the Northern 
Triangle countries--that is our response, and the 
administration typically is ``we are going to invest in the 
Northern Triangle countries''--I am not against that. We have 
done a lot of it, $3.6 billion over the last five years, so 
another $4 billion we will see that is not the ultimate answer, 
I do not think.
    But these are all people who came in from outside of Mexico 
and outside of the Northern Triangle. So are we also going to 
have a program to stop the push factor in these other 
countries, including some countries outside of Latin America?
    Anyway, my time has expired. I apologize for going over 
time. But as you know, Secretary, I have a passion about this. 
I want to get it right, so we have an orderly, lawful process, 
so the most generous country in the world, in terms of 
immigration, can continue to be so, and our citizens can 
support it. But based on a system that actually works--for 
Latin America, for us, and for the rest of the world.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman. Senator 
Carper, you are recognized for your questions.
    Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Again, our thanks to 
Secretary Mayorkas, to Director Wray, to Director Abizaid for 
joining us today, for your testimony, and really for your 
leadership. You have taken on really tough jobs, and I have a 
few tough jobs in my life, and they do not begin to compare to 
what you are doing. I thank you for taking on all these 
responsibilities, and working with us and others.
    I have a question for Secretary Mayorkas, and Director 
Wray, initially. The question is, Mr. Secretary, in your 
testimony you discuss how China represents a threat to U.S. 
economic competitiveness. Senator Portman and I spent a fair 
amount of time as the leads on the Senate Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations, and we agree with that fully.
    In past years, Director Wray has stated that the Bureau 
views China as one of the greatest threats to our nation due to 
their counterintelligence and economic espionage interest, as 
it relates to targeting economic assets and seeking information 
related to our intellectual property.
    As we pivot to our national security posture to address 
near peer adversaries as opposed to traditional threats and 
actors, could each of you, Mr. Secretary and Director Wray, 
could each of you speak to how your agencies are working 
together, and separately, to combat the threat that China poses 
to our national interests and overall security?
    Mr. Secretary.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. 
Let me identify three different lines of effort that we are 
executing in response to the threat to our economic and, 
therefore, national security that China poses.
    First, of course, we have the infringements and theft of 
intellectual property, and we are working very closely in 
response to that with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 
Second, in the service of human rights, on the one hand, and a 
fair marketplace, a competitive marketplace on the other, we 
are stopping the importation of goods that are produced, in 
whole or in part, through forced labor. Third, we are 
addressing pure criminal activity, the theft of property by 
organizations emanating from the PRC. We are also, of course, 
addressing the cybersecurity threat that has emanated there and 
has attacked some of our Federal agencies.
    Senator Carper. OK. Thanks. You can hold it right there, if 
you will, and let me yield to Director Wray. Thank you, Mr. 
Secretary.
    Mr. Wray. Thank you, Senator, for the question. As you 
know, this is something I feel, to use Senator Portman's term, 
very passionately about, and I think there is no country that 
presents a greater threat to our innovation, our economic 
security, and our democratic ideas than the People's Republic 
of China, which is why we have over 2,000 active investigations 
tied back to the PRC government across all 56 field offices. 
That is an almost 1,300 percent increase in economic espionage 
investigations tied to China from about a decade ago. As I said 
in my opening, we are opening a new investigation that is tied 
back to China about every 12 hours, and it covers pretty much 
every sector of the economy in every State in the Nation.
    One of the things that we stood up, now 18 months or so 
ago, maybe two years ago, was a Counterintelligence Task Force 
structure modeled after the Joint Terrorism Task Force model 
that worked so well on the terrorism front. We have a national 
Counterintelligence Task Force here in the D.C. area and then 
we have Counterintelligence Task Forces in every field office, 
and those, in turn, bring on partners from other Federal 
agencies, in some cases even State and local agencies. And so 
that is a big part of our effort.
    The other thing I would say is it is not just 
investigations. The reality is we are not going to be able to 
investigate our way out of this threat. A big part of our field 
offices' work together with our partners--I have talked a lot, 
for example, to Secretary Mayorkas about critical 
infrastructure and that piece of it--is trying to get out to 
the private sector, out to the academic sector, and tried to 
help them understand the threat better so that they better 
harden themselves against the threat.
    So those are some of the things that I would mention.
    Senator Carper. That is good. That is encouraging.
    Mr. Secretary, as you mentioned in your testimony, the 
Department of Homeland Security's Center for Prevention, 
Programs, and Partnerships aims to expand the Department's 
ability to prevent terrorism and targeted violence through the 
development of local prevention frameworks. The CP3 office has 
been rebranded multiple times, as you know, in the past. In 
fact, it used to be called the Office for Community 
Partnerships. In previous Congresses I have introduced 
legislation, bipartisan legislation actually, to codify this 
office in order for there to be consistent leadership and 
resources for it.
    Is CP3, or a similar office, taking on the rise of domestic 
terrorism, something that Congress should work now to codify, 
and what benefits would that provide to the Department and to 
efforts to combat domestic terrorism, given it is one of the 
top threats facing our homeland? Go right ahead.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I am very grateful for your 
support of the office and for the Department as a whole. This 
office is centered on empowering and equipping neighborhoods, 
communities across the country, to address the threat of 
domestic violent extremism, homegrown violent extremism from 
the ground up.
    We dedicated, for the first time, a minimum of $77 million 
in FEMA grant funds dedicated to this growing threat. I very 
much look forward to working with you to see how legislation 
can best strengthen that office. We think it is a critical 
component of our homeland security enterprise.
    Senator Carper. Thank you for that encouraging response.
    A question, if I can, for Director Abizaid. Is there a 
question that you have not been asked? Is there a question that 
you have not been asked as you prepared for this hearing that 
you wish you had been asked? For the next minute just tell us 
what that question is and give us an answer. Thank you.
    Ms. Abizaid. Generally I have been advised that the fewer 
questions, the better. I would say that in general, the global 
terrorism landscape remains a top priority, for us as a 
government and for the National Counterterrorism Center, which 
was purpose built, in the wake of 9/11, to connect the dots 
related to the terrorist threat overseas, related to how it may 
present itself in the domestic context. We have worked very 
hard over the last 14 years of our existence to make sure that 
we are fulfilling that role appropriately.
    I have been really proud, coming on board at the National 
Counterterrorism Center, to see not just the work of NCTC but 
to see the work that we are doing across the intelligence 
community and across the CT community to stay vigilant against 
the threat, however it may evolve. We have to be very serious 
in understanding that it will, in fact, evolve again, and 
vigilance is required.
    Senator Carper. Thank you for that question and for the 
answer. To all of you here today thank you for your leadership. 
It is great to see you, and we are grateful for your 
leadership. Thank you so much.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Carper. Senator 
Johnson, you are recognized for your questions.
    Senator Johnson. Director Wray, have you read the Michael 
Sussmann indictment?
    Mr. Wray. I have had a chance to glance at it but I have 
not had time yet to read through it.
    Senator Johnson. I would suggest you and everybody else 
read that because it really does lay out exactly what happened 
to create this political turmoil for two, three, or four years, 
really, during the Trump administration. It lays out how the 
Hillary Clinton campaign paid for, through Michael Sussmann, 
completely false allegations that Trump was cooperating with 
the Alfa-Bank. Planted that story, had an audience with James 
Banker, FBI, so that the FBI would open up an investigation so 
that they could report that news. Same exactly dynamic in terms 
of the false Steele dossier that also contained Russian 
disinformation, which the FBI knew about, certainly no later 
than January 2017.
    You worked at the Justice Department, as did Michael 
Sussmann. Did you know Michael Sussman?
    Mr. Wray. To my knowledge, I have never met the man.
    Senator Johnson. But did you know him by reputation?
    Mr. Wray. Not particularly, no.
    Senator Johnson. Do you think James Baker knew Michael 
Sussmann?
    Mr. Wray. I really cannot speak to whom James Baker knew 
or----
    Senator Johnson. Do you think it is credible that James 
Baker, James Comey, Andrew McCabe Peter Strzok, or Lisa Page, 
these individuals had no idea who Michael Sussmann was and who 
his clients might be?
    Mr. Wray. Senator, I certainly understand why you are 
asking the question----
    Senator Johnson. Good.
    Mr. Wray [continuing]. But if I could just finish, given 
that this is an ongoing criminal case, being brought by the 
special counsel with whom we are actively cooperating----
    Senator Johnson. OK.
    Mr. Wray [continuing]. I want to make sure I----
    Senator Johnson. That is fine. I will not get an answer. 
But let me make the final point here. Either the FBI was 
completely clueless or corrupt, that they did not check into 
whether Michael Sussmann might have been working for the 
Hillary Clinton campaign before they opened up the 
investigation to leak to the press, which put this nation 
through three, four years of political turmoil. There needs to 
be political accountability, and I hope John Durham has a whole 
lot more that he is going to be revealing, because I got 
virtually nothing out of you, based on subpoenas.
    I mean, it was interesting listening to your exchange with 
Senator Paul. You said it was unacceptable what happened. That 
is good. I am glad to hear that. But you were confirmed in 
August 2017. In February 2018, the Senate Intel Committee was 
briefed by Bill Priestap, and the bottom line of that is Bill 
Priestap, of the FBI, continued to say the Steele dossier was 
credible, even though the FBI knew, in January 2017, that it 
contained Russian disinformation.
    Now that was under your watch. Do you have an explanation 
on that?
    Mr. Wray. Senator, as I said, we had been working very 
closely with Special Counsel Durham, and I want to be careful 
not to start----
    Senator Johnson. OK.
    Mr. Wray [continuing]. Talking about things that may be----
    Senator Johnson. OK. That is fine. So another non-response.
    In February 2020, senior Democrats produced a false 
intelligence product, had it classified, leaked it to the 
press, accusing Senator Grassley and I of soliciting Russian 
disinformation, disseminating it. Completely false. But I 
cannot tell you how many news stories were written about that.
    Fast forward to August 2020. By the way, I held a hearing 
on Russian disinformation as part of my Foreign Relations 
Committee responsibilities in 2015. I am well aware of the 
problem of Russian disinformation. I did not need a briefing 
that the FBI requested to give me. I did not ask for this 
briefing in August 2020. When I went into the briefing there 
was absolutely no relevant information. It was a completely 
B.S. hearing. I asked the briefers, ``Who directed you to give 
me that briefing?'' and all they could say was, ``Well, it was 
interagency.'' Well, you know, there are people in the 
interagencies.
    I wrote a letter immediately asking, first of all, what was 
the backup material for the briefing. I asked who directed it. 
I knew it was a setup. I knew it would be used just like the 
false intel product was used previously. I was not happy. Then, 
of course, lo and behold, in late April, early May, it was 
leaked. That briefing was leaked to The Washington Post, again, 
accusing me of disseminating Russian disinformation. Nothing 
could be further from the truth. It is false.
    I have a number of questions which remain unanswered. I 
sent you a similar letter. What backed up the August briefing? 
Who directed that briefing? To this day I have gotten no 
response. By the way, Senator Grassley, former president pro 
tem of the Senate, former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, is asking the same questions. Why is it that we 
cannot meet with you? Why is it that you will not provide us 
that basic information of who directed a briefing to two U.S. 
Senator, that was then leaked, for political purposes, used 
against us, false? Why won't you answer that very basic 
question?
    Mr. Wray. Senator, I want to be a little bit careful of 
what I can say in public about----
    Senator Johnson. I can imagine you want to be careful. Yes. 
Go ahead.
    Mr. Wray. I want to be a little bit careful of what I can 
say in this kind of setting, without getting into specifics. I 
understand this is an important topic to you. Before we deliver 
a defensive briefing, like the one that you are describing 
here, we follow a standard, defined process that involves 
interagency discussion, deliberative process, to figure out 
whether a defensive briefing is even warranted.
    Just to take a step back, though, because it is important, 
the entire purpose of defensive briefings to an individual is 
designed----
    Senator Johnson. Mr. Wray, listen. You are describing a 
process, and I understand the process. Great. The process 
obviously broke down. There are all kinds of processes, putting 
in safeguards in the FISA court, that were obviously violated 
in that corrupt investigation.
    Again, I am asking a simple question--why won't you tell me 
in detail who was engaged in that process? I am asking you to 
provide that answer. I am asking you to give me a briefing, 
meet with me and Senator Grassley. We deserve to know the 
answers. Quite honestly, the American people deserve to know 
the answers.
    Secretary Mayorkas, real quick, in my 30 seconds left, you 
said you have gotten some numbers on the border. Are you 
willing to finally share them, like, for example, like out of 
the 1.3 million people that have been apprehended--again, I get 
the complications. There have been multiple arrests of the same 
individual. Fine. The relevant piece of information would be 
how many people have you dispersed in America, out of those 1.3 
million people? How many people have been released into the 
interior, either with a notice to appear or even worse, a 
notice to report? Again, you have to live in a fantasy world to 
think that they are going to report. But go ahead. How many 
people have been released?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, I apologize. I do not have 
that data. I was reciting the data of encounters, 
apprehensions, use of Title 42, and use of Title 8 expedited 
removal. I will provide the data you have requested. I do not 
have it at my disposal.
    Senator Johnson. OK. I will be expecting that information 
very soon. OK? Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Johnson. Senator 
Lankford, you are recognized for your questions.
    Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 
Secretary Mayorkas, you have tens of thousands of people right 
now that are coming at the border. You have tens of thousands 
of people that are underneath bridges, as we have seen under 
several of the international bridges at this point, and in the 
process of actually moving some of those folks out of the 
country. What is the process for actually relocating 
individuals that are Title 42 authority out of that area, under 
those bridges? You have started that process with the Haitians, 
but walk me through, quickly, the process, because I have 
multiple other questions.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Yes. What we do is we look at where our 
capacity is at other processing centers, and those goes to an 
apparent miscommunication I have had with Ranking Member 
Portman, for which I apologize. What we do is we look at 
processing capacity. We then move the individuals from Del Rio, 
as needed, to ensure safety and security. We move them to the 
other processing centers so that they may be repatriated to 
Haiti or other countries from those various processing centers. 
We are increasing the frequency and number of the repatriation 
flights each day.
    Senator Lankford. OK. Do you expect to be able to move all 
of those individuals out in the next, how many days?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Our goal is to do so within the next 10 
days or 9 days. We expect to see dramatic results in the next 
48 to 96 hours, and we will have a far better sense in the next 
two days.
    Senator Lankford. What do you anticipate is coming at you, 
as far as additional numbers, because obviously this number 
grew exceptionally quickly, of Haitians and of others from all 
over the world coming?
    Secretary Mayorkas. We are watching that, Senator Lankford, 
very carefully. I do want to note that some individuals turned 
back yesterday by reason of our measures, which I have 
described in this hearing. We are hoping that what we are doing 
now serves as a deterrent, because it backs up the words that 
we have spoken since the very outset, that irregular migration 
is not the way to enter the United States. It will not work, it 
is dangerous, and it creates a humanitarian challenge.
    Senator Lankford. It does, and that was actually the 
ongoing statement of the Trump administration over and over 
again, why they put the MPP in process to discourage people 
from coming, doing the exact same thing that you are doing, 
trying to be able to get them back to their home country, apply 
from there.
    There is this false belief that I hear from some that if 
you are going to apply for asylum it seems to be America is the 
only place in the world to apply for asylum for. So we have 
people from all over the world that are making their ways, 
paying cartels to be able to come through Mexico, to be able to 
come to the United States. People have this perception that, 
OK, well they are coming here because of economic reasons, of 
asylum, of disaster, whatever it may be.
    But that is not the true definition of asylum. Asylum is 
you go to the next safe place that you can go, not travel 
through 14 different countries to be able to get to a spot you 
want to go to. There is a way to do regular immigration where 
we have 1 million people a year that would be able to go 
through that process, and that is what we would encourage 
individuals to do.
    Mr. Wray, let me ping a question to you, that you and I 
have not spoken about before but it is exceptionally important 
to me. There has been a tremendous number of individuals that 
are dealing drugs that have a dramatic effect on my State as 
they do on your home State. Much of that is coming across our 
Southwest Border. We are very aware of that. But some of that 
is actually being run by criminal operations inside our 
prisons.
    One of the pushes that I have had for a while has been the 
issue of cellphones inside of prisons, because we see it in 
both State prisons and in Federal prisons, where we have drug 
cartels being literally run out of the prison still. It is one 
thing for a victim of crime to be able to end up and to be 
exposed to crimes. It is another thing to realize the person 
that perpetrated that is still operating their gang.
    What can we do to actually facilitate getting cellphones 
out of prisons, and what kind of cooperation do we need with 
other agencies to clear that?
    Mr. Wray. I think we have reasonably good work on that 
being done with Federal prisons, in the Federal Bureau of 
Prisons (BOP), for example. But as you say, with State prisons 
it is more of a range, depending on their resources.
    If it is all right I would like to sort of take a little 
bit of time to think about that----
    Senator Lankford. Yes, let's do.
    Mr. Wray [continuing]. And maybe get back to you.
    Senator Lankford. Let us keep going in that conversation. I 
have had this conversation with the Federal Communications 
Commission (FCC) and with some other folks. There are some 
regulatory issues that need to be done. There is some 
cooperation that needs to be there with multiple agencies. I 
would love to be able to maintain that conversation because it 
is a big issue. When you are a victim of a rape and your rapist 
actually contacts you by cellphone from their prison, that has 
to be resolved. If you are a victim of drug crime and you are 
still dealing with that in the days ahead.
    On the cellphone issue--and this is a different cellphone 
issue on this--Secretary Mayorkas, I understand that you have 
moved over the tracking of individuals crossing our border from 
an ankle monitor and are experimenting with giving individuals 
a cellphone, and they have to be able to check in on that 
cellphone once or twice a day, that the notice to report plus, 
apparently, is the term that is being used--I am not familiar 
with this process--in trying to be able to figure out what is 
being done with that cellphone and what is happening if 
individuals do not check in, if they are given a cellphone paid 
for by the American public to be able to track them. Is there a 
tracking device all the time? Are we able to track their 
location constantly? If they do not check in are we going to be 
able to pick those up?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Senator, if they do not check in we 
make a determination based on the facts, whether or not they 
need to be the subject of a priority enforcement action for 
evading law enforcement and not honoring their obligations as a 
condition of their release on alternatives to detention.
    One of the things that we are looking at is assessing the 
efficacy of the phones and determining whether, in fact, they 
are a valuable enforcement tool. We are collecting data on 
that, and I would look forward to providing it to you.
    Senator Lankford. How many people are in that process right 
now? Do you know what the size of that pilot is?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I do not, Senator. We will get that to 
you.
    Senator Lankford. But these are all recent crossers that 
are getting this, correct?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Yes, they are.
    Senator Lankford. I would assume they would all follow 
under that priority of if they are a recent crosser and they 
are not checking in, then they would fall underneath that 
priority of we need to go scoop them up and find out why they 
are not checking in.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Individuals who do not fulfill their 
responsibilities to appear and report are considered a border 
security enforcement priority.
    Senator Lankford. OK. That goes back to one of my questions 
before about trying to get a good ballpark figure of how many 
people that fit into that priority group are actually having 
enforcement on them currently.
    I understand there is a new process on prosecutorial 
discretion that is being used by some of the attorneys to 
actually go before the court. Once folks have actually been 
obtained and go before the court, then attorneys for DHS and 
ICE are coming and saying, ``Allow us prosecutorial discretion 
to be able to release this individual.'' Is that a new process 
or is that something that is ongoing?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Prosecutorial discretion is something 
that has been----
    Senator Lankford. That is around for a long time. I am 
talking about actually going to the court and requesting it.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I believe that has been longstanding.
    Senator Lankford. OK. We will follow up and get additional 
details on this, because it is my understanding there has 
been--I have received some recent information about 6,234 cases 
that have been dismissed, and in the process of those cases, 
ones that are actually in the process, and some of them 
included some folks with a criminal record as well. We are 
trying to get additional information.
    Secretary Mayorkas. I look forward to providing that to 
you. I know that the Office of Legal Counsel within Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement has promulgated new guidelines for its 
attorneys, and if you do not have those guidelines we would be 
pleased to share them with you.
    Senator Lankford. That would be helpful. This goes back to 
the ICE guidelines before on detention, that we are trying to 
get clarity on it, that we had talked about needing it by 
August. You had said I would have it by August, and I do not 
have it. What are we doing on enforcement inside of the 
country? What are we doing on prosecutorial enforcement?
    This goes back to the deterrence issues. If individuals are 
able to get into the country and they do not have any 
consequences on them, they will continue to be able to come, 
whether they come across the border with a child so they can 
work their way through or whether they will find other avenues 
to be able to get in. If there is not enforcement it will 
continue to accelerate.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Senator 
Rosen, you are recognized for your questions.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chairman Peters. I appreciate the 
second round. I appreciate our witnesses staying around. It is 
really important.
    I actually want to build on Chairman Peters, some of his 
earlier questioning on our digital spaces, our online. We know 
that digital spaces are just fueling the rise of domestic 
terrorism. You know, extremists, they try to exploit the 
Internet to recruit, to franchise, and, of course, 
unfortunately, to plot attacks.
    Secretary Mayorkas and Director Wray, to both of you, how 
can Congress better empower Federal law enforcement officials 
to combat online hate before it escalates into any real-world 
violence, how do you work with the digital platforms, and what 
kind of support can we provide you with, whether it is through 
this Committee or other committees of jurisdiction to help you 
do this job?
    Secretary Mayorkas, you can go first.
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Senator Rosen. I 
have heard Director Wray speak very compellingly about two 
forces on the domestic landscape that are really converging to 
create the increase that we have observed over the last few 
years.
    No. 1 is the fact that we are speaking very often of lone 
actors or loosely affiliated groups of individuals, not the 
traditional organized structures. No. 2 is, as he referenced 
earlier in this year, the fact that social media has a terrain 
that can so easily propagate misinformation, false information, 
and allow communications to occur among loosely affiliated 
individuals.
    I would like to give some thought to, and speak with our 
partners, Director Wray, Director Abizaid, with respect to what 
legislation might be useful in this space. But we are working 
together in an all-of-government effort to address this 
increased threat.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate that because I want 
to give you the tools you really need to protect us, and that 
is terrific.
    Director Wray, do you have some additional information you 
would like to add about how you think we might help you in this 
space?
    Mr. Wray. Without weighing in on a specific legislative 
proposal, what I would say, and I have spoken about this many 
times, I cannot overstate the impact of default encryption and 
the role it is playing, including in terrorism. What I mean by 
that is more and more the information that is going to allow us 
to, as I said to, I think, Chairman Peters earlier in an 
exchange, separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of social 
media, is being able to, with lawful process, that is 
appropriate court warrants, get access to those communications 
where the most meaningful discussion of the violence is 
occurring.
    More and more, technology is moving in a direction where no 
matter how bulletproof the affidavit in support of the warrant, 
no matter how ironclad the independent judicial approval, and 
no matter how horrific the criminal activity that is being 
investigated, we will be blind to it. I think that is something 
that is worthy of Congress' attention.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I look forward to having some 
more conversations with you offline about that.
    I want to move over and talk a little bit about the 
nonprofit security grants. I know we have talked about these 
before, and, of course, the alarming rise in anti-Semitism. 
Again, we are talking about our domestic violent extremists 
here. Despite the alarming rise, the nonprofit security grants 
have fulfilled less than half of the applications it received 
for grants this year, far outstripping the $180 million that 
Congress provided through regular appropriations for fiscal 
year 2021.
    Mr. Secretary, given the growing need for the Nonprofit 
Security Grant Program (NSGP), again we talked earlier about 
the communities understanding how to best protect themselves 
from any attacks or any vulnerabilities that they have, how 
does DHS--we have not given you enough resources--how can you 
fill this gap, and what else do you need from us?
    Secretary Mayorkas. Thank you very much, Senator. I am 
engaged with the faith-based community on this very issue. We 
are extensively so. I am taking a look at our grant programs 
writ large, across the board, not only the nonprofit security 
grants but the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Grant 
Program, some of its components and the like, to see how those 
dollars can meet the threats to ensure that any gaps are 
closed.
    I would like to circle back with you on what we find and 
what other support we need. I am very appreciative.
    Senator Rosen. No, and I want to really circle back on the 
UASI and talking about those formulas, as I spoke about 
earlier, with critical infrastructure. We have to think about 
how our UASI grants are funded, as well as the nonprofit 
security grants, because we have critical infrastructure in 
many places and we want to be sure that those formulas reflect 
the broad spectrum of threats that we may see now, especially 
on the cyber front and other ways.
    I really appreciate, again, all of you being here. I look 
forward to having some more conversations and putting forth 
some meaningful legislation out of this Committee, as well as 
other. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
    Before Ranking Member Portman and I make some brief closing 
remarks, Secretary Mayorkas, I would like to ask you about some 
very concerning images that were released yesterday, that 
appeared to show Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian 
migrants. These acts certainly are intolerable and a complete 
diversion from your agency's mission. My question to you is, 
can you explain to the Committee what you will be doing to 
address what Americans saw when looking at those images?
    Secretary Mayorkas. I am very pleased you asked that 
question. It has been uppermost in my mind since I first saw 
the image late yesterday, Mr. Chairman.
    We commenced an investigation at my direction immediately, 
the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) within the 
Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection, No. 1. No. 2, we alerted the inspector general of 
the incidents. No. 3, I directed that the Office of 
Professional Responsibility be present onsite, in Del Rio, 24/
7, to ensure that the conduct of our personnel adheres to our 
policies, to our training, and to our values.
    I was horrified to see the images, and we look forward to 
learning the facts that are educed from the investigation, and 
we will take actions that those facts compel. We do not 
tolerate any mistreatment or abuse of a migrant, period.
    I also want to say, and I think it is very important to 
say, that I saw two other powerful things yesterday, when I was 
there, under the bridge, in Del Rio. No. 1, I saw the acute 
vulnerability of the Haitian population, the predominantly 
Haitian population, and I cannot overstate how difficult that 
is to see. We are speaking about vulnerable individuals in 
tragic circumstances.
    I also saw the extraordinary work of U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection, not only the United States Border Patrol but 
its Office of Field Operations, as well as other agencies 
within the Department of Homeland Security, that have been 
surged to Del Rio to address the situation, in partnership with 
State and local law enforcement personnel, as well as the 
forces in civil society.
    We saw the American Red Cross. We saw World Central Kitchen 
providing food and supplies to these individuals. It is an all-
of-government and all-of-local-society effort there, and I want 
to say that the actions that we saw, the images that we saw, do 
not speak of the incredible men and women of U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection or of the Department of Homeland Security as 
an institution.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you for those comments.
    Ranking Member Portman, do you have some closing remarks?
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really 
appreciate all the time today. This was a long session, and as 
predicted at the start, there were going to be some challenging 
questions. That is because we are facing so many threats, and 
at least on my behalf I will say that I think we need some 
policy changes to be able, again, to let the men and women who 
are working for you, who are so committed to their task, to do 
their job more effectively.
    We talked about the foreign terrorist threat, we talked 
about al-Qaeda and ISIS, and we talked about the way we 
withdrew having enhanced that threat, at least in my view, and 
the need for us to have better eyes and ears on the region. As 
we saw with the drone attack, we are in a challenging situation 
now.
    We talked about cyber threats. We talked about the 
ransomware issue, the need for reporting legislation, which I 
hope we can get done soon, on a bipartisan basis. We talked 
about border security, illegal immigration, and illegal drugs 
coming in, fentanyl particularly. We talked about the fact that 
what we have been doing has not worked, and particularly with 
this dramatic humanitarian crisis with the Haitians coming. I 
mean, what we are doing is not working.
    Again, it is not that the smugglers are providing 
disinformation to these poor families, not just in Latin 
America now but around the world. It is the fact that they are 
providing accurate information, that if you come to the border, 
particularly with a child, you can come in. That is, 
unfortunately, the result of a policy that we have put in place 
that makes it a draw. Unless you are a single man coming to the 
border, you probably are being told the right thing, which is 
the United States is a place where people want to come and live 
and work, and we should be doing it in a legal and orderly way.
    Mr. Secretary, I know you and I have a lot more to talk 
about in that area, but I would hope that today, with 
everything going on, you talked about just surging Border 
Patrol to Del Rio to help. Where did they come from? They came 
from shutting down checkpoints all over the Southwest. I mean, 
is that smart?
    You talked about the fact that there is so much focus 
there. We shut down the bridge there, in Del Rio. Commercial 
traffic ended, the economic impact on that community. 
Obviously, what we are doing is not working.
    On domestic terrorism we talked about the huge challenge of 
social media, the need for us to enhance the nonprofit security 
grant program and other ways to deal with the very real threat 
of domestic terrorism. Secretary Wray, you talked about how it 
has grown. Then on the Afghan evacuees, we have a difference of 
opinion about the facts, and we need to know what the facts 
are, and we need to be sure that we are doing what I believe is 
our moral responsibility of taking care of people who helped 
us, particularly given the way in which we left, which left a 
lot of people in a very vulnerable situation, but also be sure 
we knew who they are, and be sure that we are not putting 
ourselves in a position where, as Director Abizaid said early 
in her testimony, foreign terrorist are looking for ways to get 
people into our country. That is something we, of course, all 
want to avoid and not take risks on.
    We look forward to our classified briefing on that, if that 
is what is necessary to get the information. If it does not 
have to be classified, that is fine for us too. We want to get 
the information to be able to ensure that we are doing our 
proper oversight.
    Again, thank you all for being here today and thanks to the 
people you represent here today for what they do every day to 
help keep our country safe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
    Director Wray, I want to go back to the first line of 
questioning and the question that I asked you. I certainly 
understand and respect that Kaseya is an ongoing investigation, 
but the FBI's actions here may have cost millions of dollars 
and possibly even more than that. The FBI, in my mind, is going 
to need to explain this action. We need to know who signed off 
on it, who was aware, and whether the cost to the bottom line 
of American families and businesses was considered in that 
decision process. We also need to know what operational 
benefits the FBI believed it would gain by withholding this 
information and if you were actually successful.
    These are some of the questions that come to mind 
immediately, and, I had to comment immediately because we got 
this information not from the FBI but we received this 
information by reading The Washington Post. We would hope that 
we would get information of this critical nature in a direct 
manner, not through reading it in a secondary source.
    Perhaps most importantly, we need to know if the FBI has 
done this before, and if it is occurring in other cases. I 
would expect a classified briefing that is substantive, not 
just canned responses.
    Director Wray, you know this Committee is also working on 
cybersecurity legislation, and I certainly plan to work and 
make sure the FBI is transparent so that we can effectively 
carry out our legislative and oversight duties. Certainly I 
appreciate your commitment today in Committee, to briefing the 
Committee, and I look forward to getting that scheduled as soon 
as practical.
    In closing, to join Senator Portman and all my colleagues 
in thanking the witnesses for being here today. We all 
recognize that you have extremely busy schedules, and we are 
grateful that you took the time to be here and to answer some 
tough questions on the tough problems that we are facing as a 
country.
    The Committee is working to address many of the issues that 
were discussed today. I look forward to continuing our 
conversation about cyberattacks and what tools and information 
the Federal Government needs to better prevent breaches and 
attacks, at our hearing coming up in a couple of days, on 
Thursday.
    Senator Portman and I have been working on legislation 
related to reporting cybersecurity breaches and ransomware 
payments, and I look forward to introducing and moving that 
legislation very soon.
    The Committee will be continuing our oversight of security 
and border security personnel practices at both the Northern 
and the Southern Borders. In the coming days, the Committee 
will receive a classified member briefing on the multiagency 
efforts to screen and resettle Afghan refugees.
    While we have spent several productive hours during this 
hearing examining our nation's greatest security threats, there 
is still much more work to do for this Committee to continue 
conducting the oversight that we are required to do in ensuring 
that our national security agencies are effectively focused on 
all of their critical missions. I look forward to continuing to 
work productively with my colleagues on the Committee to ensure 
that we are doing everything, absolutely everything in our 
power to safeguard American communities.
    With that, the record for this hearing will remain open for 
15 days, until 5 p.m. on October 6, 2021, for the submission of 
statements and questions for the record. The hearing is now 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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