    [Senate Hearing 117-573]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 117-573

              SECURING AND ENSURING ORDER ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

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

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                   HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION
                                   __________

                                  MAY 5, 2022
                                   __________

            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

    50-843 PDF                 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
                        Sarah C. Pierce, Senior Counsel
                   Katie A. Conley, Professional Staff Member
                    Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
                Sam J. Mulopulos, Minority Deputy Staff Director
           Jeremy H. Hayes, Minority Senior 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..............................................     3
        Senator Carper...............................................    20
        Senator Lankford.............................................    22
        Senator Sinema...............................................    25
        Senator Scott................................................    29
        Senator Rosen................................................    32
        Senator Johnson..............................................    34
        Senator Hassan...............................................    37
        Senator Padilla..............................................    40
        Senator Ossoff...............................................    43
        Senator Hawley...............................................    46
    Prepared statements:
        Senator Peters...............................................    59
        Senator Portman..............................................    61

                                   WITNESSES
                             Thursday, May 5, 2022

    Hon. January Contreras, Assistant Secretary, Administration for
      Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human
      Services.......................................................     6
    Blas Nunez-Neto, Acting Assistant Secretary for Border and
      Immigration Policy, Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, U.S.
      Department of Homeland Security................................     7
    MaryAnn E. Tierney, Senior Coordinating Official, Southwest
      Border Coordination Center, U.S. Department of Homeland
      Security.......................................................     9
    Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman, Acting Chief Operating Officer, U.S.
      Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland
      Security.......................................................    11
    Emily Mendrala, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western
      Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State...................    13

                         Alphabetical List of Witnesses

    Contreras, Hon. January:
        Testimony....................................................     6
        Prepared statement...........................................    64
    Huffman, Benjamine ``Carry'':
        Testimony....................................................    11
        Prepared statement...........................................    90
    Mendrala, Emily:
        Testimony....................................................    13
        Prepared statement...........................................    97
    Nunez-Neto- Blas:
        Testimony....................................................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    73
    Tierney, MaryAnn E.:
        Testimony....................................................     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    85

                                    APPENDIX

    Senator Peters Rate of Repeat Illegal Border Crossings at U.S.-
      Mexico Border chart............................................   101
    Senator Portman Encounters at the Southwest Border chart.........   102
    Senator Johnson SW Border Apprehensions chart....................   103
    Senator Scott The Border is Closed. The Border is Secure chart...   104
    Senator Scott People Who Don't Want a Border Wall chart..........   105
    Senator Ossoff HHS OIG Report....................................   106
    Senator Ossoff Red Cross Letter..................................   150
    Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) Statement for the Record..........   152
    Response to post-hearing questions submitted for the Record
        Ms. Contreras................................................   158
        Mr. Nunez-Neto...............................................   173
        Ms. Tierney..................................................   198
        Mr. Huffman..................................................   208
        Ms. Mendrala.................................................   219

              SECURING AND ENSURING ORDER ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

                                  ----------

                             THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2022

                                         U.S. Senate,
                               Committee on Homeland Security
                                      and Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., via
    Webex and in room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon.
    Gary Peters, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen,
    Padilla, Ossoff, Portman, Johnson, Lankford, Scott, and Hawley.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

        Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the
    Appendix on page 59.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I would certainly like to thank each of our witnesses for
    joining us here today. Thank you for your dedicated service to
    the American people, and for your work to address humanitarian
    and security challenges at our Southern Border over the past
    two years. Over the next few months, we know that these
    challenges will persist, especially as the Administration moves
    forward with its plans to end Title 42.
        While ongoing litigation and shifting Coronavirus Disease
    2019 (COVID-19) circumstances may impact the exact timing of
    when the public health order is lifted, the Administration must
    have a detailed, well-thought-out, and well-resourced plan to
    secure our borders and address expected changes in migration
    once this policy change goes into effect.
        Yesterday, this Committee had an opportunity to hear
    directly from Secretary Mayorkas on this, and other critical
    issues. Today, we will have another opportunity to hear from
    senior Administration officials and go into further detail
    about how the Federal Government will secure our borders and
    manage the proposed termination of this policy.
        Title 42 is a temporary public health order, and it is not
    a long-term solution to our border security needs. Today's
    hearing is an important opportunity for the Administration to
    detail both their short-term plans for addressing this expected
    policy change as well as the long-term solutions that Congress
    and the Administration must work on together to ensure that we
    have secure borders.
        In fact, since Title 42 was initiated to prevent the spread
    of COVID-19 in March 2020, it has severely restricted the use
    of proven enforcement mechanisms that prevent illegal border
    crossings, and in turn has contributed to an increase in repeat
    illegal crossings. Soon after this policy was implemented, the
    number of single adults trying to illegally cross the Southern
    Border doubled, and now, repeated attempts by individuals to
    unlawfully enter the United States has reached a nearly 15-year
    high, and that certainly is unsustainable and places
    significant burdens on our border security professionals.
        I look forward to discussing the Administration's plans to
    reinstate proven border security enforcement methods, such as
    escalating consequences for repeat offenders, that have been
    shown to significantly reduce illegal crossings between ports
    of entry (POE), and ensure Border Patrol agents can stay
    focused on their border security mission.
        Reinstating these kinds of consequences will hold
    individuals who break the law accountable, while ensuring that
    children, families, and other migrants fleeing persecution are
    able to present themselves at ports of entry for a timely
    review of their asylum claims.
        In addition to addressing the humanitarian situation at the
    Southern Border, the Administration must ensure they have the
    personnel and resources needed to ensure the safe, secure, and
    efficient facilitation of lawful trade and travel at our ports
    of entry, and combat the flow of deadly illicit drugs like
    fentanyl that continue to wreak havoc on communities in
    Michigan and across the Nation.
        I have long pressed for robust resources to ensure we have
    enough personnel, as well as technology like nonintrusive
    screening equipment, that improves Customs and Border
    Protection (CBP) officers' ability to examine vehicles and
    large amounts of cargo efficiently, and stop illegal drugs from
    being smuggled across our borders. I look forward to discussing
    what more the Administration needs to ensure that we can
    prevent fentanyl and other illegal substances from harming our
    communities.
        Finally, this hearing is also an opportunity to discuss the
    policies that Congress and the Administration must work
    together on to address the long-term challenges at our borders,
    and especially the southern border.
        Over the past decade, we have seen a surge in the number of
    migrants arriving at the Southern Border nearly every year, and
    under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is
    clear that without bipartisan action to pass comprehensive
    immigration reform and reforms to our asylum system, these
    challenges will persist for years and for decades to come.
        I look forward to hearing from today's panel about what
    long-term solutions the Administration is proposing to address
    the root causes of migration, increase regional cooperation
    with our partners in South and Central America, and ensure
    migrants receive humane treatment while streamlining the asylum
    process.
        Challenges at our Southern Border are not new, but they are
    significant. Today's discussion will provide this Committee
    with the opportunity to ensure our nation has sufficient tools,
    resources, and personnel to take these issues head-on.
        Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your opening
    comments.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\

        Senator Portman. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
    appreciate your holding this hearing on the Southwest Border,
    which clearly is in a crisis situation now, and I think
    everybody agrees with that. It is hard not to when you look at
    the facts. We discussed this issue at length yesterday with
    Secretary Mayorkas, and today we are going discuss it further
    with our witnesses who I appreciate coming from the Department
    of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of State (DOS), and the
    Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I appreciate
    your service to each of you, and thank you for, even though you
    are at a distance, I can see you and we look forward to having
    you.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the
    Appendix on page 61.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I will say that I requested for the Committee today to hear
    from the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, as well
    as the Chief of Border Patrol. We have not heard from these
    individuals in the 117th Congress, and I think that is wrong. I
    think we have an oversight responsibility. With all due respect
    to our witnesses here, we like having you, but we hope that
    your bosses would have come, at least some of your bosses, to
    be able to ensure that we are getting the Administration's view
    on what is happening on the border and how it's going to be
    fixed.
        Last year, about a million people came to the border
    unlawfully and were allowed into the United States. Let me
    repeat that. About a million people came to the border
    unlawfully and were admitted into the United States. As you
    know, we are talking a lot about whether these numbers are 10-
    year high, 15-year high, or whatever they are. This year so
    far, 2022, it is unprecedented. It is not a 15-year high. It is
    an historic high. We will see what happens this summer because
    typically we would expect more people to come. Also because of
    Title 42 possibly ending, we are expecting a lot more people to
    come. That is one of the big issues we talked about yesterday.
        I mentioned that about a million people come to the border
    unlawfully are allowed into the United States. Most of those
    are asylees or applicants for asylum, about 85 percent of them
    from Mexico or Central America-we do not have good numbers for
    the other countries--are eventually turned down for that
    asylum, but only a very small numbers, we heard yesterday, are
    ever deported. So that is that part.
        But with regard to Title 42, another roughly one million
    people were turned away at the border under Title 42, meaning
    they were processed, about 40 hours of processing, and then
    they were sent back to their home country if they came from
    other than Mexico or sent back to Mexico. That is two million
    when you think about it, unlawfully coming to the border, a
    million coming in, being released, a million being turned away.
    If Title 42 no longer applies, math will tell you it looks like
    that number may double in terms of those admitted into the
    country, even though they came to the border without proper
    documentation.
        Some say it will be more because traffickers all over the
    world are already telling people when Title 42 is gone, just
    come on in because it will be relatively easy as long as you
    say you have credible fear, you can then come in under our
    asylum system. That is our challenge we have got. On top of
    that, of course, we allow in about 750,000 people a year under
    our legal immigration system, people who wait in line,
    patiently go through the right channels.
        I strongly support legal immigration. In fact, I believe we
    could actually increase legal immigration to be able to address
    our workforce challenges in this country and the need for us to
    have people who come to the United States legally with skills.
    But that makes us, in America, at least for a legal immigration
    system, probably the most generous country in the world. There
    are 750,000 people who come in through the legal system.
        On top of that, we have people who evade the Border Patrol
    at the border. We do not know how many that is, and we are
    going to talk today to the Border Patrol about this number. But
    what Rodney Scott says, who is the former Chief of the Border
    Patrol, who I know is well-known by many of us, is that he
    thinks that is about 400,000 people a year who evade the Border
    Patrol, evade being apprehended, and are added to the one
    million people who show up without papers and are allowed into
    the country, typically under asylum, on top of that, around
    400,000 people a year.
        We will get some better numbers on that. But that gives us
    some context of why there is such a deep concern, when we are
    down there on the border and I think every one of us have been
    there, on this panel, probably many times, and our staffs have
    been down there many times, including very recently. This is
    why the Border Patrol tells us that they believe that they will
    lose, as they say, operational control--we can talk about what
    that means today--over the border unless something is done.
        This is a huge issue. On top of it, of course, we have an
    unprecedented amount of illegal drugs coming into the country,
    particularly this synthetic opioid called fentanyl, and it is
    streaming in. We will talk about that today, why that is coming
    in.
        The Mexican transnational crime organizations (TCOs) are
    now specializing in this. It used to come from China, as you
    know, mostly through our U.S. mail system. Now it is mostly
    coming in through Mexico, being produced in Mexico, often with
    precursors from China, and often pressed into pills. Our
    citizens that we represent are dying of overdoses, partly
    because they do not know what these pills are. They may say
    Xanax, they may say Percocet, something else, but in fact, they
    are fentanyl. This is leading to a record number, again, not a
    15-year high, but a record number, of overdose deaths in my
    home State of Ohio and around the country. This is another
    border crisis that we have to address, and we will talk more
    about how we might do that.
        This again is a situation where policymakes a huge
    difference. President Obama deported or removed over 315,000
    unlawful migrants in 2014 alone. In context, the Obama
    Administration removed 65 percent of the migrants that entered
    unlawfully that year. In contrast, President Biden has deported
    or removed about 56,000, we heard yesterday, about five
    percent, so 65 percent versus five percent. Of course, we have
    many more people who are in the queue right now. The backlog is
    about 1.6 million people for asylum, as an example.
        Unfortunately, we have a situation where not only are we
    allowing more people in, but we are not having people leave
    once they are deemed not to be qualified to be asylees or
    otherwise are here illegally. That is just a reality and people
    know that and the traffickers know that. That is why they have
    such success in getting people to come to our border, charging
    them outrageous fees, often treating them very poorly, as we
    know.
        The Administration's response to all this is to say we will
    have a plan in case the surge gets worse. In fact, the plan
    states that the first pillar of border security is, ``We have
    doubled our ability to transport noncitizens on a daily basis
    with flexibility to increase further.'' So much of the plan is
    about making it easier to get people into the interior, that
    that is the response. The response is not to put deterrence in
    place to deter people coming illegally. Rather it is to
    facilitate the flow to make it easier, including processing
    people as an example, on buses heading toward the interior of
    the country rather than doing it at the border because the
    facilities would be overwhelmed.
        Again, I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, you allowing me to speak
    a little bit today about this to sort of set the context. I
    think it is important to understand what the numbers are, and I
    really look forward to the opportunity of speaking with all of
    you today and talking about solutions, not just what the crisis
    is. I think we all recognize that. I hope so. But what do we do
    going forward?
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
        It is the practice to the Homeland Security and
    Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in witnesses,
    so if each of our witnesses would please stand and raise your
    right hand.
        Do you swear the testimony you will give before this
    Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
    the truth, so help you, God?
        Ms. Contreras. I do.
        Ms. Tierney. I do.
        Mr. Huffman. I do.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I do.
        Ms. Mendrala. I do.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may be seated.
        Our first witness is January Contreras. Ms. Contreras
    currently serves as the Assistant Secretary for the Department
    of Health and Human Services Administration of Children and
    Families (ACF), which is responsible for the care of
    unaccompanied minors. Assistant Secretary Contreras, a native
    of Arizona, previously served in the Department of Homeland
    Security as an Ombudsman for citizenship and immigration
    services and most recently served as the Chief Executive
    Officer (CEO) and managing attorney for Arizona Legal Women and
    Youth Services. Welcome, Ms. Contreras, to the Committee. You
    may proceed with your opening remarks.

      TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JANUARY CONTRERAS,\1\ ASSISTANT
       SECRETARY, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S.
                DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

        Ms. Contreras. Chair Peters, Ranking Member Portman, and
    Members of the Committee, it is my privilege to appear on
    behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services. I am
    January Contreras, the Assistant Secretary at the
    Administration for Children and Families.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Contreras appears in the Appendix
    on page 64.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        At ACF we are responsible for the care of unaccompanied
    children and for uniting them with family or a vetted sponsor.
    We carry out this duty through our Office of Refugee
    Resettlement (ORR), which administers our Unaccompanied
    Children Program.
        I was sworn in on March 31st, and while I have only been on
    the job for one month, I am firmly committed to effectively
    managing the Unaccompanied Children Program and prioritizing
    the safety of each child who comes into our care.
        During my first week on the job I visited Fort Bliss. I
    wanted to see the children and our work up close. It was
    important to me to also meet with frontline staff.
        What I have witnessed in my role is the tireless work of
    the dedicated and skilled team at ORR and the many partners who
    have contributed to our mission. As I meet with you today I
    believe we are prepared to continue safely serving all
    unaccompanied children referred to us.
        We currently have 8,392 children in our care, and we have
    an overall capacity of 15,500 across our network. ORR is able
    to promptly accept referrals and limit the amount of time
    children spend in CBP facilities to an average of 23 hours.
        Unaccompanied children have generally not been subject to
    Title 42 since November 2020. However, we are planning and
    preparing for any potential increase in referrals that might
    result from the termination of Title 42 for adults and family
    units. We have developed contingency plans that allow us to
    build capacity as needed and deploy additional case management
    supports should referrals significantly increase.
        Today we have cooperative agreements for 13,613 beds in our
    standard network for children. This is the highest number of
    standard beds in the history of the Unaccompanied Children
    Program. We have and continue to build greater capacity for
    more standard beds for kids, including adding to existing
    grants and funding new grants, authorizing hazard and incentive
    pay to retain and recruit staff, and working closely with the
    Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) on COVID
    mitigation measures to keep children and staff safe.
        In addition to our standard beds, ORR has also utilized
    influx care facilities and emergency intake sites (EIS). Out of
    the 14 emergency intake sites that were utilized last year only
    two remain active: Pecos EIS and the ORR EIS at Fort Bliss.
    Although emergency intake sites are temporary, they do allow us
    to quickly add beds for children when we need them.
        We also continuously work with our contractors to ensure
    that emergency intake sites are safe and appropriate placements
    for children, and that they provide key services, including
    robust case management and mental health supports. We are in
    the process of transitioning both of the remaining emergency
    intake sites to influx care facilities, which are required to
    provide the same services and supports as our standard
    shelters.
        Finally, we are conducting regular outreach to explore
    potential use of public and private properties that could be
    utilized as temporary influx care facilities, as needed, to
    accommodate increased referrals.
        As a child welfare agency we know that the best place for
    children is with their family. Over the past year, ORR has
    implemented policy and process changes to expedite the safe
    placement of children and with vetted sponsors. Examples of
    this work are in my written testimony.
        ORR continues to focus on strengthening our work to carry
    out our duty to unaccompanied children, and to ensure that ORR
    can adapt its capacity for their care. The Unaccompanied
    Children Contingency Fund included in the President's fiscal
    year (FY) 2023 budget would help address this by providing a
    reliable source of funding when referral require ORR to add new
    capacity.
        While I am new to this role, fulfilling our legal and moral
    obligation to care for unaccompanied children will be my
    highest priority. I know that many of you have been key
    partners in supporting ORR's mission, and I look forward to
    working with all of you.
        I would be happy to answer any questions.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ms. Contreras.
        Our next witness is Blas Nunez-Neto. Mr. Nunez-Neto serves
    as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration
    Policy at the Department of Homeland Security's Office of
    Strategy, Policy, and Plans. Mr. Nunez-Neto, a former staffer
    on this Committee, previously served as a senior advisor to the
    U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner and was most
    recently a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation.
        Welcome to the Committee. You may begin with your
    statement.

    TESTIMONY OF BLAS NUNEZ-NETO,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
    BORDER AND IMMIGRATION POLICY, OFFICE OF STRATEGY, POLICY, AND
              PLANS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters,
    Ranking Member Portman, distinguished Members of the Committee.
    I want to thank you for the opportunity to come back home to
    HSGAC to discuss these critical issues.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Nunez-Neto appears in the
    Appendix on page 73.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Migratory surges along the Southwest Border have,
    unfortunately, become a regular occurrence over the past decade
    under Presidents of both parties. Over this period we have
    seen, as well, fundamental changes to the nature, scope, and
    demographics of irregular migration, even as our counters along
    the border have increased to unprecedented levels this year.
        There are currently more people displaced from their homes
    in the world than at any time since World War II, and in our
    hemisphere alone there are significant diasporas of Venezuelans
    and Haitians, and a growing number of Nicaraguans being
    displaced to neighboring countries as well.
        There is little doubt that a number of factors, including
    endemic violence, dictatorships, food insecurity, the COVID-19
    pandemic, and dire economic conditions are pushing people to
    leave their countries, and this Administration is committed to
    addressing the root causes of this migration.
        At the same time, though, we must acknowledge that our
    immigration system, and particularly our asylum system, are
    outdated and were not built to contend with the populations and
    volumes that we are now seeing at our border. For decades, the
    vast majority of individuals encountered at the Southwest
    Border were single adults from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador,
    and Honduras.
        Over the past two years, though, we have seen an
    unprecedented increase in migration from countries we have not
    traditionally encountered along our Southwest Border, which
    accounted for more than half of our unique encounters thus far
    this year when recidivism is factored in. In fact, roughly 25
    percent, a full quarter of our encounters, are from Venezuela,
    Nicaragua, and Cuba this year, countries that we generally
    cannot return people to in large numbers due to the
    dictatorships that are in power.
        Over the past decade, as the Committee knows, we have also
    seen a sharp increase in children and families encountered at
    the border, more vulnerable populations that require additional
    care.
        These changes dramatically affect our ability to
    efficiently and humanely apprehend, process, and remove
    migrants encountered at the border. Our system was simply not
    designed, historically, to handle these flows.
        Despite these challenges, DHS has taken concrete steps
    since last fall to prepare for the eventual lifting of the
    CDC's Title 42 order. These preparations will help us to
    address the challenges at our border more effectively while
    protecting the safety and security of our communities.
        The plan that was developed after many months of work has
    six principal pillars, which I address in-depth in my written
    testimony.
        The first is surging resources to support our border
    operations, and this includes deploying more than 1,000
    additional law enforcement personnel to the border,
    constructing additional soft-sided facilities, and implementing
    robust public health protocols at the border, including our new
    vaccination program for migrants processed under Title 8.
        The second pillar is increasing the processing efficiency
    within our border management and immigration systems. This
    includes really innovative work to create digital A-files and
    electronic notices to appear (NTA), which will realize
    substantial savings and time at the border as well as enroute
    processing in our Enhanced Central Processing Center (ECPC)
    model.
        The third pillar is our ongoing work to administer
    consequences for unlawful entry. We will, and are committed to,
    firmly but fairly enforcing our immigration laws, and this
    includes applying an expedited removal to all non-citizens who
    are, in fact, removable. It includes focusing prosecutions on
    non-citizens whose conduct warrants it, including those who are
    seeking to evade capture at the border, and it includes our
    efforts to speed up the asylum system through executive action
    for those who are not detained through the asylum officer rule
    and through the dedicated docket.
        The fourth pillar is our ongoing work to bolster non-
    governmental organizations (NGO) capacity and support border
    communities by working closely with and providing support for
    NGO's and community stakeholders, efforts that Congress has
    supported with funding, and for which we are deeply grateful.
        The fifth pillar involves our efforts to target and disrupt
    the transnational criminal organizations and the human
    smugglers who spread misinformation and put migrants in harm's
    way for profit.
        The six pillar involves our efforts to work regionally and
    collaborate with our partners in Mexico as well as throughout
    the hemisphere to enhance legal avenues for protection and
    opportunity throughout the hemisphere but also to ensure that
    partner governments are, in fact, enforcing their borders and
    not just letting people pass through on their way north.
        As we prepare for the end of Title 42 on May 23rd, DHS is
    working night and day to address the irregular migration
    challenges at our Southwest Border. However, we recognize that
    executive action will never be an adequate stand-in for
    congressional action in this space, and we urge Congress to
    work with us on a bipartisan basis to enact legislation that
    can help this country modernize its immigration system,
    streamline asylum processing, better secure its border, and
    provide hope to migrants in the region that they will have
    legal opportunities to come to the United States.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Mr. Nunez-Neto.
        Our next witness is MaryAnn Tierney. Ms. Tierney is
    currently serving as the Senior Coordinating Official for the
    Department of Homeland Security's Southwest Border Coordination
    Center (SBCC), leading efforts to establish operational plans
    and secure resources.
        Ms. Tierney comes from the Federal Emergency Management
    Agency (FEMA), where she served as the Regional Administrator
    for FEMA Region III since 2010.
        Ms. Tierney, welcome to the Committee. You may proceed with
    your opening remarks.

        TESTIMONY OF MARYANN E. TIERNEY,\1\ SENIOR COORDINATING
    OFFICIAL, SOUTHWEST BORDER COORDINATION CENTER, U.S. DEPARTMENT
                          OF HOMELAND SECURITY

        Ms. Tierney. Thank you. Good morning. Chairman Peters,
    Ranking Member Portman, and distinguished Members of the
    Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My
    full written testimony has been submitted into the record.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Tierney appears in the Appendix
    on page 85.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I would like to start by recognizing the thousands of men
    and women of the Department of Homeland Security who work
    tirelessly around the clock, often at significant peril and
    personal sacrifice, to secure our borders, enforce our laws,
    and ensure the fair and humane treatment of all, consistent
    with our values as a department and as a Nation. I thank these
    and the many thousands of other dedicated public servants of
    DHS who serve and protect our country and the American people,
    no matter the challenge.
        I appear before you today having just completed my
    assignment as the Senior Coordinating Official with the
    Southwest Border Coordination Center on April 29th.
        On April 1st, as we all know, the Center for Disease
    Control and Prevention announced that as of May 23, 2022, Title
    42 public health order will be terminated. Title 42 is not an
    immigration authority but rather a public health authority used
    by the CDC to protect against the spread of communicable
    disease. I would like to discuss and share some of the steps
    the SBCC has taken to prepare for the termination of Title 42.
        First, the SBCC has implemented measures to secure
    additional resources via agreements with other Federal agencies
    and contracts across three lines of effort--transportation,
    facilities, and personnel. This includes expanding holding,
    ground, and airport capacity, increasing utilization of law
    enforcement officers from across the Federal Government, adding
    contract security guards, and processing support staff, and
    expanding medical services. These efforts allow CBP officers
    and agents to perform their vital national security mission, as
    opposed to processing and other administrative work.
        Second, the SBCC and Customs and Border Protection field
    leadership have established recurring and operationally focused
    engagements with State, local, tribal, and law enforcement
    officials to share information, understand challenges, and
    coordinate actions on the ground. Additionally, in April, FEMA
    awarded $150 million in humanitarian funding to the National
    Board for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). The
    National Board will award these funds to eligible State and
    local governments and nonprofit organizations that have aided
    or will aid individuals and families encountered by DHS at the
    Southern Border. These funds can be used for food, lodging, and
    transportation costs. Organizations will have the opportunity
    to request reimbursement on a quarterly basis as well as to
    request advanced funding. Organizations can apply for
    reimbursement of expenses back to January 1, 2022.
        Third, DHS launched the Southwest Border Technology
    Integration Program to digitize and automate non-citizen
    processing. Today over 70 percent of Title 8 cases are reviewed
    and signed digitally by Customs and Border Protection, which
    saves up to 14 minutes per case. We project this has saved over
    20,000 hours of agent time already.
        Additional efficiencies are being implemented, specifically
    targeted at expedited removal so non-citizens encountered at
    the border can be quickly removed. Everything possible is being
    done to enable officers and agents to spend less time
    processing arrests and more time in the field.
        Fourth, the SBCC is rapidly developing and testing
    innovative models that will co-locate Customs and Border
    Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
    HHS, and non-governmental organizations at enhanced centralized
    processing centers to eliminate inefficiencies and process non-
    citizens. This model will allow CBP to swiftly triage non-
    citizens and encounters based on risk, ensuring that higher-
    risk individuals are held in secured, hardened facilities until
    they are placed in detention, pending expedited removal.
        Fifth, the SBCC is working to alleviate overcrowding at CBP
    facilities by employing mobile, en route processing. Border
    Patrol is outfitting busses with necessary technology to
    support processing non-citizens while in transit. CBP can move
    non-citizens out of their facilities faster while retaining the
    integrity of biometric and biographic screening processes and
    ensuring non-citizens apprehended at the border are placed
    expeditiously into removal proceedings, ultimately, the goal of
    these steps and other efforts focused on longer-term strategies
    to create lasting, scalable, repeatable structures to respond
    to irregular migration events.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to
    your questions.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ms. Tierney.
        Our next witness is Chief Carry Huffman. Chief Huffman
    currently serves as the Acting Chief Operating Officer (COO)
    for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ensuring that CBP
    is equipped with the personnel and resources necessary to carry
    out their frontline duties at and between ports of entry.
        Chief Huffman, who has served in the U.S. Border Patrol for
    over three decades previously served as CBP's Acting Deputy
    Commissioner and Executive Assistant Commissioner of Enterprise
    Services.
        Chief Huffman, welcome to our Committee. You may proceed
    with your opening remarks.

       TESTIMONY OF BENJAMINE ``CARRY'' HUFFMAN,\1\ ACTING CHIEF
      OPERATING OFFICER, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S.
                    DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Peters,
    Ranking Member Portman, and Members of the Committee. It is an
    honor to testify on behalf of U.S. Customs and Border
    Protection and discuss CBP's efforts to secure our borders and
    promote safe and efficient flow of lawful trade and travel.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Huffman appears in the Appendix
    on page 90.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I currently serve as CBP's Acting Chief Operating Officer.
    However, my career in border security has spanned 37 years in
    the entire Western Hemisphere. While the border has always been
    a dynamic environment, there is one constant I am reminded of
    every day. The men and women of CBP have a complex, important,
    and frequently dangerous mission, one we are called to perform
    within the spirit of vigilance, service, integrity, and honor.
        It is in this spirit that CBP, while conducting our border
    security mission, remains the most humanitarian law enforcement
    agency in the country. Our border protection mission and ethos
    necessitates that we provide lifesaving rescues, shelter,
    medical treatment, nourishment, and clothing to those we
    encounter. We regularly conduct rescue missions, deliver
    babies, feed children, and work with childcare providers to
    ensure proper medical care.
        Notably, through extensive DHS and CBP efforts, we have
    created an unprecedented medical support and health care system
    inside a law enforcement agency. That is an unprecedented feat.
        Simultaneously, we remain vigilant and responsive to other
    border challenges and responsibility. Last year, CBP conducted
    more than 13,000 lifesaving rescues in often extremely
    dangerous conditions and terrain. We continue to interdict
    hundreds of thousands of pounds of illicit narcotics, prevent
    dangerous people and goods from crossing our borders, enforce
    our nation's laws, and ensure the efficient flow of lawful
    trade and travel that is vital to our economy.
        These critical functions will continue when and if the CDC,
    what we generally refer to as Title 42, comes to an end. CBP's
    operational response will be, as it is now, grounded in three
    key principles: first, enforce the law and implement
    administrative policies; second, ensure individuals in our
    custody are provided care and afforded rights; and third, work
    collaboratively with our interagency and private sector
    partners.
        First, CBS is a law enforcement organization. We are
    committed to enforcing our nation's laws and implementing the
    policies of the Executive Branch. To that end, CBP will
    continue to utilize our immigration authorities under Title 8
    as we have done throughout our agency's history. These
    authorities include a rage of enforcement options to hold
    individuals accountable for entering the United States
    illegally, including placing individuals into appropriate
    removal proceedings. They also allow non-citizens appropriate
    access to make asylum claims and provide for urgent port of
    entry humanitarian parole on a case-by-case basis.
        Which brings me to our second principle, the commitment to
    provide care and affording right to individuals in our
    temporary custody. From the moment of initial contact with an
    individual, CBP procedures are designed to identify the correct
    processing pathway for that person, including appropriate
    options for those in vulnerable populations. Thanks to the
    support provided by Congress with fiscal year 2022 funding, CBP
    is expanding temporary holding capacity, increasing the
    transportation of migrants away from overcrowded sectors for
    processing, and providing additional medical resources to
    protect the health and safety of migrants, and by extension,
    our personnel and our communities.
        Third, it is important to recognize the interagency efforts
    in this area. CBP is one of many organizations involved in
    addressing border security mission. Working together with our
    partners, CBP is making numerous preparations to ensure we can
    scale our operations as necessary to respond to the areas of
    greatest need.
        While I am here today representing one agency, I cannot
    stress enough the importance of Congress' continued support to
    the missions of not only CBP but also ICE, U.S. Citizenship and
    Immigration Services (USCIS), FEMA, HHS, the Department of
    State, the Department of Justice, and others. We are all part
    of a great number of efforts collaborating across the
    immigration spectrum. As evidenced by all the witnesses
    present, collaboration is key, and support from Congress is
    vital.
        The border has always been a dynamic and complex
    environment. For CBP, we will continue to do our part in
    enforcing the law, ensuring individuals are properly cared for,
    and being a trusted partner to all other entities working on
    this effort.
        Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today, and I
    look forward to your questions.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Chief Huffman.
        Our final witness is Emily Mendrala. Ms. Mendrala serves as
    the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of State's
    Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, covering Cuba and
    regional migration.
        Ms. Mendrala previously served as Director of Legislative
    Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), and most
    recently served as Executive Director for the Center for
    Democracy in the Americas.
        Ms. Mendrala, welcome to the Committee. You may proceed
    with your opening remarks.

      TESTIMONY OF EMILY MENDRALA,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
     BUREAU OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

        Ms. Mendrala. Thank you, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member
    Portman, distinguished Members of the Committee. I welcome the
    opportunity to testify regarding the Biden-Harris
    administration's priorities on regional migration.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Mendrala appears in the Appendix
    on page 97.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This is a pivotal moment for our hemisphere as we broaden
    the shared responsibility on human migration management across
    the region. The Department of State is actively working with
    governments, the private sector, civil society, and
    international organization partners throughout the region to
    increases cooperation and address our shared responsibility to
    humanely manage migration and to provide protection for those
    fleeing persecution or torture.
        Regional leaders recently concluded a Hemispheric
    Ministerial meeting on Migration and Protection, co-hosted by
    Secretary Blinken in Panama, April 19th and 20th. Secretary
    Blinken urged collaboration on stabilization of migrant-and
    refugee-receiving communities. The ministerial shined a light
    on the need to work together with international organizations
    and multilateral development banks to stabilize those host
    communities.
        President Biden will host the Ninth Summit of the Americas,
    June 8-10, in Los Angeles. As the only meeting of leaders from
    across the Americas, the summit serves as the most important
    forum to address our region's shared challenges and
    opportunities. The Ninth Summit marks the first time the United
    States will host the event since the inaugural gathering in
    Miami in 1994.
        The theme of the Ninth Summit, ``Building a Sustainable,
    Resilient, and Equitable Future,'' represented a shared vision
    developed with the region's governments, civil society, and
    private sector. The Summit will produce concrete outcomes,
    including and responding to the pandemic, building strong and
    inclusive democracies, addressing irregular migration, and
    increasing equity and inclusion. The President announced our
    intent to adopt the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and
    Protection as an expression of leaders' commitments to
    addressing irregular migration and forced displacement.
        The Department of State has worked diligently to implement
    the Administration's comprehensive approach to migration, which
    includes, in addition to elements managed by my colleagues on
    the dais, the U.S. Strategy for Addressing Root Causes of
    Migration in Central America and the Collaboration Migration
    Management Strategy. The Biden-Harris administration's
    comprehensive approach builds on both significant U.S.
    Government resources and substantial private sector investments
    to support the long-term development of Central America.
        To advance the Root Causes strategy, the Vice President
    brought together private sector leaders through the U.S.
    government's Call to Action initiative, that has generated more
    than $1.2 billion in commitments to create new jobs and
    opportunities for people in the region.
        As part of the Vice President's Call to Action, Microsoft
    is connecting 4 million people to broadband access across the
    region, with nearly 1 million already connected to date.
    Nespresso will invest $150 million to double the number of
    farmers it works with in the region, and Mastercard is bringing
    5 million people into the formal financial economy while
    digitizing 1 million micro and small businesses.
        Parkdale Mills is investing $150 million to support a new
    yarn-spinning facility in Honduras and an existing facility in
    Virginia, supporting 500 jobs in each location, demonstrating
    the effect that these efforts can bring benefits to the U.S.
    economy as well.
        Through these long-term efforts, the Biden-Harris
    administration continues to make significant progress toward
    creating hope for people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and
    Honduras that a better life can be found at home. Highlights to
    date include the U.S. government's $300 million Centroamerica
    Local initiative, empowering local organizations to address the
    drivers of irregular migration in their own communities, and
    also delivery of more than 15 million COVID-19 vaccines to
    northern Central America.
        We also continue helping to hold migrant smugglers
    accountable and conduct programs to support victims of gender-
    based violence, survivors of human trafficking, and
    unaccompanied migrant children. New U.S. Government programs
    and scholarships improve access to education for nearly 18,000
    returning or potential migrants and at-risk youth.
        The Administration is doing its due diligence to prepare
    for potential challenges at the border. We have alerted
    countries to the upcoming changes in processing and requested
    flexibility and cooperation with regional partners as regional
    migration flows change, including repatriating individuals
    without a legal basis to remain in the United States.
        The Department actively seeks to identify and respond to
    disinformation about migration. We work with interagency
    partners to track and combat disinformation, especially that
    circulated by smugglers about U.S. migration and border policy.
        I will conclude again by underscoring the growing sense of
    shared responsibility across the region to work together with
    partners on a new approach to regional migration.
        Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Portman, and Members of the
    Committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify, and I look
    forward to your questions.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ms. Mendrala, and thank you to
    each of our witnesses for your opening comments.
        I am going to start the questioning with discussion of
    Title 42, which I am sure will be discussed quite extensively
    during this Committee, and we will have some other issues.
        We know that Title 42 has severely limited border security
    enforcement strategies like the Consequence Delivery System
    (CDS). The Consequence Delivery System started back in 2008,
    and was designed to impose escalating consequences on
    individuals who are crossing the border illegally. Quite
    frankly, it worked, and I have this chart\1\ to show how
    Consequence Delivery System worked.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The chart referenced by Senator Peters appears in the Appendix
    on page 101.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As you can see here, from 2008, when it went into effect,
    these are folks that are coming cross the border on a repeated
    basis, but it significantly decreased the number of folks
    coming across the border until, you can see there, in 2019,
    where we have a huge increase. That is when the Trump
    administration suspended the Consequence Delivery System to
    implement Title 42. So you can see once that happens, with
    Title 42, a major spike, once again, going up, of folks that
    are coming repeatedly over the border.
        Under Title 42, migrants are pushed back to Mexico, with no
    consequences, and they have no reason not to keep trying, and
    they keep trying. They come back many times, as you can see
    that increase, and then it levels off. That flattening is with
    the Biden administration. It then flattened at that point.
        But you see this huge increase, going back to the days
    before Consequence was put in place. Now we have incredible
    strain because of folks coming over constantly. In fact, since
    the start of fiscal year 2021, the Border Patrol has
    encountered more than 900,000 migrants that they have seen at
    least once before, but they have probably seen them many times,
    as they keep trying, over and over again. There are no
    consequences. That has been eliminated with Title 42. So they
    keep trying until they get through.
        When Title 42 is terminated it is my sense that
    consequences need to be in place, like expedited removal and
    prosecution, to decrease these illegal crossings and these
    repeat offenders, which are skewing the numbers we see over
    here. Just because people are coming over so many times the
    numbers are up, and that is a consequence. Because the
    Consequence system is gone, with Title 42 you start seeing a
    big increase there because of repeat offenders.
        My question for Mr. Nunez-Neto, does the Department plan to
    reinstate consequences to reduce the rate of repeat crossers
    who have taken advantage of Title 42 public health order?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you for that question, Chairman, and
    you are exactly right that under Title 42 any real consequences
    leads to roughly half of individuals being re-encountered
    subsequently. We are committed to imposing consequences as part
    of the Administration's plan that, again, is in my written
    testimony. Part of those consequences is really ramping up our
    use of expedited removal for those who are removable and also
    doing a focused prosecution campaign on individuals whose
    conduct warrants it, and that includes individuals who are
    recidivists, who cross multiple times. It also includes
    individuals who may seek to evade capture.
        I would note one thing, Chairman, which is we have actually
    already begun implementing consequences for recidivists.
    Starting about two months ago we began an effort to identify
    Title 42 recidivists and start imposing expedited removal on
    them to levy a consequence. We plan to continue to increase
    that in the coming weeks.
        Chairman Peters. If I can paraphrase, without these
    consequences we are putting a real strain on our folks at the
    border because we have people just coming over, sent back to
    Mexico, they come back later that day, they come back the next
    week, and for two weeks constantly. Huge strain. Once
    consequences are in place we can reinstate that. Title 42 is
    allowing people to keep coming over and over again, constantly
    inflating these numbers. Once consequence is put into place you
    would expect to start seeing a decrease again, like we saw in
    the past, which seemed to be pretty successful prior to Title
    42?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I think that is absolutely correct, sir.
        Chairman Peters. Great. Title 42 has also eliminated the
    safest and most orderly pathway for asylum seekers to apply for
    protections. When asylum seekers are turned away at the ports
    of entry, which they are with the situation right now, then
    they are forced to cross between the ports, instead of coming
    in the ports of entry. This clearly endangers themselves but is
    also strains our border security folks because we are pushing
    folks away from the ports of entry to try other ways to get in.
        My question for you, Chief Huffman, could you please
    describe the specific steps that the Administration is
    undertaking to increase our capacity at ports of entry so we
    can safely process asylum seekers, ensure efficient processing
    of trade and travel, and then allow the Border Patrol agents to
    carry out their law enforcement duties in between ports of
    entry?
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you for that question. I would be glad
    to address that. Yes, it is part of the process to encourage
    asylum seekers to go back through the ports of entry if
    possible to do that. But in order to do that we have to have
    the capacity to be able to process them as much as we can.
        To that end we are doing a number of things to get ready of
    that and do that. We have actually processed, over the last few
    months, several exceptions to the Title 42 already in
    preparation of this also. But we have detailed so far up to 255
    additional personnel to the ports of entry on the Southwest
    Border to do that. We are working also to establish, leverage
    better technology to do that with, using the CBP One app, to
    encourage people to apply, to get as much advanced processing
    information as possible as they arrive to the port of entry, to
    increase the efficiency.
        Because in order to increase efficiency there are really
    two ways: you either increase your footprint or you improves
    your processes, and the footprint is what it is at a port of
    entry. We are going to have to work on improving our processes
    to improve our efficiencies. The Office of Field Operations
    (OFO) is working diligently to do that in preparation for that.
        But it is not without some concerns when the volumes
    arrive. There is a good likelihood there will be longer lines.
    There could be some delays, slow things down. But the port
    directors have the authority to make the decisions, to form the
    lines as they need to, and do the process to move as
    efficiently as they can. We are going to build on a lot of the
    past lessons we learned when this was going on previously and
    continue to process them through that way.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you. Ranking Member Portman, you are
    recognized for your questions.
        Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Look, I think we
    need to be straight with the American people as to what is
    happening here, and let me just comment, if I could, on your
    suggestion that there be consequences for people who enter
    multiple times and how that would address the problem.
        I think it is fine to have consequences, but that is not
    the issue. Agent, you just told us that you are preparing,
    post-Title 42, not for people to have consequences for multiple
    entries but for more asylum seekers, did you not? That is what
    you just told us, right?
        Mr. Huffman. For those that come to the port of entry and
    make an application for asylum, yes, sir.
        Senator Portman. You are expanding your capacity to deal
    with asylum. That is what is going to happen. The alternative
    to Title 42 is not that people are going to stay home. The
    alternative to Title 42 is that they are going to do what they
    cannot do now, because of Title 42, which is apply for asylum.
    Do you disagree with that, Agent?
        Mr. Huffman. Sir, I do not think I understood your
    question.
        Senator Portman. What is the alternative to Title 42? It
    was suggested by Mr. Nunez-Neto a second ago that the
    alternative to Title 42 is that repeat offenders, in
    particular, are not going to come over because they will have
    consequences. The alternative that you stated is that you are
    going to have more people coming and applying for asylum. That
    is what you are preparing for, right?
        Mr. Huffman. Sir, we are prepared to allow whoever comes to
    the country, they can afford access to our asylum system if
    they have a right to do so.
        Senator Portman. Right.
        Mr. Huffman. That is what we are required by law to do.
        Senator Portman. You are going to increase your capacity
    for it. That is what is going to happen, right?
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, sir. We intend to increase our capacity
    to process----
        Senator Portman. No, but answer my question, and let us be
    honest here with the American people. Right now Title 42 is the
    ability for you to say, to about a million people a year, we
    are going to turn you back. By the way, they are not turned
    back to Mexico, in cases where they are not from Mexico. You
    actually process them for roughly 40 hours and then you send
    them back to their country of origin. It may be Ecuador. It is
    not what was described, and those people, obviously, are less
    likely to be repeat offenders because they are thousands of
    miles away.
        But what you are saying is that without Title 42 you are
    going to have a lot more people who comes to the border and
    say, ``I have a credible fear,'' and, like others, they will be
    allowed to come into the correct. Is that correct?
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, sir. That is correct.
        Senator Portman. OK. Guys, we can talk about this and try
    to play politics with it and say the Administration has all
    these plans and consequences matter. But the reality is we have
    an asylum system that is broken, and until we fix that it is
    not going to be solvable post-Title 42. That Title 42 is not
    sustainable. I get that. It is a public health authority. It is
    not meant to be an immigration law. But it is all we have right
    now to keep the system from being totally overwhelmed and to
    keep not just a million people being released into the country
    every year, who come unlawfully, claim asylum.
        Remember, 85 percent at the end, at least, of Mexicans and
    Central Americans that we know of are not given asylum, and yet
    they are not deported. The numbers that we have are that there
    are 1.2 million migrants who have received a final order of
    removal, and we are removing 56,000 a year right now. That was
    the number in 2021, and that is less than five percent.
        That is the issue, is it not? I do not know. I wish it were
    easier, but it is hard because we have to deal with the asylum
    issue.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto, you were on this Committee. You know this
    issue well. Do you disagree with anything that I have said?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, I think it is clear that under current
    law migrants who arrive at the border have the opportunity to
    claim asylum, and as a department and as a country we enforce
    those laws.
        Senator Portman. Let us back up for a second, if you could,
    please, and I apologize. But we do not enforce the laws in the
    sense that what the laws say is that we are supposed to detain
    people pending the process of asylum, and we do not do that. We
    do not have the beds to do that. The expedited removals, in
    fact, in the budget for this year are reduced even further,
    specifically with regard to detention, which is mandated by
    law.
        We do not do that and we cannot do that. You know you
    cannot do that. We do not have the space, right? We have 24,000
    beds. We are talking 1.2 million people who have been put into
    expedited removal. Is that correct?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I do not think we have ever had enough beds
    to put everybody through the process, sir.
        Senator Portman. Maybe we have not ever had enough beds but
    is that not the reality?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes, sir.
        Senator Portman. According to Secretary Mayorkas, not even
    close. We have 7,000 or 8,000 people a day coming to the border
    right now, unlawfully, and we have 24,000 beds. Because of
    social distancing, because of COVID, we have fewer beds even
    than that, I am told, even though Title 42 is about to expire.
    With regard to COVID we are still applying it to the beds, but
    that is another issue.
        The problem, I guess, that I am trying to get at is that
    unless we fix the asylum system there is no way to allow you,
    Agent Huffman, to do your job, and your men and women who I
    have talked to, and they are the ones that tell me they are
    scared to death of what is going to happen when Title 42 goes
    away, because there is no alternative.
        The six pillars that were just talked about, again, we can
    go through this. But 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, my
    understanding is the budget asked for 300, something like that,
    so I guess you are going to take them from other places,
    including the border with Canada, and making processing work
    faster, enhanced processing on buses while people go into the
    interior, working with non-governmental organizations to
    process people faster.
        All that is fine but it does not deal with the problem. It
    just puts more people into the system. Secretary Mayorkas tells
    us there is a six-to eight-year wait right now. In other words,
    the backlog is 1.6 million people waiting for their asylum
    claims to be adjudicated, and they are in the United States for
    six to eight years before their case is resolved. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, it is correct that people who are not
    detained, on average, take five or six years to go through the
    process.
        I would note sir, if I may, that we have tried to tackle
    the asylum process through the asylum officer rules by
    executive action, but we would welcome a bipartisan effort on
    the Hill to work on this important issue.
        Senator Portman. I would too, and there are ideas out there
    that are, I think, very promising. One would be to have an
    expedited adjudication process at the border. Senator Sinema
    was here earlier. She and Senator Cornyn have a proposal along
    those lines with processing centers. I think that makes a lot
    of sense. It is going to be expensive but it absolutely crucial
    to me that the last people coming in are the first people who
    are told, we understand that your country has issues and that
    the economics are a real problem.
        You look at the Migration Policy Institute here indicates
    that between 75 percent and 91 percent of migrants who are
    coming to the border are coming for economic reasons. We get
    that. That is why the asylum policy is leading to adjudications
    of only 15 percent being accepted from the majority of these
    countries.
        We have to make that decision early, send people back home
    if they do not qualify, allow them in if they do, and that is
    what will send a message to the traffickers and to these
    families that it does not make sense to make this arduous and
    dangerous journey north.
        I would love to work on that, but that is not what is being
    proposed here.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
        I want to, if I could, to clarify, maybe to simplify this a
    little bit as we discuss some solutions here, is when we talked
    about the consequence system, that really deals with the single
    adults that are coming across, who are not going to apply for
    asylum. They are trying to get across the border. Under 42 they
    just get sent back, no consequences. They keep coming back. It
    drives those numbers up for those individuals.
        Senator Portman. They can apply for asylum.
        Chairman Peters. Most of them do not. They are just coming
    across from Mexico and they are not going to be able to go
    through that process. It is going to be very difficult.
        Then there are the asylum seekers. You are absolutely right
    about that, that we have to deal with that process. That is
    something Congress has to deal with. We have to come together
    and fix this, and I am committed to working with you and others
    on that. I think we are reviewing some legislation together
    right now related to that so that we can deal with that, and I
    look forward to working with you to deal with that aspect of
    the problem.
        We have to deal with both of these problems together. I
    totally agree with you in that respect.
        I need to go to an Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC)
    to ask some questions, so I am going to turn the gavel over to
    Senator Carper and recognize Senator Carper for his questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

        Senator Carper [presiding.] Thanks so much. If you give me
    the gavel I may not want to give it back to you.
        I want to welcome back to this Committee a number of folks
    who are here as witnesses and staff and the witnesses. Welcome
    back and thank you again for the great work you did here with
    our Committee and for the work that you are doing today.
        My first question, actually two questions, are going to
    Secretary Mendrala.
        Everyone on this committee, ma'am, just about everybody
    knows I am a pretty big root cause guy. I always focus on what
    is the root cause, not just the symptoms of problems. It is a
    topic I bring up frequently when talking about migration at our
    Southern Border, and that is because until we address the root
    causes of migration, like crime, like corruption, like lack of
    economic opportunity, we are going to continue to see folks
    arriving at our border for the next 10 years, 20 years, 30
    years to come.
        I believe that building strong diplomatic relations with
    countries in the Western Hemisphere is a critical part to
    stemming the flow of migration. I just ran into Ken Salazar,
    former Secretary of Interior. He is in town, and he is now an
    ambassador to Mexico. He was in the Dirksen Building, in the
    cafeteria, having breakfast. I had a chance to talk with him a
    little bit yesterday, and I said, ``I want to come down to
    Mexico and the Northern Triangle sometime later this year and
    maybe bring some of our colleagues with me.''
        But anyway, we talked a bit about root causes. I am still a
    big root cause guy.
        I think building strong diplomatic relations with countries
    in the Western Hemisphere is a critical part to stemming the
    flow of migration in the long term--not just the short term but
    the long term. We have to work in lockstep with countries in
    the region to ensure that we are doing all we can to address
    the pull factors that force so many of them to flee.
        With that in mind, Secretary Mendrala, could you please
    take a moment to update us on the State Department's diplomatic
    efforts to tackle some of the root causes, and engage with
    countries in the region? Go right ahead.
        Ms. Mendrala. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for your
    leadership on this issue.
        President Biden, through an Executive Order (EO) in
    February of last year, directed the Department of State to work
    across the interagency to draft a strategy to address root
    causes of migration. Recognizing that we have engaged in
    efforts to address root causes in Central America before, he
    directed us to learn lessons, apply those lessons, and to put
    in place a strategy to do it better.
        He directed that alongside several other aspects of a
    comprehensive approach to regional migration, including reforms
    at the border and another line of effort that we call the
    Collaborative Migration Management Strategy. This is a strategy
    to manage migration along with regional partners, to strengthen
    border enforcement in the region, promote a sense of shared
    responsibility, strengthen protection systems in countries
    throughout the region as well.
        On the root causes strategy we drafted and published a
    strategy last summer to address root causes of migration such
    as insecurity, lack of economic opportunity, and governance
    issues. We have been working in partnership with governments in
    the region, civil society, private sector actors, as well, to
    implement that.
        I will share with you a few highlights of the first year of
    our work. I mentioned in my testimony the Vice President
    announced, and is working with private sector leaders on the
    Call to Action, promoting investment from private sector
    entities in Central America that can create jobs and improve
    standards of governance as well.
        The Call to Action has secured $1.2 billion in commitments
    from private sector actors to invest in Central America. Those
    commitments will generate 70,000 jobs in Guatemala, El
    Salvador, and Honduras.
        Additionally, two other highlights I will share is that we
    have allowed for access to education for 18,000 young people in
    Central America through scholarship opportunities, and 70,000
    business owners access to credit. This is in addition to
    efforts that we are conducting through the Bureau of
    International Narcotics and Law Enforcement to train police on
    better and more humane security tactics, more efficient
    security tactics as well.
        It is a commitment of the Biden-Harris administration, as
    we are working to address root causes of migration, to make
    sure that our efforts to promote strong governance is a
    through-line, underpinning everything that we do, recognizing
    that without gains in governance, without governments that can
    provide for their people, gains in the security realm and the
    economic realm will not be sustained.
        Senator Carper. Other than that, though? That is a pretty
    good list, really.
        Ms. Mendrala. Thank you.
        Senator Carper. Other than that, very briefly, are there
    any additional pathways available to expand in-country
    processing to other migrants groups, especially those that
    would inevitably end up at our border? that would be for Mr.
    Nunez-Neto and again for you, Madam Secretary. That question,
    please. Go ahead. Any additional pathways to expand in-country
    processing to other migrant groups, especially those that might
    end up at our border. Please, go ahead.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you, Senator. We have been working to
    expand our ability to issue H-2A and B visas in the region. I
    think also enhancing refugee processing in the region.
        That said, I do think we do have, under current law,
    limited legal pathways, and one of the things that I think we
    would really want to work with Congress on is the ability to
    better match workers in the region with the badly needed jobs
    that we have in the United States.
        Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Secretary Mendrala,
    anything else you would add? Additional pathways to expanding
    in-country processing to other migrant groups?
        Ms. Mendrala. We recognize that legal pathways is a
    critical component of the strategy to effectively manage
    migration throughout the region, and these are pathways to the
    United States as well as to elsewhere, other countries, that
    are standing up legal pathways, temporary work opportunities,
    et cetera.
        I will mention a program run by my colleagues in the Bureau
    of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and it is the Central
    America Minors (CAM) Program. In September 2021, the State
    Department and Department of Homeland Security expanded the
    eligibility categories for U.S.-based relatives who can apply
    for their children in northern Central America to access the
    Central America Minors Program. This is a legal pathway for
    individuals to apply from their home country to access the
    United States.
        Then as Assistant Secretary Nunez-Neto mentioned, we are
    also working to expand temporary work visas to the United
    States and encouraging countries around the world to also stand
    up and augment their own temporary work opportunities for
    individuals from northern Central America.
        Senator Carper. My thanks to both of you for those
    responses. I think the next person in line is from Oklahoma,
    James Lankford. Senator Lankford, you are next, and if she
    returns I think Senator Sinema would follow you. Go ahead,
    please.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD

        Senator Lankford. Thank, Senator Carper. Thanks to all of
    you for being here. I have a bunch of questions and so if I
    could ask everyone to be brief in your responses. Let me try to
    go through several things on this. Let me start with Assistant
    Secretary Mendrala.
        There are ads that are up, radio ads and such, encouraging
    folks not to do migration in the United States. Did the State
    Department actually run those? Yes or no.
        Ms. Mendrala. Encouraging individuals not to migrate to the
    United States?
        Senator Lankford. Yes.
        Ms. Mendrala. The State Department does have robust
    messaging efforts throughout the region. It depends on where
    you are talking about, but some of them, yes.
        Senator Lankford. The Northern Triangle, as far as
    Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. Could we get the budget for
    those and also the copy, the text for those? That would be very
    helpful for us to be able to see what is actually being used.
        Ms. Mendrala. I would be happy to follow up.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Ms. Mendrala follow up response to Senator Lankford appears in
    the Appendix on page 239.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Lankford. Thank you. I talked to Secretary Mayorkas
    recently and we were talking his six-point plan that he has put
    out, which I have some significant questions on. There is a
    section of it, in the six-point plan, that says they are going
    to work with countries in Central America for them to be able
    to enforce their borders as well and also have asylum seekers
    there. I asked him the question of what leverage are you using
    on those countries to encourage them to actually enforce their
    borders. His response to me was State Department actually is in
    charge of that.
        So let me ask State Department, what leverage are you using
    to encourage countries in Central America for them to enforce
    their borders? What are you doing there for them to stop
    regular migration that is just passing through their country
    and heading north?
        Ms. Mendrala. We have strong partnerships with countries in
    Central America, and many of them are enforcing their borders
    for their own reasons and to protect their own national
    interests. During COVID-19, the height of the pandemic, many of
    the countries imposed public health requirements, additional
    document checks, and additional public health requirements that
    prevented transit through their borders for public health
    reasons, for example.
        We are supporting, thorough our foreign assistance,
    training of border personnel, for example, to train them on
    more effective and more humane enforcement tactics. But I would
    say that most of the countries in the region are conducting
    those enforcement actions out of their own national self-
    interest.
        Senator Lankford. There is no increased engagement with
    them to be able to put leverage on them? Because obviously we
    had two million people ``encountered,'' quote/unquote, coming
    across our border last year, many of those from literally all
    over the world, many of them coming through Central America. Is
    there an additional effort that is coming to be able to slow
    down that quantity? The six-point plan implies there is
    something new.
        Ms. Mendrala. Oh, absolutely. We are engaging with them on
    a regular basis out of Washington, trips down to the region
    through our embassies on a range of priorities, including
    border enforcement, including accepting back repatriations of
    their nationals who have no legal basis to remain in the United
    States, and also to identify emerging trends and identify needs
    associated with those emerging trends.
        Senator Lankford. But that is not additional border
    enforcement. That is repatriation and others. I am asking
    specifically what is in the plan, what State Department is
    doing to put leverage on countries to enforce their own
    borders. You talked about training that you have done in the
    past, things that they did during COVID, years ago. We still
    had two million people last year, many of those crossing
    through those borders. What are we doing now to encourage those
    countries to enforce their borders?
        Ms. Mendrala. For example, when we noticed a trend, working
    with interagency partners, of a certain nationality that is
    arriving in larger numbers at our border we will carry that
    information, including the routes that those individuals are
    transition, to countries throughout the region and look for
    areas of partnership. If they are arriving by air, countries
    may decide, through their own sovereign decisionmaking process,
    to impose visas on those nationalities that are arriving by air
    and that have been proven to be conduits to large flows of
    irregular migration, to impose visas on those nationalities to
    make sure that those who are arriving by air are not intending
    migrants to the United States.
        And we also know that if one country imposes a visa
    requirement it is very easy for those routes to be diverted
    elsewhere, so we make sure that we are alerting and working in
    partnership with countries throughout the region so that that
    route is not diverted.
        Senator Lankford. Great. Could you get us that plan,
    because again, I go back to that is helpful, by the way, on the
    visa piece, and people flying in, but people that are walking
    across borders, and we are seeing that border to border to
    border to border at times--we have all talked about this for
    years. If they would only enforce their borders, it is much
    harder to enforce ours.
        What I am trying to get to is what is State Department
    doing to provide leverage to countries to say ``Stop. Actually
    enforce your border.'' It is different than training. It is
    different than visas and all that. If we could just get that in
    writing that would be very helpful to me.
        Ms. Mendrala. Happy to follow up.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Ms. Mendrala follow up response to Senator Lankford appears in
    the Appendix on page 241.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Lankford. We will follow up with that.
        Assistant Secretary Nunez-Neto, it is good to see you
    again. When you and I visited in February, I believe, when you
    were in my office, we had talked back and forth about the
    guidance that you provided to Border Patrol agents, USCIS
    asylum officers, to evaluate claimed vulnerabilities during the
    screenings to determine whether a migrant should be placed in
    Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). I asked for that and you
    said, ``No problem.'' Just as a heads up, it is May. I do not
    have that yet.
        If I could get that. My office will follow up with you on
    that request again, but that would be very helpful to be able
    to get that. We are trying to be able to figure out the
    usefulness of the MPP and the way that screening is actually
    done. The officers, when I was there in February, getting a
    chance, in January, to be able to visit with the officers on
    the ground, they were fuzzy about it. I came back to ask what
    is being handed and you said, ``Yes, there is guidance.'' I
    just have not seen it yet.
        So can I get that?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. We will certainly follow up with your
    office on that, sir, and I am happy to provide a briefing and
    the documents we are able to.
        Senator Lankford. The documents would be great, to be able
    to get on that.
        You had mentioned earlier, to Senator Portman, in your
    conversation, that we do not have enough bed space. It is
    interesting to me, in the budget proposal that DHS has put out
    they actually request 5,000 fewer beds for single adults and
    2,500 fewer beds for family units. Your testimony is we do not
    have enough beds, the budget request is we need even fewer, and
    I am trying to figure out, still, when there is the ongoing
    discussion about May 23rd, that on May 23rd the plan is to end
    Title 42 at the border because there is no COVID at the border,
    but we still have restrictions on our detention facilities that
    we cannot use every bed because there is still COVID in the
    detention facilities but not COVID at the border. Title 42 is
    going away at the border but we cannot hold them. We have to
    just wave them through to be able to come through, and cannot
    do detention.
        It is a double hit here. You are still limiting the number
    of people that can be held in detention and you are asking for
    fewer beds while you are saying, ``We need more bed space.'' I
    am just trying to figure this out.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. To be clear, Senator Portman asked whether
    we had the ability to detain everybody we encountered, and my
    response was that the Department has actually never had enough
    beds to do that.
        We are focused right now on reviewing every step of the
    expedited removal process to try to compress the timeline. It
    takes, historically, six to eight weeks to remove people in
    expedited removal who either are found not to have a fear or
    who appeal that decision and have the no-fear finding upheld by
    an immigration judge. That is just too long, frankly, and it
    has been the historical average. We are really working to
    maximize the beds we have by getting people through the process
    much faster.
        But, one of the challenges we have, frankly, is that a
    quarter of our encounters right now are from countries we
    really cannot remove people to, and we do not have good options
    for individuals from Venezuela, from Cuba, and from Nicaragua,
    where we do not have the agreements in place with those
    governments to remove people, even if an immigration judge does
    find that they do not merit asylum.
        Senator Carper. Senator Lankford, I am going to ask you to
    hold it at that point. There will be a second round, I
    understand, and you may want to take advantage of that.
        All right, Senator Sinema has joined us, and you are
    recognized for seven minutes.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA

        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
    the witnesses for being here today.
        Yesterday this committee heard from Secretary Mayorkas
    regarding the DHS plan for handling the expected influx of
    migrants. I have not heard the detail I need to be confident in
    the government's plan. In order to meet this moment, DHS needs
    to be able to share operational details regarding how they plan
    to move migrants through the processing system in a manner that
    will keep Arizona communities safe and treat migrants fairly
    and humanely.
        Ms. Tierney, Arizona communities, NGO's, and local and
    Federal law enforcement officers have been struggling to keep
    up with the flow of migrants for years. Yesterday Secretary
    Mayorkas indicated that work to get resources on the ground in
    Arizona are well underway. I have not yet received specific
    details that allow me to be confident the government will be
    prepared.
        On which date will Arizona border sectors have all the
    necessary resources, including sufficient infrastructure,
    transportation, and staffing to implement the Administration's
    plan and avoid further burdening Arizona's local communities?
        Ms. Tierney. Thank you for that question, Senator. What I
    want to do is talk a little bit about the three lines of effort
    that you referenced. The first thing I want to discuss is
    personnel. We are in the process of moving additional Federal
    law enforcement officers across the Southwest Border, to
    include Arizona, in particular, the Yuma and Tucson sectors,
    which, as you know, have seen substantial increases in
    migration flows.
        There is also an effort to provide civilian contract
    processing staff, in particular to Yuma. That will allow Border
    Patrol agents to then go back out on the line. Then the third
    piece is the medical piece, to plus-up the medical resources in
    Arizona as well.
        That is a mix of interagency support and contracting
    support that is online and coming online with the goal of
    having things in place prior to May 23rd. So that is for
    personnel.
        The second piece is transportation. Customs and Border
    Protection has undertaken several efforts to address
    transportation, in particular air and ground transport. This
    again is a mix of interagency agreements and contracts. One of
    the biggest pieces of air transport is an interagency agreement
    with ICE to use their air transport to move migrants either
    laterally or to decompress those stations in particular, again,
    I will focus on Yuma because that is a consistently over-
    capacity sector in the Border Patrol, Southwest Border system.
        Also ground transport. Currently CBP has the capacity to
    move about 4,900 people a day. That is being plussed-up to be
    almost 9,000 people per day, again through a mix of interagency
    agreements and contracts. The one I will particularly note is a
    blanket purchase agreement that was awarded on April 29th, and
    task orders are already being issued against that, based on
    sector requirements.
        I also want to note a part of that blanket purchase
    agreement includes contract security guard services. This is
    important because a lot of the things that Border Patrol agents
    do while people are in holding do not have to be done by Border
    Patrol agents, and so swapping out contract security services
    for a Border Patrol agent will allow those agents to go back
    out on the line. That is another part of that blanket purchase
    agreement. Again, task orders are being issued against that
    right now.
        Then the last thing is facilities. There has been a plus-up
    in holding capacity across the Southwest Border. Previously it
    was about 13,000. Now, as of today, it is 17,161, and on May
    23rd there will be an additional 500 soft-sided facility
    holding spaces available in Del Rio, Texas--I know not
    specifically to Yuma or Tucson, Arizona, but you have to think
    about this kind of a system where there is an opportunity to do
    lateral movements to decompress overcrowded stations.
        In closing, again, things are in place now. Things are
    coming online with the goal of having more resources available
    on May 23rd, but additional capability to scale up after May
    23rd, based on actual flows.
        Senator Sinema. I appreciate what you just said, but to be
    clear we have read all of this in your report. What I am asking
    for are specific details regarding Arizona. Telling me what is
    happening in Texas and saying that you can move people from
    Arizona to Texas does not actually solve the problem. Do you
    have specific Arizona details?
        Ms. Tierney. I have topline details here. I do not have
    specific Arizona details but we can certainly get you that
    offline. I do want to note again it is a system, and so Yuma
    and Tucson are a part of a network of sectors on the Southwest
    Border, and I do encourage you to look at the whole system, not
    just specifically what is in Arizona, and particularly with
    holding capacity, because that is where the air and ground
    transport contracts and plussing-up those contracts will help
    with the lateral decompression.
        Senator Sinema. I appreciate that. As you are aware, we
    have had significant problems with transport in Arizona
    already, with continuing concerns around migrants showing up at
    the Sky Harbor Airport, for instance, without appropriate
    travel plans, and airport personnel have been taken away from
    their duties of helping passengers get safely from one
    destination to another to provide assistance to migrants.
        As you mentioned before the hearing, some of that has been
    alleviated. It has not been solved. It does not sound like
    there is a very specific plan with actionable items to address
    this prior to May 23rd.
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, thank you for that comment and
    question. I do want to highlight some of the things that have
    happened, and specifically around the Sky Harbor Airport, which
    I know is a particular pain point for the airport, and the
    county, and something that you have raised multiple times.
        Our lead field coordination, which is the senior CBP
    official on the ground in Arizona, has convened detailed
    operational discussions with both the jurisdiction in which Sky
    Harbor Airport is as well as the airport to discuss how they
    can better coordinate their actions. From that a few things
    have happened. The first one is the identification of a site
    for drop-offs that is not specific to the airport, working with
    the primary NGO that provides the drop-off services there.
        There is also then work with Transportation Security
    Administration (TSA) to discuss security clearance processes,
    to ensure that people who do arrive have the right
    documentation and that TSA has access to the right system so
    that they can properly screen people without delay, avoiding
    people missing their flight and then having to be stuck at the
    airport for several hours or a day or two.
        Another issue is ticketing. The lead field coordinator has
    convened discussions with both Southwest Airlines and I believe
    it was United Airlines to discuss how to better coordinate
    ticketing as well as moving people through the airport to their
    gate.
        There are things that have been done tactically to address
    these issues, and as we discussed before the hearing, and as I
    will highlight here, is it completely solved? No, it is not.
    But there are a lot of things in process and also completed to
    have alleviated some of the issues.
        I do want to note, though, there is, as we discussed before
    the hearing, a limit to what we can do because once people are
    processed out of CBP custody the Federal Government has few
    levers to actually provide support. There is a lot of
    coordination that will have to happen between CBP, the non-
    governmental organizations, the local officials and entities
    like the Sky Harbor Airport, to ensure that we can move people
    through the system and avoid some of the pain points that you
    have highlighted previously.
        Senator Sinema. Mr. Chair, I know that my time has expired.
    Might I be able to ask one additional question?
        Chairman Peters [presiding.] Absolutely. Go ahead.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is for Mr.
    Nunez-Neto. Street releases are not new to Arizona communities.
    For years I have been working with Arizona's local mayors and
    our counties to help relieve the burden caused by these street
    releases. The DHS plan indicates that there is defined criteria
    in place which our local CBP officers will use to determine
    whether and now to perform street releases in particular
    communities.
        What is the criteria that DHS is utilizing to make these
    decisions about street releases, and what steps will be taken
    to minimize the burden that is placed on Arizona communities in
    the case of street releases?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you, Senator. I welcome also Chief
    Huffman's views on this. We are working hard to minimize the
    potential for street releases. We acknowledge that they have
    happened really consistently over the years when particular
    parts of the border become overstretched. We have put
    guidelines in place. We would be happy to share with you more
    detailed information on that.
        I think, in general, the safety of the community and public
    safety is kind of the north star in this space and we try to
    ensure if there is a need to release migrants that we do so, as
    MaryAnn noted, in direct coordination with local NGO's and
    local authorities in order to make sure that they have
    somewhere to go and a place to sleep.
        Chief Huffman, I do not know if you want to add anything to
    that.
        Mr. Huffman. I concur with what Mr. Neto answered. Local
    CBP officials they work closely with the local officials. They
    understand the stress of this burden. But as we all know, CBP
    is the first step when you counter somebody, and once the
    system just gets so strained sometimes you have to make the
    choices of those releases. When you have to do so, you do so in
    coordination with the NGO's, if they are available, in general,
    and make sure you are in coordination with your State and
    locals. But obviously, we would like to not have any street
    releases if we could avoid it at all.
        Senator Sinema. Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired. I
    will note that there have been repeated stories in Arizona,
    including the mayor of a small town in Arizona called Gila
    Bend, in which there are no shelters and no bus stop. That
    mayor was actually transporting migrants himself to the Phoenix
    area because of street releases that were unplanned and
    unannounced.
        I have grave concern that this will continue to be a burden
    on local Arizona communities. Additionally, leaving migrants
    without any place to go without safe harbor, particularly as
    summer temperatures rise over 110 in Southern Arizona.
        Mr. Chairman, I have an additional 12 questions that I will
    submit for the record, and I am interested in hearing a lot
    more about these plans. As of this moment, I do not feel
    confident that the system is ready for this mass migration that
    could occur as early as May 23rd.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Sinema.
        Senator Scott, you are recognized for your questions.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT

        Senator Scott. Thank you, Chair.
        I am from the State of Florida. We have quite a few people
    who have moved to our State from foreign countries, and we like
    immigration. But what is going on in Florida right now, people
    have no belief that our Federal Government has secured our
    border. They have no belief that there is a plan to secure our
    border. They are seeing friends and some families lose their
    lives because of the unbelievable increase in drug overdose
    with the fentanyl that is coming across the border. They read
    the stories about the number of terrorists that have been
    caught and they know that there are so many people that have
    not been caught, so they assume there are a lot of terrorists
    that have come into the country since Joe Biden got elected,
    and none of this seems to get any better.
        CBP encountered 221,000 illegal immigrants along the
    Southwest Border in March, a 33 percent increase compared to
    February and the highest number in 22 years. Most concerning is
    the encounters of a historic number of illegal aliens from
    countries beyond Mexico, in the Northern Triangle now represent
    nearly 40 percent of all border encounters in March. In
    contrast to fiscal year 2012, encounters of foreign nationals
    originating from outside Mexico in the Northern Triangle were
    two percent of encounters. In fiscal year 2021, the figure had
    increased to 22 percent.
        First off, Mr. Nunez-Neto, how many countries are there and
    how many countries are represented in people that are coming
    across our border illegally now?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you, Senator. It is common each year
    to see individuals from dozens of nationalities at our border.
    I think what has changed is the sheer volume from countries we
    do not traditionally receive people from, and predominantly
    that has been this year Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which
    account for about a quarter of our encounters.
        Senator Scott. How many countries are represented? How many
    countries are there in the world and how many countries are
    represented in people that have come across illegally that
    Border Patrol has picked up?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I do not have the specific number in front
    of me but it is normally in the high dozens.
        Senator Scott. There are about 200 countries in the world,
    depending on who you asked, and the Del Rio Sector reported
    that last fall migrants from 106 countries crossed their sector
    in fiscal year 2021. That is one of nine Southern Border
    sectors. Ranking Member Portman said, in March, that there were
    people coming over the border this year from 150 countries.
        The numbers are staggering and reveal a fact that cannot be
    ignored. This is not a regional problem. Apprehensions of
    illegal aliens from distant countries like Syria, Lebanon,
    Romania, India, Turkey prove that the Biden administration's
    radical border policies have sent a clear message to the
    world--come across our Southern Border; it is wide open. The
    rest of the world clearly believes that if you can get to the
    Southern Border, you can come across.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto, do you believe our Southern Border is
    closed?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. As the Secretary noted yesterday, Senator,
    there is no doubt that we are facing severe challenges on our
    border. I would note that it is in line with historical trends
    to see large numbers of countries encountered at the border,
    but again, the key difference that we are currently seeing are
    the large numbers of individuals from countries like Venezuela,
    Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Haiti,
    that we are not accustomed to seeing on the border.
        Senator Scott. Is the border closed?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. The border has and continues to present a
    challenge for us.
        Senator Scott. Do you think our country has a right to have
    a secure border? Secretary Mayorkas has come and testified. I
    do not see anything happening. I am a business guy. If I went
    into business and you saw a 33 percent increase in something
    bad happening, somebody would do something.
        I was down on the Arizona border a few months ago, and what
    the Border Patrol told me is this is the first administration
    that they cannot say that they see anything happening. It is
    just fascinating mean. We have people dying. About one out of
    every 3,000 people in this country died of a drug overdose last
    year. It is staggering.
        Let me go to Ms. Mendrala. The Biden administration is
    supposedly having talks with Cuba now. I am from Florida. We
    have a lot of people that are of Cuban descent. They know the
    atrocities of the Castro regime for decades. They were furious
    when the Obama Administration had their appeasement, which did
    not work. I can tell you story after story. I can tell you one
    story of a lady I know that after Obama's appeasement the
    Castro regime cutoff her hand, stuck it in the mud so she would
    die of infection. Do you know what her atrocity was? She
    complained that somebody closed a school in her area.
        My understanding is we are back talking to them again. We
    are talking about the same appeasement stuff that is going to
    do nothing. We have 1,300 people in Cuban prisons right now
    that peacefully protested on July 11th. Some of these are kids.
    They are being tortured. They are going to die. I have not seen
    one thing the Biden administration has done. I have called the
    White House. The White House has not done one thing to call
    this out.
        Now my understanding is you are having conversations with
    Cuba. Are you going to take them off the State-sponsored
    terrorism list? Are you going to take away the sanctions? It
    just does not make any sense to anybody I know, that has
    watched all the atrocities and has had their family members put
    in prison for doing nothing.
        Ms. Mendrala. Thank you, Senator, for the question, and I
    will say that we absolutely share your concerns about the human
    rights situation on the island. President Biden himself,
    Secretary Blinken, and several other officials from the State
    Department and elsewhere in the Administration have publicly
    condemned human rights violations.
        Senator Scott. No, no, no, no, no. Joe Biden has not said
    one word. I called Joe Biden. I called the White House and they
    hung up on me. Joe Biden has not said one word about the
    atrocities. He has not said one word about these 1,300
    protesters. I asked him to do it. He will not do it. By the
    way, when this was going to happen I said, ``You have to get
    the internet back on,'' and they said, ``Oh yes, we are going
    to work on that.'' There has been nothing done. Or is there
    anything being done to get the internet back on, so these
    peaceful protesters, so the other protesters can talk to each
    other? Nothing. They said, ``Oh yes, we are going to work on
    it.'' That was last July. Not one thing has happened.
        Ms. Mendrala. Senator, I would be happy to follow up\1\
    with you to share some of the statements that have been made
    publicly by Administration officials.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Ms. Mendrala follow up response to Senator Scott appears in the
    Appendix on page 243.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Scott. Not Joe Biden.
        Ms. Mendrala. I will share that we absolutely share your
    concerns about the human rights situation on the island, the
    political prisoners, those that were protesting peacefully July
    11th, and desired to, in days following and before that were
    arrested, remained in prison, many of them with harsh
    sentences, as you rightly point out, some of them minors. We
    have made those concerns publicly and we share those directly
    with them as well.
        Senator Scott. I would like to see where it is because I
    have not seen it. The President has not said a word. Are you
    going to take away the sanctions or are you going to take them
    off the terror watch list?
        Ms. Mendrala. With respect to the migration accords or the
    migration talks that occurred a couple of weeks ago, the United
    States and Cuba, over several years, over several decades,
    brokered migration accords, 1984, 1994, 1995, and 2017, to
    commit both sides to several measures that would promote safe,
    legal, and orderly migration.
        Administrations for decades now have met on a biannual
    basis, at a technical level, to discuss the implementation of
    the accords. The meeting that occurred a couple of weeks ago
    was a resumption of those migration talks to discuss compliance
    with the migration accords on both sides, to promote safe,
    legal, and orderly migration.
        As you know, the challenges of Cuban outflow of migration
    is tremendous at this moment. Individuals spending their life
    savings, risking their lives in many respects, subjected to
    mistreatment by smugglers and traffickers as they make their
    way overland to arrive in an irregular fashion at our border.
    It is imperative that we work together with partners throughout
    the region and speak directly with the Cubans.
        Senator Scott. That is a yes that it is on the table, that
    you are going to take away the sanctions.
        Ms. Mendrala. Oh, no, sir. I am responding specifically to
    your question about migration.
        Senator Scott. My question is, are you going to take them
    off the terrorist watch list, State-sponsored terrorism, and
    are you going to eliminate the sanctions?
        Ms. Mendrala. Oh, sir, I have no comment on either of
    those.
        Senator Scott. But if you have no comment that is a yes.
    Thank you.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Scott.
        Senator Rosen, you are recognized for your questions.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN

        Senator Rosen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all
    the witnesses for being here.
        Of course, we had Secretary Mayorkas yesterday, and as I
    said to the Secretary, it really was disappointing that only
    after the Administration announced that Title 42 restrictions
    would be lifted at the border did DHS release a plan to
    Congress for dealing with the change in policy and, of course,
    the expected surge at our border.
        It is also concerning that the plan seems to lack important
    details about how the Administration is going to make sure that
    our border is secured. Moreover, things like surging resources
    to the border and improving coordination between NGO's and
    government, solutions that DHS, frankly, that they have just
    offered in the past.
        What I want to know from all of you here today is what the
    Department has learned since the two-plus years since Title 42
    took effect, and how this plan differs from DHS past policies
    and practices?
        Ms. Tierney, I will start with you, then Mr. NuNez-Neto and
    Mr. Huffman, please.
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, thank you for that question. Again, I
    work at FEMA so my involvement in immigration day to day is
    limited, although the past year I have had some involvement. I
    think a key thing that I will note is that the Southwest Border
    Coordination Center has brought together departmental
    components as well as the interagency to coordinate their
    actions in a way that perhaps may not have been done before.
    Through that we have better aligned our priorities. We have
    identified specific objectives and tasks, and every day a team
    of dozens is working vigorously to execute against those tasks.
        That is why, in the past, I would say, 45 to 60 days there
    has been a substantial plus-up in both the acquisition of
    resources as well as the deployment of resources. There has
    also been significant movement in several policy areas, which
    Assistant Secretary Mr. Nunez-Neto could go into.
        That is one key thing that I think is different and has
    improved outcomes come May 23rd.
        Senator Rosen. Thank you.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes, thank you for your question, Senator.
    I think there are a number of lessons that have been learned
    over the last two years, starting with the fact that because of
    the lack of consequences under Title 42 the number of people
    who just keep trying to come back is really extraordinarily
    high, and that puts a lot of strain on the system. The need to
    have consequences for those who do not have a legal basis to
    stay in the country I think is a key lesson learned.
        I think additionally, as the senior coordinating official,
    MaryAnn Tierney, just noted, there are a number of initiatives
    underway to really kind of look at the system from beginning to
    end and find efficiencies at every step of the process, from
    encounter to referral between CBP and ICE, to how ICE manages
    expedited removal in its facilities.
        One of the things that has been a historical issue for not
    just DHS but also DOJ is the fact that all of our immigration
    processes are paper-based, and the printing out and scanning of
    documents takes an extraordinary amount of time and pulls our
    frontline law enforcement personnel away from their law
    enforcement duties.
        We are working to digitize the notices to appear and to
    create an electronic A-file that will, I think, really kind of
    revolutionize the way we process at the border. We hope to have
    a lot of this done by the end of the year, and I think we will
    see huge gains across the entire immigration continuum as part
    of that.
        Senator Rosen. Thank you. Ms. Tierney, do you have anything
    to add?
        Ms. Tierney. [Shakes head.]
        Mr. Huffman. Again, thank you for the question. As you
    know, CBP is just one agency in the overall continuum that
    works border security issues, and we are usually the first ones
    to encounter people, and then we are kind of in the process of
    having to deal with them first. But the ultimately pathway,
    where they go, is dependent upon other parts of the program.
        I think one of the key lessons we have learned, and this
    started back in 2019, when we first saw a big push, is that the
    shifting demographics of who we deal with, going from single
    adults to family units back to single adults, is very
    challenging to have the right type of facilities to do the
    processing, to do the temporary custody, those kinds of things.
        That turned out to be a big challenge across the board
    because historically we were built to deal with single adults.
    That is how our system has worked and it is how facilities have
    worked. We learned how to quickly scale up and change that. We
    started using these soft-sided facilities a lot, and we are
    able to configure those soft-sided facilities in order to work
    better for us, to be able to detain and process and then move
    on to the next stage for those things. That was key to us, as
    Mr. Nunez-Neto mentioned, improving our processes in between,
    to move them from the technology issues, to get away from
    paper, and switch to digital. Those are important.
        This is kind of one of the first times where CBP has not
    felt in the fight alone for this situation. Seem to have a
    better, whole-of-government approach this time, so that is
    really helpful. It helped us last spring and summer, when we
    were dealing with an extremely large number of unaccompanied
    children, to finally get fully coordinated and a unified team
    to process this thing.
        That same process we are using now as we get ready for
    Title 42 to go away because we are dealing with unprecedented
    numbers. There is no question about that. I am probably the
    only guy that was on the job here in 1986, when we set the
    first record of 1.6 million encounters that year, which was
    very difficult to do, and we have gone through several like
    that.
        But over time we have learned how to take better care of
    those in our custody, how to process faster, but also to make
    sure we have all the team players involved in it, from within
    Homeland Security plus DOJ, Department of State, all involved
    to help us deal with the situation.
        Senator Rosen. Thank you, because I do think we have to
    take these lessons learned into a coordinated, whole-of-
    government approach, turn it into an action plan, like
    digitizing, so you can share better across agencies, being able
    to modernize our facilities. But we have to have a plan that is
    robust, coordinated, and humane and dignified.
        I look forward to working with you on that. I am going to
    submit my next question for the record because all of this
    really begs the need for comprehensive immigration reform that
    really does take these lessons learned and turn them into
    humane, dignified, robust action plan, not only at our border
    but for our immigration as a whole.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
        Senator Johnson, you are recognized for your questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

        Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have dueling
    charts here. I do not expect you to be able to read all the
    detail here, but a picture does paint 1,000 words.
        Just so you know, the gold is single adults, blue are
    family units, red are unaccompanied children. What we have here
    is 10 years' worth of monthly apprehensions. I kind of told the
    story yesterday with Secretary Mayorkas, but let me tell a
    slightly different story.
        Over the last eight and a half years, on average, we had
    about 30,000 single adults being apprehended at the Southwest
    Border monthly, about 30,000. Very steady. What we had in 2014
    was the humanitarian crisis of unaccompanied children and
    family units exploiting our asylum laws. The same thing
    happened in 2019. Something different is happening now.
        The first thing you will see is an explosion in single
    adults. Now we are hearing this yesterday and again today that
    they want to explain this away as from repeat offenders. The
    Chairman's chart\1\ showed 25 percent of the apprehensions were
    repeat offenders. This is from 30,000 to well over 150,000.
    Chief Huffman, do repeat offenders account for going from an
    average 30,000 to over 150,000 single adults being apprehended
    on a monthly basis?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix
    on page 101.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you for the question, Senator. I believe
    you are correct. The math does not add up. I mean, there is a
    significant amount of recidivism, folks involved in the Title
    42. We know that.
        Senator Johnson. We had recidivism back here too, right?
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, sir, and going all the way back to when
    we were counting, in 1986. Recidivisms are in all those
    numbers. There is no question about that.
        Senator Johnson. There is something else going on here. Let
    me suggest where you really started seeing single adults
    increase was during the 2020 Presidential debates, when every
    Democratic Presidential candidate said they were not going to
    deport anybody and they were going to offer people free health
    care.
        Now again, if you look at the chart,\1\ there are some
    pretty remarkable break points. For example, the number of
    apprehensions dropped precipitously right after President Trump
    was elected. People thought our laws were going to change, we
    were going to tighten up the border, so they stopped coming.
    They found out, no, nothing really changed and they started
    surging.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Senator Johnson's chart appears in the Appendix on page 103.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Then President Trump did real consequences. Return to
    Mexico was a real consequence, and it worked. It pretty well
    stopped the flow of unaccompanied children and family units
    exploiting our asylum laws, and all we were left with were
    single adults, until the Biden administration, and once again
    family units and unaccompanied children exploiting our asylum
    laws took off.
        We have been nibbling around the edges. This is surreal,
    the last two days, what we have been talking about here.
    Nothing is going to fix the problem until we actually talk
    about the root cause, and the root cause is the credible fear
    standard. It is so low in comparison to what the asylum
    standard is. Getting asylum is actually quite difficult, is it
    not, Mr. Nunez-Neto? You have to be persecuted or fear being
    persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality,
    membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
    That is the asylum standard. Correct? Economic migration does
    not count. Correct?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, you are right that there is a wide
    difference between the statutorily mandated credible fear
    interview at the beginning of the process----
        Senator Johnson. That was the root cause of the problem,
    right, because the vast majority of people that come in here,
    they are coached to say that you are afraid to go home,
    credible fear, and they get waved in, never to have their claim
    adjudicated, and now we have somewhere between 20 and 30
    million people in this country undocumented because of that
    fact.
        The credible fear bar is so low in comparison to what the
    actual asylum standard is, and until we fix that we are going
    to continue to have this kind of flow, particularly with an
    Administration that is not willing to do what the previous
    administration did and offer a real consequence.
        Real quick, what are those consequences we stopped talking
    about? The main consequence is expedited removal. We are still
    doing that. Correct?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes, sir, we are still using expedited
    removal.
        Senator Johnson. The only other consequence we are talking
    about is we are not writing down their name. I do not know. We
    used to actually remove them like 100 miles or quite a few
    miles away from the entry point. That was a consequence. Do we
    do that anymore, Chief Huffman.
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, sir. We are still having some interior
    repatriation flights. When the flights are available we do can
    do that. Yes, sir.
        Senator Johnson. So that is still a consequence. Again, so
    we are still doing some consequences. Expedited removal, we are
    still doing that, and we still have that flow.
        I guess my question, first of all, for Ms. Mendrala, you
    talked about disinformation in South America. What is that
    disinformation?
        Ms. Mendrala. Sir, thank you for the question, Senator. We
    have seen smugglers and other bad actors use information, twist
    information, craft disinformation about U.S. border policies in
    such a way to----
        Senator Johnson. Specifically, what do they tell them?
        Ms. Mendrala. We have seen information that would suggest
    that certain nationalities would be granted entry without
    consequence----
        Senator Johnson. OK. Let me stop you right there. Isn't
    that exactly what is happening here? People are granted entry
    without consequence. Last year, close to one million processed
    and dispersed. Another few hundred thousand known got-aways
    because we are so overwhelming Customs and Border Patrol. We
    are not going to fix this unless we are honest.
        The reality is, what the people are being told in Central
    America is largely true. You come to America, you cross the
    border, you say, ``I am afraid to go home,'' and you are home
    free. Isn't that the reality, Chief Huffman? Isn't that exactly
    what the agents on the border are having to grapple with? There
    is nothing they can do because that is the policy of this
    Administration, process and disperse.
        Mr. Huffman. I will speak to what I think the agents up
    front, without regard to the policy. I will defer that to DHS
    policy. But there is a level of frustration because they
    believe that many people are, ``gaming the system'' or making
    fears they may not really have because it is possible to do
    that.
        Ideally, though, those are single adults that we do have a
    clear path for removal, that we can put into expedited removal,
    and they can have those claims assessed. The biggest challenge,
    as you know, comes when we are dealing with the other
    populations, such as family units that seem to exploit that. As
    we go to applying consequences further up--and we intend to,
    and we have been somewhat and hopefully we will be able to
    increase our consequences of the criminal prosecution aspect,
    as the counts start opening up, and we are able to prosecute
    more cases there--the next concern would be, of course, that
    single adults will start becoming family units again, as we
    have seen in the past.
        Senator Johnson. They will sell children to make a family
    unit. When I was Chairman, we had testimony that a child was
    sold for $84 to form a family unit.
        There are no consequences being applied here. There was
    with Return to Mexico but that was dismantled, the first day of
    this Administration. Again, we have to actually understand what
    the root cause is. Sure, there are push factors, but the main
    root cause is the pull factor, the reality that you can come to
    America, say you are afraid to go home, and you are home free
    and you get to stay. That is the pull factor. That is why you
    have this problem.
        Until this Administration is willing to recognize that root
    cause we are going to have an enormous problem, even though the
    Secretary will not admit it is a problem.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
        Senator Hassan, you are recognized for your questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN

        Senator Hassan. Thank you, Chairman Peters. I want to thank
    you and Ranking Member Portman for this hearing. I want to
    thank all of the Members of this very distinguished panel
    before the Committee today to discuss ongoing efforts to secure
    the Southern Border.
        Chief Huffman, I am going to start with a question to you.
    I recently visited the Southern Border for a third time and was
    there in early April. I am concerned after that visit that DHS
    is not more widely deploying the technologies that you are
    using to help secure the border in some locations. Greater
    deployment of integrated and autonomous cameras, radar,
    sensors, and additional technology to detect and deter the
    unauthorized aerial vehicles (UAVs), that smugglers use would
    expand CBP's capabilities, address existing security gaps, and
    be a force multiplier.
        Congress has previously appropriated millions of dollars
    for these technologies, some of which CBP has not spent. Chief
    Huffman, what is holding up CBP's deployment of small border
    technologies, particularly to strategic locations? Does the
    Department need additional funding for any equipment or to
    surge resources in order to complete required reviews or plans
    before the technology can be deployed?
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you for that question and, obviously,
    thank you for the funding. That is extremely important. The
    technology provides CBP as a whole, and Border Patrol in
    particular, the level of situational awareness that is critical
    to their success, and for your recognition of that it is
    important to do that.
        The main reason between the lag between the obligation of
    the funds and the deployment, generally it is real estate
    issues and environmental issues. It is not a lack-of-resource
    issue. It is the process where you are acquiring property or
    you are acquiring those things. It is regulatory issues that we
    work through. We are working through those as quickly as we can
    and intend to be deploying all of the technology we have as
    quickly as we can.
        Senator Hassan. Would it be helpful to you, I mean, when
    you work through regulatory issues like that it takes personnel
    to do that. Would it be helpful to you to surge personnel who
    do these regulatory processes?
        Mr. Huffman. It could very well be, on the particular
    cases. It all depends on where it is and what you are trying to
    accomplish to do that. Our office that does that works real
    closely with the different programs to do that. If they need
    personnel they ask for additional personnel and try to meet the
    timelines necessary. But certainly if we have an opportunity to
    speed it along with that we would certainly be happy to do that
    and look into how that could help.
        Senator Hassan. I would look forward to working on that
    with you because we have to get that done. Strategic deployment
    of that technology is really critical.
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, ma'am. I could not agree more.
        Senator Hassan. OK. Let me ask you another question, Chief.
    In your testimony you noted that CBP is shifting Border Patrol
    agents and CBP officers from other locations to assist at the
    Southern Border. When I visited the border last month,
    personnel there said that while these temporary duty
    assignments certainly help address increased migrant flow they
    are taxing for the agents, officers, and their families and
    they are not a long-term solution.
        I am also concerned that the continual and likely increased
    shifting of personnel to the Southern Border will have a
    detrimental impact on travel, trade, and security along the
    Northern Border. How will CBP work to increase personnel at the
    Southern Border and continually and reliably meet these
    staffing needs?
        Mr. Huffman. Again, thank you for that for two reasons.
    One, anyone that takes care and concern about our front force,
    our workplace, that is important to us so I appreciate your
    care and concern about that.
        It is a very challenging time. There is no question about
    that. People have detailed to those areas, to the problem
    areas, and we try to minimize that as much as we can. Some of
    the things we are working on is, one, for the first time ever
    we are establishing these contract processors to get agents
    back to the field, which may relieve the need to bring more
    down. We are increasing our use of the remote processing to
    allow people to stay. Using technology to stay on the Northern
    Border, we process those ways as well, it is another process to
    do that.
        As we increase the hiring of our Border Patrol processing
    coordinators, also those things are all efforts that we are
    planning to affect the personnel issue, that deal with those
    issues, to increase more people on the front line organically
    or with contractors, or with resources in there to do that, so
    we will have less likely to do that.
        Those all take a while to evolve, as we get to those
    places, to where they function like we would like to. We rely
    upon our leadership and our Northern Border ports and our
    Northern Border sectors to balance their resources as well as
    they can to address those and minimize that, leaning heavily on
    our Stonegarden partners in those areas as well to help us
    address all those things across the enterprise.
        It is a big case of risk management is what it is, and that
    is what we are trying to do the best we can in those
    situations.
        Senator Hassan. I understand you are trying to do the best
    you can. I am also obviously concerned that as we stand up more
    resources at the Southern Border we attend to the security and
    trade and travel at the Northern Border as well. Again, I look
    forward to working with you to make sure that that happens.
        Ms. Tierney, the first pillar of the DHS plan for Southern
    Border security focuses on surging additional resources to
    support border operations, including medical support resources.
    The plan indicates that DHS is expanding medical support and
    COVID-19 mitigation protocols and was preparing to be able to
    provide medical care for up to 18,000 people per day by the end
    of April.
        Ms. Tierney, did DHS make its deadline, and how can DHS
    ensure that frontline operations have the necessary medical
    resources and support if 18,000 people were apprehended
    tomorrow?
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, thank you for that question. I
    appreciate the opportunity to talk about the medical support
    plan.
        Currently CBP has over 800 contract medical personnel
    capable of providing 24/7 medical support. They are also
    authorizing travel and pay for the current personnel to again
    move around the Southwest Border, based on requirements. There
    has also been work with the Federal interagency to identify and
    secure Federal medical teams from across a variety of
    departments. That is underway, and those requests for
    assistance are in process.
        There is also work to plus-up the contract that exists
    currently, and that is also underway with task orders against
    that, as well, as I mentioned, the interagency agreements.
        There is medical personnel onsite now. There will be
    Federal interagency support between now and May 23rd teed up
    and employed, and then the expansion of the existing contracts.
        Senator Hassan. Does that mean that in your assessment,
    with those resources in place, that if there were 18,000 people
    at the border tomorrow you would be prepared to meet the
    medical needs? That is what the plan said, you would be ready
    by the end of April.
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, I think what I would say is, being a
    prudent and practical person that we will have resources in
    place and we will have an ability to expand based on
    requirements.
        I think, again, as the Secretary and others have mentioned,
    if CBP were to encounter up to 18,000 people per day, that will
    place enormous strain on the system. I think it is unclear
    whether the medical services that are currently in place or
    that are in the process of being in place could flex to that
    level. That is almost three times the number of people that are
    currently encountered at the border, on average.
        Senator Hassan. I think one of my concerns, and Mr. Chair,
    I want to do one follow-up on this--I know I am running over
    time--but one of my concerns about this plan, the discussion we
    have been having about getting ready for the eventual lifting
    of Title 42 is that people keep telling me, but we have a plan,
    and it is not clear that having the plan and actually having
    the resources on the ground to meet the goals of that plan are
    the same thing.
        I appreciate this dialog, but what I am going to continue
    to follow up with all of you on is what does that mean in
    operational terms for the frontline personnel who will, in all
    likelihood, be seeing a significant increase in attempted
    migrant crossing when Title 42 is lifted.
        Now I want to follow up with one other issue, Ms. Tierney.
    The DHS plan also indicated that the Department is planning to
    expand its COVID-19 vaccine program to 24 CBP sites by May
    23rd, so that all age-eligible, non-citizens who had not
    already been vaccinated would receive their first dose before
    they traveled beyond a processing center.
        Ms. Tierney, is the Department's 100 percent vaccination
    plan based upon current apprehension levels or does it account
    for 18,000 possible daily apprehensions? Would the 24 sites
    noted in the plan be sufficient to accommodate all unvaccinated
    individuals or would additional sites and resources be
    necessary?
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, thank you for that question. I
    believe you kind of had a two-part question. I would like to
    address the first part because I think it is a very important
    point that is worth discussing in this forum.
        I think we would all agree that officer safety and the
    safety of the non-citizens crossing the border--is a priority.
    The plan lays out the resources that we will need to have in
    place by May 23rd, and have the ability to flex up to, based on
    increases in encounters at the 12,000 and 18,000 encounter-per-
    day planning assumptions.
        The plan lays out what we need to do, and what the
    Southwest Border Coordination Center, the people working in it,
    the interagency, is doing is actioning those planning items to
    actually resource the things that we need, whether it is
    additional Federal law enforcement personnel, contract civilian
    processors to free up Border Patrol agents, contract security
    guards, buses, airlift, medical personnel, additional
    facilities. That is what we have been doing and what we will
    continue to do in order to be ready for May 23rd and be
    positioned for additional encounters.
        Senator Hassan. The Chairman is indicating that it is time
    to move on because we are well over time. That is not the
    question I asked. I understand what you are saying to me now. I
    will look forward to following up with you. I would like, in
    writing, a response on the vaccination capacity. Thank you.
        Ms. Tierney. Certainly.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
        Senator Padilla, you are recognized for your questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

        Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There has been a
    lot of talk for several weeks now about Title 42, and what it
    means if and when it is lifted on May 23rd or another date. To
    remind us, on the Committee, and to remind the public that what
    Title 42 is and what it is not.
        Title 42 is not an immigration law. It is a public health
    regulation. The other thing that is important to remind folks
    is we are engaging in important conversations about immigration
    policy and the asylum process, and it is absolutely legal for
    people who come from around the world to the United States to
    request asylum. It does not mean that it is automatically
    guaranteed but it is lawful to request asylum based on
    conditions that one or a family is fleeing.
        I personally was happy to see the Administration announce
    an end to Title 42 and the resumption of asylum processing at
    the border. I know some of my colleagues would like the
    American public to think that taking down Title 42 is a major
    shift in policy, but lifting a public health order, which is
    what Title 42 is, actually would only return us to our existing
    immigration laws, where people seeking asylum in the country
    are allowed to exercise that legal right.
        Now this legal right has been on the books for decades. My
    first question is for Ms. Mendrala. What obligations exist
    under United States and international law to allow people to
    exercise their legal right to ask for asylum and what impact
    did Title 42 have on that right?
        Ms. Mendrala. Thank you, Senator, for the question. With
    respect to U.S. immigration law I will defer to my colleagues
    on the panel. With respect to international law, there are laws
    in countries throughout the region. Each country's protection,
    the legal framework for protection and asylum is unique. One of
    the priorities of the State Department is to work with partner
    countries, select countries, to strengthen their protection
    mechanisms and to strengthen their asylum systems so that
    individuals seeking refuge in those countries can find
    meaningful access in an efficient way, protection in the
    countries where they seek it, and not be forced to take the
    journey to the United States in order to do so.
        Senator Padilla. The second part of the question is how did
    Title 42 help or hurt that process?
        Ms. Mendrala. Sir, it is unique on every country context. I
    think as the United States put in place a public health order
    at our border, many countries throughout the region enacted
    similar public health measure as well, to require additional
    public health documentation upon entering a country or to enact
    movement restrictions that we saw globally, the number of
    people on the move, migrating, be it regularly or irregularly,
    during the pandemic dropped dramatically because of generalized
    movement restrictions and quarantine, be those imposed by the
    State or self-imposed.
        Senator Padilla. I think from a layman's point of view it
    certainly did not make things better. I know we are living in
    unique times, given the once-in-a-century global health
    pandemic. But one would be hard-pressed to suggest that the
    absence of the ability for someone to seek asylum, a lawful
    opportunity when you limit or constrain law opportunities to
    migrate, that only serves to add pressures and demands for
    unlawful methods of migration. I do not think it has been a
    success by that measure.
        Let me change topics here for a second. I want to focus on
    DHS's plans for the wind-down of Title 42. Again, I was glad to
    see that one of the six pillars of the plan for the end of
    Title 42 is focused on coordination and communication with
    NGO's at the border as well as with State and local
    governments. I think this coordination is going to be key to
    ensuring that groups have time to prepare and local communities
    do not become overburdened as they receive and support
    individuals who have been screened, and only those properly
    released to continue with their immigration cases.
        I am proud of the work that the State of California has
    done with groups in my State, including the California
    Welcoming Task Force, who have been working to support people
    coming to our country to seek safety. But they cannot
    effectively continue to do that without adequate communication
    and coordination from DHS, let alone financial assistance, but
    that is another conversation.
        I want to urge that the people working tirelessly at the
    Department to prepare to return to a safer, more orderly, and
    more humane process at the border, particularly the SBCC,
    closely coordinate and communicate with NGO's and State and
    local governments, and not just in California but across the
    border.
        A question for Mr. Nunez-Neto. Can you walk us through the
    steps that you are taking as part of this plan to bolster the
    capacities and the preparedness of NGO's to receive non-
    citizens after they have been processed by CBP?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes. Thank you for that question, sir, and
    I am happy to start the answer but will hand it off to the
    senior coordinating official, MaryAnn Tierney, because the SBCC
    is really where the rubber meets the road.
        We have been working through FEMA's Emergency Food and
    Shelter Grant Program to provide resources to NGO's to help
    really with all the back-end things that they do to move
    migrants and non-citizens along to their final destinations. We
    are deeply thankful of Congress enacting additional funds for
    that program this year.
        I will say, as MaryAnn often notes, that there continues to
    be a gap between what the U.S. Government can do and what the
    need is, and I will maybe hand the baton over to her to
    describe how the SBCC is trying to fill that gap.
        Ms. Tierney. Great. Thank you, and thank you, Senator, for
    that question. I will agree with you that I think California
    has a very robust system for addressing the migrant surge in
    that State, in particular the California Office of Emergency
    Services, the City and County of San Diego, as well as the two
    primary NGO's servicing those areas.
        A lot of work has been done by the CBP lead field
    coordinator, again, the senior official on the ground
    responsible for coordinating all of this, to establish
    regularized and robust interaction with the State and with
    locals. For example, at the CBP Emergency Operations Center for
    Region Nine, which covers California, Cal Office of Emergency
    Services (OES) and Cal Health have representatives in that
    location. I believe that is kind of the gold standard and the
    ideal that I would personally like to see across the southwest
    border in terms of complete physical integration of those
    operations.
        In addition, a lot of work has been done with the NGO's. I
    will use California as an example because one of the first
    things I did when I got this assignment was go visit the
    border. In each of my locations I did meet with NGO's and
    toured their operations and discussed with them their
    challenges. That ongoing interaction and operational
    coordination was a key thing that I heard, a well, as something
    that was not as robust as it needed to be. That is something at
    the SBCC, with the lead field coordinators we have worked, I
    would say relentlessly, to improve through regularized and
    recurring meetings, both with NGO's and with State and local
    officials that have an operational role. That has occurred in
    California, as I mentioned, which I believe is the gold
    standard----
        Senator Padilla. Thank you. I hate to interrupt. I do not
    want to be the only member who did not go over his time and I
    want to ask one more quick question, but before I do underscore
    what you just said, that California is the model through that
    interagency coordination and collaboration. I invite all my
    colleagues on this Committee and across the Senate to support
    replicating that model throughout the Southwest Border, not
    just on the California side.
        But my final item, just quickly. DHS has indicated also
    that in preparation for a potential increase in migration the
    agency will focus on targeting people who attempt to cross the
    border more than once for criminal prosecution, as part of the
    agency's initiative to escalate consequences and conserve
    processing resources. The agency has also indicated that it
    will refer for prosecution, ``those whose conduct warrants
    it.'' While that may sound good at the surface level I am
    concerned about the plan to use prosecution as a deterrent
    without being clear-eyed and focused on how it is applied. In
    the past, such deterrent policies have not always worked, and
    instead were just used to punish asylum seekers, which we have
    already established is lawful. It is a potential huge violation
    of U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention.
        A question for Mr. Huffman. Does CBP have plans to refer
    asylum seekers for prosecution, and if not, how are you going
    to safeguard that?
        Mr. Huffman. Sir, thank you for the question. As you know,
    the United States government secures this border by proper
    application of administration and criminal law. That is the
    method we use for securing our borders and that is what we do.
        The plan to increase prosecutions for those that warrant it
    will be primarily someone who has been referred for expedited
    removal, they have been removed, and they have returned. They
    have already gone through that process already to do that. I
    can tell you that no one will be referred to prosecution simply
    because they are an asylum seeker. That would be well outside
    our guidelines.
        In addition to that, we refer cases for criminal
    prosecution if we feel they should be prosecuted. The U.S.
    attorney is the ultimate determination if they would go forward
    with that case. But where circumstances would warrant it would
    be people that may try to harm a Border Patrol agent, may try
    to put somebody else in danger, those kinds of circumstances
    that increase the likelihood that they are a dangerous person.
    It could be their criminal record, that they have some sort of
    record also that warrants it that may lead them to be more
    likely a candidate for criminal prosecution. There are a number
    of factors that can do that.
        Senator Padilla. Thank you for your response. In closing I
    want to underscore we will be following up to ensure proper
    communication of that understanding, change in policies,
    training folks on the ground and close to the ground to make
    sure that what you are suggesting here is followed through in
    practice.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
        Senator Ossoff, you are recognized for your questions.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF

        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
    witnesses.
        Ms. Tierney, the United States must know and control who
    enters and exits our territory. That is a basic condition of
    sovereignty. The Department expects, does it not, a significant
    increase in attempted unauthorized entry along the Southern
    Border this summer?
        Ms. Tierney. Sir, the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics
    has published projections that show an increase in irregular
    migration post-Title 42.
        Senator Ossoff. Is the Administration prepared for this
    anticipated surge in attempted crossings?
        Ms. Tierney. Senator, thank you for that question. We have
    identified the needed requirements to meet the different levels
    of our planning assumptions and we are actively working to both
    resource physical assets as well as policies and improvements
    to processing to meet those increased surges.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Tierney, but my question is
    a simpler one. It is, is the Administration prepared?
        Ms. Tierney. Sir, I think since some of these projections
    are higher than what CBP has seen previously, I think we are
    doing prudent planning. We are using the planning to identify
    the resources requirements that would be needed based on what
    experts like Chief Huffman and others identify as the need. We
    are working to improve policies. I think we are readying
    ourselves and we are going to be as ready as we can be, come
    May 23rd.
        Senator Ossoff. If you are not able to confidently state
    that the Administration is prepared, what are the requirements
    that are unmet? Have you sent, for example, a request for a
    supplemental to Congress? If you are not prepared, what is it
    going to take to get prepared? Because my constituents lack
    confidence that sufficient preparation is ongoing and that the
    Administration is prepared. If you are not prepared, what do
    you need?
        Ms. Tierney. Sir, I would not say that we are not prepared.
    What I would say is that we are preparing, based on
    projections, based on requirements identified by experts. We
    are resourcing against those requirements, and we will have the
    necessary items in place for May 23rd.
        Now, again, I have been an emergency manager for quite some
    time. I never feel like we are prepared enough. I always want
    to be more prepared than we need to be. We are doing everything
    we can to be ready. We have been working furiously, since the
    fall of 2021, to get ready. We are more ready now than we were
    yesterday, and we will certainly be more ready on May 23rd than
    we are now.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Tierney. How will you
    measure success?
        Ms. Tierney. We have identified, for each of our major
    agencies, items that would indicate stability. For example,
    with Customs and Border Protection, the Southwest Border
    Coordination Center has identified a stability goal for Border
    Patrol that is having twice as much holding as we have
    encounters over a 48-hour period. For example, if the Border
    Patrol is seeing about 6,000 to 7,000 encounters a day, which
    is what they are generally seeing right about now, then you
    would want to have about 13,000 to 14,000 holding spaces
    available. I think that is an indicator of what the system can
    absorb and process through in about a 48-hour period.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Tierney. My time is limited,
    but I would like you to walk me through several of the other
    metrics or qualitative assessments that you will use to measure
    success. You say you are preparing, and I knowledge that work
    is ongoing. How will you measure whether that preparation has
    been effective? You mentioned holding capacity relative to
    encounters. What are the other measures of success?
        Ms. Tierney. So time in custody would be another measure of
    success. Also the ability to decompress Border Patrol stations
    through lateral movement and some of the other options that we
    have identified, like mobile en route processing. So monitoring
    the capacity of the individual sectors, identifying sectors
    that are over capacity, and then being able to flex to address
    that over-capacity.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Tierney.
        Ms. Contreras, I want to discuss with you the welfare of
    unaccompanied minors in Federal custody. First of all, has ORR
    mistreated or previously subjected minors in U.S. immigration
    detention to abusive conditions, to risk of abuse, to sexual
    misconduct? Has that occurred in U.S. custody?
        Ms. Contreras. Senator, thank you for that question. As
    background, I want you to know that during my first week on the
    job I visited Fort Bliss. I wanted to see what the care was
    like for the children, as you are speaking to, and I thank you
    for asking about it.
        What we saw is ORR, we have the responsibility, at HHS, for
    legal and moral obligation, and that is always and first about
    the safety of kids. We have had situations when we had to move
    very quickly to meet a greater capacity in a short amount of
    time, where we needed to improve conditions, and that has been
    the focus over the last year, so that now what you see are, a
    lot of emergency intake sites were, of course, now demobilized.
    Mental health supports for kids, case management so they have
    access to someone, recreation, health, safety needs, those have
    all been the priority.
        Senator Ossoff. Ms. Contreras--and I do want to get into
    the steps that are being taken now, and I recognize that this
    Government Accountability Office (GAO) report refers to
    misconduct and incidents principally or even entirely prior to
    your tenure. I recognize that. But this is an HHS Office of
    Inspector General (OIG) report.\1\ It talks about inadequate
    supervision, sexual misconduct, the abuse of children in U.S.
    Federal custody. It is completely unacceptable that this has
    taken place.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The HHS OIG Report referenced by Senator Ossoff appears in the
    Appendix on page 106
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I want to ask you two questions, Ms. Contreras, with my
    time remaining, and these will be my final questions. I thank
    you in advance for your response.
        The first is, can you give this Committee and the Congress
    and the American people and my constituents assurances that
    preparations have been made, safeguards are in place to ensure
    that minor children in U.S. immigration detention are never
    subjected to this abuse again? That is the first question. The
    second question is, what specific steps are you taking to
    ensure that, and will you grant the Red Cross unrestricted
    access to ORR facilities that house migrant children?
        I will give you the time, with the Chairman's indulgence,
    to answer, and that will be my final question. Thank you.
        Ms. Contreras. Thank you, Senator. On the question of
    access to the Red Cross, that is something that I would have to
    ask our team about, but I would be happy to do that and get
    back to you. We welcome the oversight that comes from Members
    of this Committee, from our nonprofit partners, from the Flores
    monitor. That is an important part of accountability and
    transparency as we carry out this very important mission.
        Senator Ossoff. I am sorry. I know I said I was done and
    the Chairman is going to tap me out with the gavel soon. I do
    have here, this is a Red Cross press release\1\ saying HHS,
    ORR, and FEMA have requested that the Red Cross provide support
    to ensure unaccompanied children have safe, clean, comfortable
    conditions in detention. So you are seeking this from the Red
    Cross. Is that correct? Will you grant them access to
    facilities, even when you do not ask for it, so they can
    inspect these facilities and ensure that children are not being
    mistreated?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The Red Cross letter referenced by Senator Ossoff appears in
    the Appendix on page 150
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Ms. Contreras. Senator, that is something I will follow up
    with. I have not seen the letter, but again, we welcome
    oversight and we certainly value our partners.
        I do not want to end without addressing your first question
    about what is the commitment. You absolutely have the
    commitment of the ORR staff, of HHS, and certainly myself of
    one month into my tenure as Assistant Secretary. I have
    represented many kids as their lawyer who have been abused, in
    many ways. While we always have that possibility of predators
    being in existence, what we are doing at HHS--we are the child
    welfare agency--is to make sure that we are taking every
    precaution, that we are staffed adequately so that there are
    eyes on our children, that we are using safeguards to make sure
    that we are keeping kids safe.
        So you have my absolute assurance that that is the No. 1
    priority for us at HHS.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you. I look forward to the follow-up
    on the Red Cross.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
        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.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto, if I could start with you. You are the
    Acting Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy at
    DHS. Is that right?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. That is right, Senator.
        Senator Hawley. So it is your role, then, to help formulate
    and drive policy and implement those policies at the
    Department. Have I got that right?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Correct.
        Senator Hawley. Help me understand the Administration's
    policy. Are you trying to stop illegal immigration anymore or
    have you given up on that?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, we are committed to enforcing the laws
    that Congress has enacted at the border, and as I noted in my
    testimony we are expanding our use of expedited removal as we
    prepare for the end of Title 42, particularly for recidivist
    border crossers.
        Senator Hawley. OK. So that sounds like a yes. That is a
    yes, you are still trying to stop illegal immigration? It is
    hard to tell but you are telling me yes?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. That is correct, sir.
        Senator Hawley. OK. Let us talk about a few of your
    policies, since you are in charge of policy, and you can tell
    me which of these has been effective in stopping illegal
    immigration.
        OK. Ending construction of the border wall. Has that been
    effective in stopping illegal immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I would defer to my colleague from Customs
    and Border Protection, but my understanding is that barriers on
    the border serve to slow irregular migration, not stop
    irregular migration.
        Senator Hawley. OK. You are saying that the border wall is
    not effective. So maybe we should just tear the whole thing
    down.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. The border wall is effective in rerouting
    migration, and it is effective in slowing the pace at which
    migrants can cross the border, which is particularly important
    in urban and suburban settings. In rural area, what we have
    found is it is still fairly easy for migrants to make holes in
    the wall----
        Senator Hawley. OK. Interesting. So stopping construction
    of it, though, has not slowed illegal immigration.
        How about terminating the Remain in Mexico policy, which
    you have tried to do? Has that stopped illegal immigration, or
    slowed it?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, as you know, we are in the process of
    reimplementing the MPP program as part of----
        Senator Hawley. Yes, because you are under court order to
    do so. But you have tried, as a matter of policy, to end it. So
    was that successful in slowing illegal immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, as our Secretary noted in his prior
    testimony, his view is that the MPP program poses unjustifiable
    costs on migrants and illegally restricts their access to the
    asylum system.
        Senator Hawley. Yes. OK. How about ending our ``safe
    third'' agreements with Northern Triangle countries? Has that
    been successful in stopping or slowing illegal immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I would defer to my colleague from the
    State Department in terms of these international agreements.
    But, only one of those agreements was even starting to be
    implemented prior to Title 42, and Title 42----
        Senator Hawley. Have we seen a decrease in illegal
    immigration since you eliminated them?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I think what you have seen, sir, is the
    impact of Title 42 on our border crossings.
        Senator Hawley. Oh, OK. Since you mentioned Title 42, has
    the attempt to rescind Title 42, has that been successful in
    slowing illegal immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Title 42, I think, has had a really
    interesting effect on migration in that, because of the number
    of repeat border crossers we see it has actually inflated our
    numbers at the border. I think what you have also seen----
        Senator Hawley. Are you saying that Title 42 have
    increased----
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Is an increase in Mexican migration----
        Senator Hawley [continuing]. Illegal immigration? Are you
    saying that the Title 42 restrictions have increased illegal
    immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I think that the data is clear, that
    Senator Johnson showed earlier, that once Title 42 restrictions
    were put in place we have seen an actual increase in migration
    from Mexico, in particular, and that is because of the lack of
    consequences----
        Senator Hawley. Oh, wow. So eliminating it will then you
    think, decrease the amount of illegal immigration?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I think over time, once we start reimposing
    significant immigration consequences on people at the border
    through our use of expedited removal, particularly for single
    adults----
        Senator Hawley. Oh, wow.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. And particularly for those from Mexico, you
    are going to see a decrease.
        Senator Hawley. Wow. That is news. That is news, ladies and
    gentlemen, that this Administration's position, you still
    clearly want to rescind Title 42, and you think that rescinding
    it will decrease illegal immigration at the border.
        Let us talk about the facts here. Last year alone--DHS
    experienced a record 1.7 million border crossings, more than 2
    million unauthorized migrants crossed the Southern Border
    during the last calendar year, and in fiscal year 2022, to
    date, there have been 245,390 illegal crossings in just the Rio
    Grande Valley, and 195,289 in Del Rio. The number of single
    adults crossing in these areas is up 75 percent. Why is it up?
    Because of all of the policies that we have just talked about.
    Your policies are single-handedly leading to an explosion of
    illegal immigration at the border, and yet you are sitting here
    and telling me that border walls have nothing to do with it,
    that Title 42 will lead to a decrease in illegal immigration,
    that eliminating the ``safe third'' agreements have nothing to
    do with the surge.
        Good heavens. This is just remarkable.
        All right. Let me ask you something else. Last week DHS
    released a memorandum that lays out your six-part plan to
    address the current--by the way, what would you call what is
    happening at the border? Is it a crisis?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I believe we are facing significant
    challenges at the border, sir.
        Senator Hawley. Challenges. Is it a problem?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. I think there are parts of the border where
    we have seen particularly problematic flows.
        Senator Hawley. Problematic flows. Parts of the border. But
    it is not a crisis.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. It is a challenge, sir.
        Senator Hawley. OK. Let the record reflect that the witness
    does not think that this is a crisis. I would hate to see what
    a crisis would be. I mean, who could possibly imagine?
        All right. I assume you played a role in drafting this
    plan. Let us look at some of the prongs of this plan. You want
    to bolster the capacity of non-governmental organizations to
    receive non-citizens after they have been processed by CBP and
    are awaiting the results of their immigration removal
    proceedings. You want to increase CBP processing efficiency in
    order to address overcrowding at Border Patrol stations.
        I have to be honest with you. As I look at this it looks
    like an attempt to memorialize your efforts to help as many
    illegal immigrants get into the country as possible.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, the third pillar of the plan is our
    efforts to impose consequences on those who try to enter the
    country illegally.
        Senator Hawley. Of which you have a demonstrated track
    record of doing precisely nothing of any consequence. You have
    presided over the most unbelievable explosion of illegality at
    the border in American history. Now what you are proposing
    looks like ways to turn this mass immigration into mass
    amnesty.
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sir, with all due respect, I think that
    Title 42 is not an immigration measure. It is a public health
    authority, and it----
        Senator Hawley. You just told us a minute ago that
    withdrawing it would decrease illegal immigration.
        Look, with all due respect, nothing you have said here is
    remotely credible. If you think that withdrawing Title 42 will
    decrease illegal immigration, I invite you to have that
    discussion with the Members of this Committee, maybe
    particularly on the Democrat side. I think they would be
    fascinated to hear that. And believe me, I will help them. I am
    happy to talk about your testimony today. I will be telling
    everybody about it.
        But you have single-handedly forced on this country a mass
    crisis that is endangering children, that is leading to an
    avalanche of drugs in my State, that is increasing criminality.
    For you to sit here and tell me that eliminating Title 42 is a
    solution, and that nothing you have done has had any
    consequence, and that border walls are not effective, and that
    ``safe third'' agreements are not effective, and Remain in
    Mexico is not effective--frankly, sir, you have no credibility
    whatsoever, and neither does the Administration that you work
    for. What you do have, though, is responsibility, for
    everything that is happening at the border.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
        Witnesses, you have been here a long time, and we
    appreciate your testimony, but we are going to start a second
    round for individuals who have a few more questions. The second
    round we are going to attempt to limit to five minutes. We will
    try to be more effective than limiting the initial round to
    seven minutes. But we will have a few more questions here.
        First, Ms. Contreras, my question is for you. CBP
    facilities are clearly not an acceptable location to house
    unaccompanied minors, and you mentioned that in your testimony,
    but how is HHS cooperating across departments to ensure
    sufficient resources are in place to prevent vulnerable
    children from spending extended amounts of time in these CBP
    facilities?
        Ms. Contreras. Thank you for that question, Senator. I
    think we would all agree that all of my colleagues on this
    panel, that HHS is a child welfare agency. It is our job, when
    children are referred to us, to be able to take them as quickly
    as we can into our care.
        What we see now is that the average length of stay in CBP
    is less than 24 hours, and that is an accomplishment everyone
    has worked very hard on.
        We have had a lot of coordination between our teams, of
    ORR, CBP, and throughout DHS, in order to make sure that we are
    coordinating and that we are taking care of children as soon as
    we can. What you see is there has been some co-location of
    staff. That is a big part of being able to make that happen.
        This remains a priority. We are glad that the number is
    down to less than a day in the custody of CBP, and that is
    something that will remain a priority in our work.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you.
        Fentanyl and other illicit narcotics are harming our
    communities, and we certainly need to do everything we can to
    stop them from entering in the country. In February of this
    year I led my colleagues in requesting additional funding for
    nonintrusive inspection (NII) systems that will improve CBP
    officers' ability to interdict these illegal drugs.
        Chief Huffman, could you please discuss for the Committee
    the impact of nonintrusive inspection systems on CBP's rate of
    narcotics interdictions?
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you for that question, Senator, and I
    would be happy to discuss that a little bit. As you know, as
    you mentioned, fentanyl is a key threat to our nation right
    now, and we are seeing a lot of it, and the amount we are
    seeing seems to increase every year. Most of the fentanyl now
    is coming across the Southern Border, being encountered at the
    ports of entry, primarily in San Diego and Otay Mesa, two main
    areas where we are seeing most of the fentanyl coming across.
        One of the main tools we used to use, in Canada, is the NI
    equipment that we are grateful to have. It helps us to be very
    successful in identifying that stuff, because fentanyl is a
    unique narcotic as opposed to big bundles of marijuana. It can
    be easily stored.
        What we have seen recently, though, is we have seen an
    increasing number of packages caught but it is smaller
    quantities, indicating they are adjusting their tactics as
    well, maybe trying to beat our NI capabilities, smaller packets
    but more cross increases their chances to get across.
        But currently CBP is utilizing over 350 large-scale and
    over 4,500 small-scale nonintrusive inspection systems across
    the Southwest Border to inspect cargo containers, commercial
    trucks, rail cars, privately owned vehicles. We use those not
    just at the ports of entry but at some of our interior
    checkpoints as well.
        By fiscal year 2023, CBP expects to increase the NI scans
    to these vehicles by up to 40 percent more with the equipment
    we have coming. So as we are able to increase the scans we
    obviously see an increase in encounters of narcotics, but also
    the more we increase, the better we are able to deter future
    actions.
        It is a very important tool, we are very appreciative we
    have that, and we will continue to use that greatly across all
    of our borders.
        Chairman Peters. So given it is an effective tool, and you
    would like to spread it, how many additional nonintrusive
    inspection systems do you think are needed to fully equip all
    of our nation's ports of entry?
        Mr. Huffman. I am not sure of the right number, that I have
    that with me, Senator, but I would be glad to get that back to
    you if I consult more with my OFO colleagues to get you the
    exact number.
        Chairman Peters. We would like that so I would appreciate
    that.
        Another question for you, sir. What efforts is CBP
    undertaking to ensure that the information gathered related to
    drug smuggling is shared among our partner agencies in order to
    better combat the transnational criminal organizations that are
    operating these operations?
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that question as
    well. Our ability to share information with our partners in
    this is key in order to be successful. We participate
    extensively in different task forces, and we partner with
    different agencies at the Federal level, State level, and local
    level, depending on what we are doing. We work closely with ICE
    and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) on cases
    collaboratively. The information that we gather of our
    encounters is shared with them all the time. We never cease to
    do that. The same with the Drug Enforcement Administration
    (DEA). We facilitate the information across the whole range,
    whether it is on our Southern Border, Northern Border,
    interior. We participate in a number of joint operations with
    our State and locals and also our Stonegarden partners, and we
    share that information across in different meetings and things
    that we have in order to assure that we do that.
        I think our ability to work together with all of our
    partner and all of the agencies makes us a better place, a
    better organization, and much more effective, and we continue
    to do that on a regular basis. I have been doing this for many
    years, and we participate at all levels, at all times, and it
    is just invaluable to be able to share that information with
    those partners.
        Chairman Peters. I appreciate that. Thank you.
        Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for questions.
        Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
    witnesses for their patience with us today. There is just so
    much to go over.
        Let me just quickly about what I think we have learned
    today. One is a deep concern expressed by just about every
    member of this panel, Democrat and Republican, about the lack
    of a plan in place to properly address the surge of migrants
    who will certainly be coming over the border when Title 42
    ends. That is, I think, a consensus point.
        Second, an acknowledgment that the asylum process is
    totally broken and it acts as a magnet to draw people to the
    border and over the border. Here are the numbers. Secretary
    Mayorkas tells us the average asylum case processing time is
    six to eight years. We heard today it is five to six years, but
    that is not what your boss says. But let us say it is five to
    six years. It is a long time when people are in the community,
    living in the community, working, kids going to school, having
    children, becoming part of the community.
        There is a 1.6-million-person backlog now on asylum claims
    being considered by the courts; 1.2 million people have gone
    through the process and received a final order of removal,
    meaning they should be deported because they were not
    successful in their asylum claim. Yet the Administration has
    reduced the number of people being deported. It is now 56,000 a
    year. That is about four percent. In the Obama-Biden years it
    was 350,000 a year.
        Incidentally, under law, Section 235 of the Immigration and
    Nationality Act (INA), there is a requirement of detention of
    unlawful migrants seeking asylum, crossing our border without
    authorization, and yet, of course, we do not have the capacity
    to do that. This Administration has reduced the number of ICE
    beds. We are now at 24,000 beds, much of which are already
    full.
        So that is where we are, and that is why it is true, I
    think, that there is a consensus here on this panel that this
    is broken and we have to fix it.
        On the illegal narcotics coming over, Agent, I appreciate
    the work your folks do. I was at Mariposa, the port of entry in
    Nogales earlier this year, and I saw the desperate need for
    more of these scanning devices you talked about to try to stop
    the fentanyl. The fentanyl is streaming into our communities.
    It is coming in at such high volumes now that it is reducing
    the price, because of supply and demand. A huge supply, very
    inexpensive, and it is causing more deaths as a result.
        I am a big fan of looking at the demand side. I have asked
    legislation, and it is working now, on treatment and recovery
    and prevention. But it is possible to deal with this flood and
    not have many more people dying of overdoses. We are at record
    levels right now.
        Here are the numbers that we have. Only two percent of
    passenger vehicles are being scanned. Only 17 percent of
    commercial vehicles are being scanned. That is it. Yet that is
    where 90 percent of the seizures attributed to nonintrusive
    inspections are resulting from. This is where we are finding
    most of these narcotics. It is a huge increase in March, a huge
    increase from the previous March, a 300 percent increase from
    the previous March. It is levels we have never seen before. And
    yet think of all those cars and trucks that we are not
    scanning.
        The question, Agent Huffman, is how can we do better? There
    is a plan to increase that by the end of next year, and yet I
    look at the President's budget this year and there is zero in
    the budget for new scanning machines.
        I guess my question for you is, are we on track at least to
    reach this number of 40 percent of passenger vehicles, instead
    of two percent, and 70 percent of commercial vehicles instead
    of 17 percent by the end of next year?
        Mr. Huffman. Yes, sir, we are on track by the end of fiscal
    year 2023 to increase the scans to scan 40 percent of the
    vehicles and 72 percent of the commercial vehicles,
    respectively. As you know, we would certainly like to do more,
    and as we increase our ability to do so we will do that.
    Obviously, we would like to look at every single thing that
    comes into the country if we have the ability to do that,
    because it is important to do that. There is no question that
    fentanyl is a significant threat to us.
        Senator Portman. We provided the funding for you back in
    2019 to get to that number of 40 percent, at least, of cars, 70
    percent of trucks, and we should provide more. But again, in
    the budget there is nothing.
        Unaccompanied kids, Senator Ossoff talked about this. Kids
    have been mistreated in the past, as we know. There are lots of
    stories about it, unfortunately. I got involved in this because
    of a bunch of kids from Guatemala, six of them, were brought up
    by their trafficker, went into HHS custody, and then HHS gave
    them to sponsors. Those sponsors were the traffickers, the very
    traffickers who had treated them so poorly coming up from the
    border, lied to their parents, and they took them to an egg
    farm in Ohio where six kids, as young as 14, lived in
    deplorable situations, underpaid, working six, seven days a
    week, not in school, and luckily a local authority found it.
        This is one thing that got the interest of the Permanent
    Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) with this Committee.
    Senator Carper and I did an intensive investigation. We
    published three reports about it, and basically about the
    failure of the Federal agencies to be responsible for the care
    of our unaccompanied kids.
        Ms. Contreras, I do not have time to get into this in the
    detail I would like to, but as you know we have done a lot of
    work in this area. We think it is totally unacceptable for the
    U.S. Government to release unaccompanied kids, who are, by
    definition, much more vulnerable to trafficking, to unrelated
    sponsors and not to do more follow-up.
        Right now we are told that there is no follow-up after
    three phone calls and that we do not know where 19,000
    unaccompanied kids are. We cannot determine their safety and
    well-being. Is that correct?
        Ms. Contreras. Senator, thank you for that question and
    thank you for your leadership on making sure that we keep our
    duty to children, and that includes post-release.
        What I would like to share is that the work that has been
    done to strengthen the post-release work, some of which you
    referred to which are well-being follow-up calls, there are
    home visits in place now if there are concerns raised. The
    background checks and vetting that happens for sponsors is
    designed specifically to avoid the kinds of problems that have
    happened.
        We take the safety of kids very seriously. It is the No. 1
    priority, and we keep building on what our duties are, how do
    we carry out those duties to buildup that post-release support
    as well, to make sure that they are in safe hands.
        Senator Portman. There is a continuing issue, as you know,
    as to who has responsibility, and my hope is that HHS, under
    your leadership, takes additional responsibility for these
    kids. Someone has to be responsible for their care.
        Let me ask you a very specific question, as my final
    question, Mr. Chairman. HHS has cooperated with some of our
    requests for information. We continue to do oversight on this
    issue, as you know, but we have yet to receive documents that
    we have requested, and these were requested in January in a
    letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
        Can you commit to ensuring that HHS sends the remaining
    documents by the end of next week?
        Ms. Contreras. Senator, you do have my commitment that we
    will go back and get the attention of who I need to, to figure
    out what it is that we owe you and how we can make sure that we
    follow up as promptly as we can.
        Senator Portman. I will tell you what it is. It is very
    simple. It is the number of sponsors out there, the number of
    sponsors who have been denied. It is information that you would
    have, and it is not information that is difficult, I would not
    think, to find, and very necessary for us to do the proper
    oversight. I really would appreciate you getting those to us by
    next week so that we can continue our oversight work.
        Again, to each of you thank you for your service and
    particularly to those of you representing people on the border
    itself, you have an impossible task. Thank you for what you do
    every day. The American people are asking a lot of you, and I
    know it is very stressful, and I know there has been difficulty
    in retention and recruitment. We need to do everything we can
    to hold, Agent, your people up right now, because it is hard
    already and it is about to get a whole lot harder, and we owe
    them not better policy in the Administration but better
    legislating, and we will continue to work on that.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Portman.
        Senator Sinema, you are recognized for your questions.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to echo
    what Senator Portman just said about the respect for the men
    and women who serve in blue and green on the front lines of our
    border. I think that we can safely say it is a bipartisan
    agreement that we admire and strongly support their efforts. I
    want to pass along my thanks as well, particularly to those who
    are serving throughout Southern Arizona.
        Chief Huffman, robust migrant processing at ports of entry
    is a key part of the DHS plan for the Southern Border. However,
    Arizona's ports of entry were not designed to manage large-
    scale asylum processing. This has the potential to create a
    volatile situation that is unsafe for our CBP officers and our
    migrants when bottlenecks occur and frustration rises.
        While the funding I secured for ports of entry
    modernization, with my colleague, Senator Portman, in the
    Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, will be very helpful
    in the long term, these modernization projects are still years
    from completion.
        What capacity requirements for infrastructure,
    transportation, and related staffing will be in place for
    Arizona ports to prevent overcrowding and disruptions to trade
    and travel? How many individuals will CBP have capacity to
    process in Arizona on a daily basis, and on what date will all
    those deployments be complete?
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you for your question, and again, thank
    you for your support for the men and women on the front line of
    CBP. As was mentioned, they are facing an enormous challenge,
    and it is going to get tougher.
        As far as Arizona specifically, I do not have specific
    numbers with me but I can get those numbers to you to exactly
    what is in place, unless you have them.
        Ms. Tierney. I do not, Chief.
        Mr. Huffman. OK. I will get those to you, what they are.
    But I do know that there are concerns about the volume at all
    of our ports of entry. Arizona's, in particular, you asked for.
    The safety and security of our folks are top and in front of
    our minds at all times.
        At each port they will take appropriate steps, if they need
    to, including temporary halting processing if they have to.
    They will reorder the lines. They have our Mobile Field Force
    teams trained up and ready to go in case it does get to be a
    volatile situation, to help control crowds. If necessary, if
    they have to, they may even close down lanes or close down the
    ports until they can regain order. Those are the standard steps
    we have taken historically in the past when we have had
    challenge at our ports of entry, and they are well-versed in
    understanding how to do those and execute those if we get to
    those cases.
        We are, as mentioned, detailing people to those areas. We
    are building up the capacity to process throughputs. Arizona,
    as you know, is kind of a unique challenge. They do not have
    the same NGO support for follow-on afterwards that you do in
    other areas, so as Ms. Tierney mentioned earlier, we are
    addressing those as well to try to move through those things.
        I know you mentioned earlier about the other States, and
    although you were concerned about them that was not top on your
    list. But those are key, as she mentioned, about having the
    system that allows us to decompress laterally and move those
    people. When those people are processing through they would be
    released in some area besides in the Arizona area, in the Yuma
    area.
        All those things have been taken into consideration as we
    try to work specifically on these difficult areas. The Yuma
    sector, the Border Patrol is one of the most challenging ones
    to deal with. It is the one that is always the first one to be
    over capacity because the infrastructure is so small there,
    when we start getting traffic flows in there. That is the No. 1
    focus that we are working on, trying to continue to find ways
    to decompress that, move people out of there, and minimize the
    impact as much as possible on the local community.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. Mr. Nunez-Neto, I am pleased to
    hear that DHS has based part of their plan on the Regional
    Processing Plan's model that I proposed with Senator Cornyn in
    our Bipartisan Border Solutions Act. I know Senator Portman
    spoke about that earlier. These enhanced, centralized
    processing centers will co-locate DHS components, nonprofits,
    and other relevant entities to help reduce systemic
    inefficiencies.
        I understand the pilot location became operational on April
    29th, in Laredo, Texas, and that this pilot will be used to
    work out the logistics for future centers. What factors are
    being used to determine future locations for these processing
    centers, and how long do you anticipate it will take to
    operationalize additional centers?
        Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you for that question, Senator. This
    is something I think we are all very excited about, bringing
    innovation to the process at the border. I think these Enhanced
    Central Processing Centers have a lot of potential to allow us
    to better triage the flow and focus, consequences on higher-
    risk individuals but then for low-risk individuals who are
    going to be referred into immigration proceedings and released
    have facilities that allow us to co-locate with ICE, with
    potentially HHS, and with NGO's in order to have kind of a much
    more seamless handoff at every stage of the process, within the
    same facility.
        I think what we are looking to see, really, is whether we
    realize those gains in terms of the handoffs between each stop
    of the process and the time in custody they are spending
    actually being held in CBP custody. We are also hoping that
    this process will allow us to, by minimizing the law
    enforcement footprint in the facility have more of our law
    enforcement officers on the line, doing their primary law
    enforcement function rather than doing processing. A big part
    of that effort is going to be looking at ways to contract out
    the processing support.
        I believe that there is an expansion plan in place. I do
    not know, Chief Huffman, if you know the next locations. If
    not, we will get back to you.
        Mr. Huffman. I do not have the exact next locations now but
    the thing is, when you stand these up you have the ability,
    when you see how traffic flows you want to try to anticipate
    where you are going to need them the most. We can make some
    estimates of where we need them the most, but I think as we see
    the traffic flows we want to be as nimble as we can to be
    there, to the right spot.
        Senator Sinema. Thank you. We intend to follow up on that.
    We want to hear follow-up information, and in particular,
    whether or not Arizona can expect to get an Enhanced
    Centralized Processing Center. We will want to hear more about
    that and, of course, when we can expect it to be fully
    operational.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Sinema.
        I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of our
    witnesses. Thank you for joining us today. I think I speak for
    all Members of the Committee. We want to thank you for your
    commitment to addressing both the humanitarian and security
    challenges that we face on our Southern Border.
        I certainly appreciate the very thorough discussion that we
    had today about the Administration's efforts to secure our
    Southern Border, preparations in advance of the termination of
    Title 42 public health order, and certainly the expected
    challenges that we are likely to face in managing migration
    changes that will occur when this order is repealed.
        These challenges are certainly not unique to this
    Administration. We have seen surges in the number of migrants
    for the past decade, under both Republican as well as
    Democratic administrations. I think from hearing testimony here
    today it is clear that until Congress and the Administration
    enact some common-sense, bipartisan solutions to fix our
    immigration systems these circumstances are going to continue
    to prevail.
        There are certainly many issues where we disagree. We heard
    some of those here today. But I think there have been some
    areas of agreement, as well, that we should rally around--
    increasing consequences for illegal entry, addressing the root
    causes of migration, increasing regional cooperation on these
    issues, and the need for bipartisan reform passed by Congress.
        I look forward to working with my colleagues in the
    Administration on some of these common-sense efforts. We will
    be working diligent and hopefully can accomplish what we need
    to accomplish.
        The hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until May
    20th at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and questions
    for the record.
        This hearing is now adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 1:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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