[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HELP WANTED: LAW ENFORCEMENT STAFFING
CHALLENGES AT THE BORDER
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 6, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-39
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-573 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
________________________________________________________________________________
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Kaity Wolfe, Senior Professional Staff Member
Grayson Westmoreland, Senior Professional Staff Member
Sloan McDonagh, Counsel
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin, Chairman
Paul Gosar, Arizona Robert Garcia, California, Ranking
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Minority Member
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Pete Sessions, Texas Dan Goldman, New York
Andy Biggs, Arizona Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Maxwell Frost, Florida
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 6, 2023..................................... 1
Witnesses
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The Honorable Joseph Cuffari, Inspector General, Department of
Homeland Security
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Written opening statements and the statement for the witness are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Statement for the Record, for Rep. Connolly; submitted by
Rep. Connolly.
* Letter, to Chairman Grothman and Rep. Garcia, re: Project on
Government Oversight, June 6, 2023; submitted by Rep. Garcia.
* Email, between Inspector General Cuffari and IG office, re:
the importance of Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey scores;
submitted by Rep. Frost.
* Article, Politico, ``DHS has a Program Gathering Domestic
Intelligence and Virtually No One Knows About It''; submitted
by Rep. Porter.
* Statement for the Record, Project on Government Oversight
(POGO); submitted by Rep. Garcia.
* Letter, from POGO to President Biden, re IG Cuffari;
submitted by Rep. Lynch.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Cuffari; submitted by Rep.
Garcia.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Cuffari; submitted by Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Cuffari; submitted by
Grothman.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
HELP WANTED: LAW ENFORCEMENT STAFFING CHALLENGES AT THE BORDER:
----------
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Glenn Grothman
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Grothman, Comer, Gosar, Higgins,
Sessions, Biggs, Mace, LaTurner, Armstrong, Perry, Garcia,
Raskin, Lynch, Goldman, Moskowitz, Porter, and Frost.
Also present: Representative Ivey.
Mr. Grothman. The Subcommittee on National Security, the
Border, and Foreign Affairs will come to order. Everyone,
welcome.
Without objection, Representative Connolly of Virginia and
Representative Ivey of Maryland are waived on to the
Subcommittee for the purpose of questioning the witness of
today's hearing.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
On day one of his Administration, President Biden signaled
to the world through words and actions that our borders are
open, and so they were. Our country has since watched the
crisis along our Southwest border devolve into a catastrophe, a
humanitarian and national security catastrophe. The
deteriorating conditions along the Southwest border and
mismanagement of resources have harmed law enforcement and made
existing staffing challenges even worse.
Just last month, the Department of Homeland Security Office
of the Inspector General issued a report examining how law
enforcement and Customs and Border Protection and Immigration
and Customs Enforcement have been negatively impacted by
historically high levels of illegal immigration and other
operational challenges. Per this audit, the DHS Office of
Inspector General surveyed over 9,000 DHS law enforcement
personnel within ICE and CBP. They collected information from
Border Patrol agents who protect our border from illegal
entries, Office of Field Operation officers who guard our
points of entry, Enforcement and Removal Operation officers who
enforce immigration laws, and Homeland Security Investigation
agents who investigate cross-border criminal activity.
What they found is shocking. Eighty-eight percent of ICE
and CBP law enforcement personnel who responded said their work
location was not adequately prepared and staffed during migrant
surges. Seventy-one percent of CBP personnel and 61 percent of
ICE personnel stated that their current work location was not
adequately prepared and staffed even during normal operations,
but there is nothing normal about the current border
catastrophe.
As noted in the IG's report, migrant encounters at the
Southwest border have risen from approximately a little under a
million in Fiscal Year 2019 to 2.5 million in 2022. This Fiscal
Year through the end of April, CBP has already made 1.4 million
encounters along the Southwest border with 1.2 million of those
coming from Border Patrol agent apprehensions of illegal border
crossers. Each of these encounters represents law enforcement
resources expended in arresting and processing those
individuals, and those resources are being used up at the
expense of enforcement.
The Inspector General's report highlights a 300 percent
increase in the number of known got-aways, meaning migrants who
invade apprehension entirely, in Fiscal Year 2022 compared
2019. Last year there were more than 600,000 known got-aways
recorded by CBP. In one Border Patrol station reviewed by the
Inspector General's audit, 15 percent of the got-aways over a
five-day period evaded apprehension simply because no agents
were available to respond. Think about that. I mean, people are
showing up at the Southern border, even though we know they are
there. We do not have anybody who can show up and process these
people. These challenges have left the men and women on the
front lines of this crisis overwhelmed and stretched to their
limits.
To meet mission requirements, DHS implemented stopgap
measures, like increased overtime and temporary details, that
exacerbate staffing challenges in the long term by eroding
morale and jeopardizing retention of experienced law
enforcement professionals. Today, we hear from Inspector
General Cuffari on his office's findings about the reality of
the problem, how DHS is managing these staffing challenges, and
recommendations to solve the staffing crisis.
Since 2016, DHS Office of Inspector General and the
Government Accountability Office have issued 25 reports
examining staffing issues at our border, but 80 percent of the
recommendations have been closed without yielding tangible
results at DHS. In fact, DHS did not concur with one of the
three recommendations in this report, appearing not even to be
willing to acknowledge the impact of temporary details and
overtime on the workforce. We must hold DHS accountable to
achieve critical mission goals, including ensuring border
security, enforcement of our immigration laws, and facilitating
lawful trade and travel, and that means DHS must successfully
manage law enforcement resources and support the men and women
who carry out these essential functions.
I want to thank Inspector General Cuffari for appearing
today, and I look forward to working with his office to ensure
continued robust investigation of DHS. I will tell you, I have
been at the border several times. Last time I was down there
two months ago, it was shocking the degree to which we did not
have enough people to deal with particularly would-be got-aways
coming across the border, and that is why we have this drug
crisis in our country. But in any event, I would like to
recognize the Ranking Member Garcia for the purpose of making
his opening statement.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want
to thank you for convening this important hearing. I want to
just start by just noting that I hope that we can all commend
the Biden-Harris Administration for their actions to prevent a
serious disorder at the border following the expiration of
Title 42, which I believe was the right decision. As a proud
immigrant myself and a patriotic American, we certainly have to
focus on a humane and secure border but also have legal
pathways to let people continue to come to this country and be
part of our experience. We know that immigrants make our
country stronger and we are a Nation of immigrants.
Congressional Democrats and President Biden have taken
clear actions to improve border security. We have provided
unprecedented resources to the men and women who protect our
borders, and President Biden has implemented numerous policies
to bolster the health and wellbeing of border security. Now,
House Republicans, on the other hand, have opposed greater
funding to frontline agencies, including Customs and Border
Protection, and House Republicans have called to defund our
Federal law enforcement agencies, claiming oftentimes and
weaponizing them to further political agendas. Now, Democrats
know we have a responsibility to support the wellbeing of all
Federal employees and, as Mayor of Long Beach, California, I
worked closely with all of our employees and was proud to have
the support of our local police department.
Today, I am glad we are addressing concerns of Federal law
enforcement agencies. The work that they do is very important,
but I believe we have a responsibility to support all Federal
employees who serve our country, and that is everything from
DHS to the U.S. Postal Service. However, today I am very
concerned that we are holding a hearing today on the basis of a
flawed report and with a witness with a problematic record.
Now, Mr. Cuffari is a witness who repeatedly refused to
comply with this Committee's requests for meetings and
information, and he has sought to block congressional oversight
at every turn. And it is actually ironic that we are dealing
with a politicized and problematic report given his own
Department's staff morale challenges. Now, on September 23,
2022, a letter was published that was drafted, ``By concerned
DHS OIG employees representing every program office at every
grade level.'' The letter claimed that Inspector General
Cuffari ``no longer has the support of his workforce,'' and
that staff fear retaliation if they speak up about the
multitude of issues at the office. Staff made the startling
claim that DHS OIG ``will continue to fail under the IG's
disastrous leadership.''
Now, the concerns about this witness go on and on, from his
resigning under ethical concerns early in his career,
allegations of deliberately delaying essential oversight
reports, and alerting and covering up critical investigatory
facts. Now, we all know that the Inspector General is currently
under investigation by the Council of the Inspector General on
Integrity and Efficiency, CIGIE. Now, rather than cooperate
with legitimate oversight efforts, the Inspector General has
filed a lawsuit against CIGIE in a desperate attempt to escape
scrutiny or consequences for failures and transgressions. Now,
it is unacceptable that the individual entrusted to investigate
fraud, waste, and abuse in our third largest executive
department believes that he is above the law, believes that his
office is above scrutiny from Congress, and believes that he is
beyond reproach for his own potential perpetration of fraud,
waste, and abuse.
Now, under Inspector General Cuffari's leadership,
Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General has
developed a pattern of flawed and misleading investigations,
including a failure to report sexual misconduct and harassment
at DHS and a failure to investigate and disclose to Congress
missing Secret Service text messages from the January 6
interaction.
I would also like to briefly address the report on which
this hearing is based, a report that is misleading, non-
representative of the broader Agency, and deeply flawed. The
DHS Office of Inspector General claimed that the purpose of
their work was to gain insight into staffing. Instead, the
report made sweeping generalizations about morale at CBP and
ICE. The report has mathematical errors and misleading tables
and graphs. DHS OIG even states that their work was conducted
in accordance with ``generally accepted government auditing
standards, with the exception of data reliability.'' And I do
not know about all of you, but with the exception of data
reliability seems like a pretty big exception to me.
Now, we need an IG in place at DHS who is able to perform
high-quality audit work with integrity, objectivity, and
independence, or we will never have the accountability and
transparency that we need and that we deserve from this agency.
We should expect better. I look forward to this hearing only
for the opportunity for our Members to raise longstanding
concerns. We have serious challenges to address at our borders,
and I look forward to building solutions to address them. Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. I am pleased to introduce our witness today.
Joseph Cuffari was confirmed by the Senate to be the Department
of Homeland Security's Inspector General in July 2019. He was
previously a policy adviser to the Governor of Arizona, served
in the U.S. Air Force, and spent 20 years at the Department of
Justice. In 2013, he retired from his position as Assistant
Special Agent in Charge for the Office of Inspector General in
Tucson, Arizona. I want to thank Dr. Cuffari for being here
today, and I look forward to his testimony. I was down in
Tucson sector for, I think, the third time in the last four
years, and I will tell you, I am glad you are in that position
and look forward to hearing from you and your testimony.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witness will please
stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Mr. Cuffari. I do.
Mr. Grothman. Let the record show the witness answered in
the affirmative.
We appreciate you being here today and look forward to your
testimony. Let me remind you that we have read your written
statement, and it will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please, if you can, limit your oral statement to five minutes.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you.
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn
green. After four minutes the light will turn yellow, and when
the red light comes on, your five minutes have expired.
I recognize you to please begin your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH CUFFARI
INSPECTOR GENERAL
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Cuffari. Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member Garcia, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss Homeland Security IG's critical
oversight of DHS.
Prior to my unanimous confirmation in 2019, I served more
than 20 years with the Department of Justice IG and various
offices along the Southwest border. For 10 of those years,
until the establishment of DHS in 2003, DOJ IG oversaw the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and its component, the
U.S. Border Patrol. I personally observed three special Border
Patrol operations in which INS detailed agents to the Southwest
border, and I investigated financial irregularities related to
one of those operations.
As I promised Congress during my confirmation process, as
Homeland Security IG, I prioritized oversight of border
security and immigration. My first visit to the Southwest
border was within two months of my confirmation, and since
then, I have personally traveled to the Southwest border nine
times to review DHS operations and border conditions. These
trips have encompassed all nine Border Patrol sectors from San
Diego, California, to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. In
addition, my senior staff or I have visited the Northern
borders of Washington, Michigan, New York, Vermont, and
Florida's maritime border. During my visits, I have engaged
with senior law enforcement and frontline personnel to better
understand how DHS can enhance border security and fight
corruption. I have also received situational briefings from
NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, U.S. Army North regarding active and
reserve components assisting at the Southwest border.
My testimony today will focus on CBP and ICE's management
of resources as discussed in our recently published audit about
the health and morale of CBP and ICE. We conducted this audit
to determine the extent to which DHS is effectively managing
law enforcement staffing resources. Our audit work included
analysis of attrition rates, succession plans, and physical
observations of 31 facilities. We also interviewed and surveyed
law enforcement personnel. We determined CBP and ICE's current
approach to staffing is neither effective nor viable long-term.
Despite greater workload, staffing levels of both agencies
have remained relatively flat since 2019. CBP and ICE have
relied on the use of temporary duty assignments, overtime shift
work to surge staffing along the Southwest border, a practice
that dates back to at least 1994 with the creation of the INS'
national border strategy. Although CBP and ICE annually
assessed their staffing needs, neither Agency has assessed the
impact of these details on their operations.
CBP and ICE have initiated programs focused on the
wellbeing of their agents and officers. Both components could
benefit from a more strategic approach to resource allocation.
We heard from more than 9,000 law enforcement personnel. That
represents 16 percent of the 57,000 who we surveyed. Our
analysis of the survey comments indicated that many recipients
felt the current staffing has negatively impacted their health
and morale. CBP and ICE cannot continue to use temporary duty
assignments and overtime shift work effectively to meet the
challenges at the Southwest border. We made three
recommendations to help DHS strategically assess the issues we
identified. DHS concurred with two of these recommendations and
did not concur with one.
In total, during my tenure, we published 51 reports and
made 145 recommendations specifically aimed at improving DHS
Southwest border ops. I am very proud of the quality and
quantity of the work by more than 700 professional career DHS
employees have produced under my leadership. As I have reported
since the fall of 2021, DHS continues to delay and deny OIG
access to information that DHS is required to provide to us and
that we need to do our jobs. I remain hopeful DHS will improve
their responsiveness to our request for information so that we
can continue to provide Congress and the public robust timely
oversight like that being featured in today's hearing.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. I look
forward to the Subcommittee's questions.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Right on the button. I will give
you a few questions.
Law enforcement staffing at the Southwest border is facing
a systemic crisis, one that the Department of Homeland Security
does not have a coherent plan to address. Why did you decide to
initiate this report, and what are some of the biggest
challenges our law enforcement agents and officers face at the
Southwest border that your report found?
Mr. Cuffari. Mr. Chairman, thank you. So, starting in
around March 2021 when it became safe to travel post-COVID, I
began to visit the Southwest border again. I began to hear from
line law enforcement personnel and senior staff that there were
morale issues impacting the workforce. And those issues related
to the deployment of Border Patrol primarily from the Northern
tier offices to the Southwest border. I asked my staff to
conduct a review, and they did so within a year and a half, and
they completed the report in May of this year.
Mr. Grothman. What were some of the mental and physical
consequences of the current work conditions that DHS' law
enforcement officers reported?
Mr. Cuffari. According to the law enforcement personnel,
who actually have been doing these details, the constant flux
of being transferred to the Southwest border from the home
station for 30 to 60 days provides a lot of turmoil to the
agents and their families. In some cases, they do not know
where on the Southwest border they are going to be detailed
and/or for how long they are going to be there. Once they
complete their initial assignment, they return back to their
home station where they are back working where they were
originally assigned. And then 30 to 60 days later, they get
notified again that they are going back to the Southwest
border, so it is a constant churn. It is the unknown effects,
and, according to the respondents, they have developed an
inability to continue to do what they consider to be their
primary law enforcement function.
Mr. Grothman. One of the issues addressed in your report is
temporary detailing, which is the practice of temporarily
assigning agents and officers to different locations for a
period of time before returning to their permanent duty
station. Many Border Patrol agencies and Office of Field
Operation officers can be detailed from their duty locations to
assist with custody and processing of migrants. One Border
Patrol agent said in your report that agents were providing
clothing, diapers, formula, and other domestic services, noting
that the job feels more like social worker duties rather than
law enforcement. How can DHS improve their detailing practices
to make sure the detailees are actually performing jobs within
their job description?
Mr. Cuffari. It is a function of the first recommendation
that we made to DHS, what they did not concur with, which was
to hire an outside national academy to take a look and develop
a strategic staffing model so that DHS would be best able to
use the resources they have to the most effective benefit of
the organization.
Mr. Grothman. Does the practice of temporary details leave
home duty stations vulnerable or understaffed?
Mr. Cuffari. According to the agents who responded, yes,
there is a gap when you pull resources from one area to
another.
Mr. Grothman. No question. Anybody who is down at the
border knows that. What are the current staffing levels at ICE
and Customs and Border Patrol compared to their authorized
levels?
Mr. Cuffari. I do not know the exact number, Chairman. I
would have to get that number to you.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Mr. Grothman. How many Border Patrol agents and Office of
Field Operation officers do we need to address the issues we
are dealing with today?
Mr. Cuffari. That is a matter for the Department to decide
based on the recommendation, No. 1, that we made to have an
outside entity take a look at their organization to have a
strategic staffing model.
Mr. Grothman. I ask you, in a two-year period we went from
about 20,000 people coming across the Southern border to about
220,000 per month. Isn't that kind of part of the big problem,
that they have not adjusted the number of agents for the huge
number of people who are coming over here?
Mr. Cuffari. There certainly has been a significant influx
of migrants coming in the Southwest border. The staffing levels
for ICE and CBP, although I do not know the actual numbers,
have remained relatively flat. So as the----
Mr. Grothman. OK. How does the turnover rate within DHS'
law enforcement agencies compare with other government
agencies?
Mr. Cuffari. Their turnover rate, from what I recall from
our report, is consistent with that of other agencies in the
Federal Government.
Mr. Grothman. OK. OK. Very good. We will now call on Mr.
Garcia for five minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cuffari, I want to
look at the report you recently published about Customs and
Border Patrol morale among people working at the Southern
border. Now, an examination of your report shows that it is
exceptionally flawed, and I am stunned that you and your team
released this report. It does not meet the standards required
of inspectors general or, quite frankly, data collection of any
kind.
[Chart]
Mr. Garcia. Now, as you can see on this poster behind me,
one of the first points highlighted in the report is that it is
based on ``a non-statistical survey.'' I am going to read that
again, ``a non-statistical survey.'' You might as well at this
point be doing a Twitter poll, which is the same exact thing as
a non-statistical survey. I want to also, again, quote from the
report, ``It cannot be projected to the entire population of
CBP and ICE law enforcement officers and agents.'' Again, a
non-statistical survey.
Now, in fact, on the same page as this paragraph, you
explained that only 16 percent of border law enforcement
personnel actually responded to the survey that the report is
based on. And so, we have 16 percent respondents, of which was
non-statistical of those that are in the Department, and so
this is really flawed just from the go. And I just want to make
sure that we highlight that as very important as far as this
Committee is worth.
Now, throughout the report, then you begin to cherry pick
responses from individual law enforcement officers to bolster
your conclusions. Now, last week, our Committee staff had the
chance to sit and have actually interviews with Border Patrol
sector chiefs. A Border Patrol agent, Joel Martinez, who is the
Chief Patrol Agent of Laredo Sector, said it best, and I want
to quote him: ``If you speak to 20 different agents, you will
get 20 different opinions. Some guys are out there just loving
their job.'' Now, it should be pretty obvious to anyone that
there is a diverse set of opinions in any organization, and if
you do not actually conduct statistical analysis, you are not
actually going to get a real report.
Now, Mr. IG, did you interview chief patrol agents at CBP
for this report?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes, we did.
Mr. Garcia. I do not believe you did actually, sir, and if
you did, it is not clear in this report. But the most egregious
flaw in this report is your office's failure to even test the
reliability of the data. Now, as you can also see here, you
explain that you conducted your audit, ``according to generally
accepted government auditing standards, with the exception of
data reliability.'' I am going to read that one more time,
``according to generally accepted government auditing
standards, with the exception of data reliability.'' Now, do
you agree that you need reliable data to do an audit?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe we need reliable data. We asked for
that reliable data from the Department. They were unable to
provide it to us.
Mr. Garcia. OK. So, the answer is, yes, I think we need
reliable data to do an audit, and yet the data reliability of
this report cannot be verified, and you actually say this in
the report. So, in other words, we simply do not know if the
data you relied upon is sufficient to support any of the
findings of this report. So, essentially, this report is not
verified and should not be acceptable to anyone to make any
sort of conclusions.
Now, I know, sir, that the President that appointed you to
this position also had a problem with facts and data, and so
this is not a surprise, but I want to go back to actually the
report itself. The title of the report, for instance, makes no
mention of staffing issues at CBP and ICE, which you allege
were the entire purpose of this work. And the attrition data in
the report is full of basic math errors, so there are errors of
basic math all throughout the report. The data is not reliable,
and a small subsection of folks were actually interviewed. Now,
I think we can all agree that safely establishing humane
immigration policies, and at the border, we know are
challenging tasks for Congress in every administration, but
flawed reports like this only make those tasks harder. Now,
this report is a disservice to our law enforcement personnel,
and instead of working to actually identify and solve issues
affecting morale, our attention now is forced to correct
mistakes and correct a report that is deeply flawed. Mr.
Chairman, with that, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Gosar?
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for
being here, Inspector. Now, in 2021, the Department of Health
and Human Services took over $2 billion designated for other
purposes, such as replenishing medical supplies and coronavirus
testing, and moved it to house and care for illegal alien
children. The executive took advantage of the recently
terminated COVID-19 National Emergency to spend money on
programs unrelated to COVID-19. Are you concerned that the
Department of Homeland Security may be using National Emergency
Act money to redirect spending, contrary to Congress'
intention?
Mr. Cuffari. Sir, I think you mentioned Health and Human
Services, apparently.
Mr. Gosar. Yes.
Mr. Cuffari. And in the Department of Homeland Security, it
is primarily FEMA who is responsible for the disbursement of
COVID-related funding. So, we have a number of audits, and, in
fact, we have created a special COVID Fraud Unit to investigate
criminal fraud related to pandemic relief money.
Mr. Gosar. So, has Department of Homeland Security been
forthcoming to you on how they are spending taxpayer money?
Mr. Cuffari. Based on the questions we have asked, we have
been provided with information, and we are evaluating that
information.
Mr. Gosar. Can you tell me the most egregious example of
wasteful spending by DHS that you have uncovered?
Mr. Cuffari. There is a whole host of audits that we have
completed, and I do not have one off the top of my head to give
you at the moment.
Mr. Gosar. Were contracts done appropriately?
Mr. Cuffari. There have been a number of audits that we
have conducted to look at ICE's--I am sorry--DHS' unsolicited,
no-bid, sole-source contracting. We published a report about
that last year. And we have also identified, in one instance,
where an unsolicited contract was awarded to a company to
provide housing, and that company also received an award from
Health and Human Services.
Mr. Gosar. By the way, at the very beginning, I talked
about the status of children. What are the status of some of
these children? How many have we lost?
Mr. Cuffari. DHS' responsibility is to care and feed for
the children who are in their custody during the term that they
are in their custody, which is primarily for a short period of
time of about 72 hours, and DHS then releases the unaccompanied
minors to Health and Human Services, to the Office of Refugee
Resettlement. It then turns into a Health and Human Services
responsibility.
Mr. Gosar. And we have lost a bunch. Well, let me go back
to something else. You uncovered the fact that the Secret
Service erased text messages in the aftermath of January 6,
2021. After you requested the electronic communications, could
you please expound on your office's work in this area, one. No.
2, why in the world did the Secret Service erase text message?
That is No. 2. Does it make you suspicious that there is
something to hide, and how many requests for documentation
preservation were there?
Mr. Cuffari. I know of at least five preservation notices.
Mr. Gosar. And who did those come from?
Mr. Cuffari. Four of those were issued by Majority Members
of oversight committees in the last Congress starting on
January 16, 2021, four from a committee or multiple committees,
and one from our office when we opened an audit of the events
of January 6th.
Mr. Gosar. Can you come up with any idea why the Secret
Service under preservation notices would erase emails?
Mr. Cuffari. We have been unable to get an answer to that
question.
Mr. Gosar. Wow, that is pretty incredible. And last one,
you mentioned that there was a 100 percent increase in ICE's
notices to appear, an NTA, from October 2020 to April 2022.
Could you explain what is in an NTA, and how often do illegal
aliens show up for their court hearings?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe DHS discontinued the use of notices
to appear, or NTAs, in November 2021. They began to issue
notices to report, which required migrants to report to an
immigration court on a predetermined date. The Immigration
Court, as you know, is within the jurisdiction of the
Department of Justice, and the Immigration Court would retain
statistics on no-shows or individuals who actually do show for
their court date.
Mr. Gosar. I want to thank you for your information. I
think the other side is very particular because this does not
point very good to them. So, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Congressman Raskin?
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Cuffari, your duty
under the Inspector General Act is to immediately report
flagrant and serious abuses that are taking place. You were
aware at least as early as May 2021 that the Secret Service had
erased thousands of text messages that were sent before and
during the January 6 violent attack on the Capitol, the
Congress, and the Vice President, but you failed to notify
Congress for 14 months--for a year and two months--that the
Secret Service was refusing to comply with your requests for
information. So why did not you immediately report, as you are
statutorily bound to do, these serious and flagrant failures to
answer your questions about the disappearance of thousands of
texts that were sent during January 6?
Mr. Cuffari. Just so the record is clear, Congressman, we
were not informed by the Secret Service on the date that you
described in 2021. In fact, at no time in 2021 were we informed
that Secret Service had deleted and was no longer able to
retrieve text messages on cellphones owned by the Secret
Service.
Mr. Raskin. So, when did you become aware of that?
Mr. Cuffari. In February, I believe, of 2022.
Mr. Raskin. Well, we have documents showing that just six
weeks after the initial request for documents from the Secret
Service, you canceled requests to the Secret Service for phone
records and text messages. Why did you do that?
Mr. Cuffari. If I recall correctly, and I mentioned during
my prepared remarks here, DHS was delaying or denying us access
to relevant information. We----
Mr. Raskin. But did you report that to Congress at that
point or ask for a report to Congress?
Mr. Cuffari. I was working with the senior leadership of
the Department to free up or to pry loose information that the
Department was withholding from us. In fact, I met with the
Secretary of Homeland Security in about September or October
2021. I explained to him that we were having delays in getting
information, and the Secretary saw fit to publish a memo in
which he directed all the employees in the Department to
cooperate with our office. We subsequently received a tranche
of documents from the Department. They were basically emails
that we had been waiting for eight months to receive. I think
there were about 700,000 emails.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. Well, what I do not understand is your
office revived the request that you nullified six weeks after
originally making it, five months later in December 2021 is
what the paper trail reveals. But what I do not understand is
your statutory duty to immediately inform Congress about this
flagrant abuse. I mean, we are talking about the worst violent
insurrection against Congress in the history of the United
States, and the Secret Service is not cooperating with your
request for information. Why did you not think that you needed
to immediately alert Congress to that fact?
Mr. Cuffari. I was working with senior leadership and the
Department of Homeland Security to get the records we were
lawfully entitled to receive. The Department was also under
four preservation notices by congressional oversight committees
last Congress, and to my knowledge, the Department never
informed Congress that itself had deleted the messages.
Mr. Raskin. Right.
Mr. Cuffari. Nor were they ever asked----
Mr. Raskin. But that is the role of the inspector general.
That is why we have an inspector general. Look, in June 2022,
you published your semiannual report where there was going to
be a reference to the Secret Service's obstruction of this
investigative path, and you removed that. Why was the reference
to the Secret Service's obstruction deliberately deleted from
the June 22 semiannual report of the Inspector General?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe our first notification at Congress
was in the fall of 2021 in our semiannual report, where we
describe the delays that the Department was doing to us and
prohibiting us from receiving requested information.
Mr. Raskin. Well, did you sign off on the decision to
remove this reference from the report?
Mr. Cuffari. I do not know when that reference was.
Mr. Raskin. In June 2022, there was going to be a reference
to Secret Service's obstruction of questioning about the
disappearance of the texts, and that was deliberately removed.
Did you sign off on that deliberate removal?
Mr. Cuffari. I signed off on the removal, and I signed a
letter specifically to the January 6th oversight committee and
to this Oversight Committee.
Mr. Raskin. But why did you remove it?
Mr. Grothman. Your time has expired. I am going to say
something here. I think what is going on in the border is the
biggest crisis this country has to deal with today. And it is
not surprising that when the number of people coming into this
country has increased by a factor of 11, it would have a
tremendous impact on the morale of the Border Patrol. I realize
Dr. Cuffari was originally appointed by Donald Trump, and some
people are never going to get over that, but our focus today
should be on what is going there. We could have a million
hearings on the Southern border, but today we are going to
focus on the morale of the Border Patrol and what effect this
increase by a factor of 10, the number of people coming across,
has. I am down on the border many times. I can assure you, if
you go down there, the Border Patrol agents will tell you all
sorts of things. But in any event, next we have Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, I just want to also just add. I
think of the questions that have been asked so far, the
statements on our side have been all within the scope of the
hearing. I think we are merely pointing out flaws and issues
within the witness and the witness' statements. And so, I just
want to just add that I think their line of questioning so far
has been very reasonable, within the scope of the hearing.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Higgins?
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Inspector General
Cuffari, Joe Cuffari is one of the most honorable men I have
ever met. I have had interactions with many in seven years of
congressional service to my country. He is a rare combination
of experience and intellect and honor and principle. You always
get a straight answer from Joe Cuffari. I hope America is
listening to him today. He has had attack after attack after
attack from the left. The man is not looking at notes. He is
responding from his head because he knows what is going on. It
is no surprise that the Biden Administration and my colleagues
across the aisle do not like him because he is an honorable man
who speaks the truth. There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of
teeth over there.
The Democrats' issue with Inspector General Cuffari is that
he is an actual investigator, he is not a political hack, and
he speaks the truth. Here is the problem, though, that my
colleagues launching these attacks against this good man, face.
Joe Cuffari is a principled man, and he deals with personal
attacks against him like something stuck to the bottom of his
boot.
Inspector General Cuffari, you have been accused of
conducting your survey. You surveyed over 9,000 agents, is my
understanding. Our colleagues managed to leave that out. They
act like you talked to 28 people. Over 9,000 agents
participated, and in your report that you provided, you go on
to attest to the quality of the survey, which is essentially
amazing to America watching. You came to the conclusion that
these border agents that have been tasked with dealing with the
disintegration of our sovereignty at the Southern border. They
have been moved from all across the country to work the
Southern border, taken away from their primary law enforcement
role to do housekeeping and social work. Your survey came to
the conclusion, amazingly, that there is a problem with morale,
but they are folding themselves in half over there trying to
impugn you as a man. They get nowhere. America is watching.
Let me ask you about these deployments, Inspector General
Cuffari, deployments from across the country, down to the
Southern border, where agents were moved from where they lived
and worked, where their family is, where their kids go to
school, to go down to the Southern border. Were those
deployments voluntary or were the agents ordered?
Mr. Cuffari. In certain cases, according to the agents and
other employees of the Department who were deployed, they were
voluntary, and in others they were voluntold to go.
Mr. Higgins. So, could you clarify what that means? I know
what it means. I am a veteran, an Army veteran. I was a cop for
12 years. I mean, you get volunteered. Your chain of command
tells you, yes, we need you to volunteer for this. So, these
guys are deployed for quite some time in incredibly difficult
circumstances. They love their country. They are serving their
country. By and large, they concur. But the longer they stay
down there, the more it impacts themselves, their family, their
morale, the esprit de corps of their units.
I think it is obvious that this system of moving people
down there has been detrimental to the health and wellbeing of
our agents. It is concerning that agents are not performing
their primary law enforcement roles. America is largely under
the impression that we are moving border agents down there to
enhance law enforcement. Is that the role that agents are
primarily performing, Mr. Cuffari?
Mr. Cuffari. The role that they were hired to do and the
performance of their duties is to do law enforcement, at least
for the Border Patrol and the 1,811 criminal investigators who
were deployed there.
Mr. Higgins. But what role are they actually performing
down there?
Mr. Cuffari. They are doing some law enforcement, but they
are also providing care and welfare services to the detained
and those individuals who they are processing.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Inspector General. Thank you for
your service. God bless you, sir. Stand strong. My time has
expired. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Congressman Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cuffari, first let
me say that I have been on this Committee for 22 years and have
been involved in dozens and dozens and dozens of
investigations, from 20-something trips to Afghanistan, over 20
to Iraq, Ukraine. There has been no Member on this Committee
currently that has done more investigations and involved in
this type of work longer than I have, and I am honored to do
it.
Mr. Cuffari, I do want to say that our relationship with
the inspectors general during that 22 years that I have been on
this committee has been a partnership. We rely heavily on our
inspectors general to cooperate with us. It has been a good
relationship, and I have dealt with probably three to four
dozen different inspectors general over that 22 years, and I
have been proud to do it. I have to say that based on the
evidence I have before me, our relationship with you is
different. It is different. We have not had the cooperation and
the relationship of trust that we have had with other
inspectors general. We have not had that with you, and I regret
that. I do not diminish your service to your country or any
other capacity. I am just talking about the facts of what has
happened and what is going on.
Are you familiar with the Project on Government Oversight?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Lynch. OK. So, the Project on Government Oversight is a
nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit group that we have worked
with for more than the 22 years I have been here. And I think
they started in 1980, and they have been nothing short of
honest and forthright. And I have worked with them in
Republican administrations and Democratic administrations, and
sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I do not, but they have
always been straightforward, regardless of whose administration
was in power at that time.
Mr. Chairman, I want to ask for unanimous consent to enter
into the record a letter from the Project on Government
Oversight urging the President of the United States to remove
Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari from his position with the
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General.
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Cuffari, currently another group that we
work with very closely, and continue to, is the Council of
Inspectors General, and they are a group that not only does
their own independent work, but also polices other inspectors
general. Am I correct in saying that you are currently under
investigation by the Council of Inspectors General on integrity
and efficiency? Is that correct, Mr. Cuffari?
Mr. Cuffari. You are correct, Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. What is the basis of that investigation? Could
you share that with us?
Mr. Cuffari. I am uncertain, since I am under
investigation, if I can share that in a public setting. I would
be happy to discuss it with you.
Mr. Lynch. They have made it public, so I am not sure how
private this is. There are several allegations. One, as the
Ranking Member of this full Committee indicated, was your
failure to promptly notify Congress of crucial information on
the Secret Service erasure of text messages related to the
January 6th attacks on this Capitol. That did happen. It did
happen. And I witnessed Republicans and Democrats running for
their lives, so anybody who says that did not happen, let us
just disabuse that notion. But the relationship of trust that
we have had with our inspectors general have not been
continued. I want to yield my remaining time to the Ranking
Member.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Grothman. The time is up.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, go ahead, sir.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Kelly Armstrong.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Your report states
that frequent deployments at the Southern border are affecting
staffing levels at the Northern border. This is an important
issue to my home state of North Dakota. Businesses rely on
customers from both sides of the Canadian-U.S. border. Commerce
does not stop at 5 p.m. when CBP closes a port of entry. Crops
still need to be planted. Substantial detours to operating
facilities significantly raise costs.
After years of shortened operational hours, CBP finally
extended hours at three ports of entry in North Dakota on a
trial basis, but these hours are only temporary while CBP
evaluates vehicular traffic, which does not account for other
ramifications, including the transfer of goods and services.
Lawful economic access to the United States should not be based
on volume. It is the government's basic duty to maintain the
Northern border.
And drawing down at the Northern border to beef up the
Southern border does not justify shutting down North Dakota's
economic sector. DHS is not properly allocating resources, and
we talk about these things in large dollar amounts. But I am
going to talk about what is, actually, in the grand scope of
things, a fairly insignificant one. However, it would be
significant at the Northern border.
One of your reports highlights that ICE spent over $17
million for hotel space and services that largely went unused
in 2021. Can you elaborate on how ICE managed to waste $17
million in taxpayer resources?
Mr. Cuffari. If you are speaking about the contract that
was between DHS and the Endeavors Corporation?
Mr. Armstrong. I am.
Mr. Cuffari. The contract required a minimum number of beds
to be available to ICE during certain periods, and those beds
would be paid for regardless of whether a migrant was actually
staying in the hotel room.
Mr. Armstrong. Were the beds ever used?
Mr. Cuffari. Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr. Armstrong. Why was ICE able to use sole-source
contracting and not award a contract based on an open
competitive process?
Mr. Cuffari. Because the question that you just asked
relates to an ongoing matter, I am not able to provide more
sufficient information in this setting.
Mr. Armstrong. OK. If the company had no experience, why
were they awarded the contract over more experienced companies?
Mr. Cuffari. Again, Congressman, the same answer as before.
Mr. Armstrong. So, my next question, there is an ongoing
investigation, so hopefully somebody will be held accountable?
Mr. Cuffari. Sir.
Mr. Armstrong. Would $17 million help at the Northern
border?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe it would help anywhere.
Mr. Armstrong. I mean, we do not have the volume that they
have on the Southern border. Everybody understands that, but we
also move a lot of products that a lot of people need. If you
like bread, you like what goes on between North Dakota and
Canada. If you like, you know, to eat a hamburger, you care
about what goes on in North Dakota and Canada. I am just trying
to understand where we end up and how we get to these places
that we have these scenarios where we are paying for money. I
mean, we have seen people all over the country, many in
sanctuary cities, balk and revolt at the fact that we are
moving migrants across and moving them out of a high-density
area into other places. Do we have any analysis at this point,
yet, of what we are spending on hotel rooms and other
facilities while we have $17 million worth of unused beds?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe, Congressman, we have an ongoing
audit to look at the movement of migrants and what it is
costing DHS to do that.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. I would just say as we finish
this off, that we have to figure out a better way to do this.
At the same time, the level of frustration from my constituents
that exists when we have unfettered access, whether it is ports
of entry, whether it is between ports of entry, and the vast
majority of illegal activity that is occurring. And at the same
time, economic sectors for Northern border communities are
absolutely being crushed, and it started with COVID and it
started with vaccine mandates, and it finally ended with the
United States being the last, essentially, country in the
civilized world that lifted those mandates, and these are real-
world consequences.
And when we talk about trust in government and talk about
trust of these issues, when people see fentanyl flowing across
the Southern border, ports of entry, between ports of entry, we
have had that debate a thousand times. When we see people being
released into the interior of the United States with court
dates that do not exist for five, seven, nine years in advance,
and I got a farmer from Grano, North Dakota, that cannot get
across the border after 5 p.m. because we do not have the
resources to do it. The frustration is real, and it exists all
across the country and exists as far away from the Southern
border as you can possibly be, which is North Dakota. Thank you
and I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Moskowitz?
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The border has been
a problem for a long period of time because Congress has failed
to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It is not like this
is a new issue. This is something that has been going on for
decades here. It has been passed from one President to the
next, to the next. Is it possibly worse now? Well, that is what
happens when you have a problem that you do not fix for three
decades. The same people who talk about the border, it is not
like they have come up with solutions. They complain to get on
Fox News every day, but it is not like we are having solutions.
And so, I want to ask you a couple of questions because I
am frustrated with Homeland as well. I mean, I have folks back
home who were raped by their nanny. She spent 20 years in jail
in Florida, and all the family wanted to know is that, when she
was released, what was going to happen. That is it. She was a
victim. She had a right to know, and I had even on her behalf
made connections with Homeland on this issue. We were told, do
not worry, we will make sure the family knows if she is
deported or if we are keeping her, whatever the story is. Guess
what? None of it happened. The rapist was deported. Nobody
knows what happened to her. She is not flagged in the system.
And now that family, the girl, who is now a mother of two, has
to be worried about where her rapist is.
And so, I have a couple of questions because obviously,
there are complaints all around, whether it is Secret Service
or ICE. Homeland was founded 22 years ago, or 20 years ago,
after a national emergency. It has got 22 agencies, and I am
not going to list them all. They are all household names. Has
Homeland become too big? Is it too big? Is it time to split
Homeland up? Is it time to reform the bureaucracy?
Mr. Cuffari. Congressman, let me first say that you and I
did have a discussion about the individual who was convicted of
rape. And we discussed the Crime Victims' Rights Act, and the
prosecutor should have complied with that. I hope that that
information was helpful that I supplied to you.
Mr. Moskowitz. Well, that is a whole other issue because--
--
Mr. Cuffari. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moskowitz [continuing]. Quite frankly, the rapist had
more rights than the victim.
Mr. Cuffari. Yes, sir. I agree with you. I will say that
Homeland Security is the third largest department, and the
Federal Government is quite large. It was put together, as you
described----
Mr. Moskowitz. You are almost as big as DoD.
Mr. Cuffari. Yes, sir. We are No. 3 right behind DoD and
Health and Human Services. It perhaps may require a look by
this Committee or others, maybe the Committee on Homeland
Security, to see sort of a look back to see if it is fulfilling
the mission that it was intended to do. But that would be a
decision for Congress and not for me as the Inspector General.
Mr. Moskowitz. So, you do not have any suggestions on
potential reforms or opinions on whether you think the Agency
can still function with 22 agencies. I mean, I hear it is kind
of like when all the agencies get together with the Secretary,
it is like the Knights of the Round Table. They each give five-
minute updates to the Secretary, and then the meeting is over.
Mr. Cuffari. I will share that from our experience of doing
audits and inspections, and even criminal investigations, that
silos of information remain to this day in DHS, which is
presenting a problem for effective management.
Mr. Moskowitz. Yes. So, what I would like to hear is I
would like to hear solutions to problems rather than continuing
to gaslight issues at Homeland or INS or Customs and Border,
whatever it is, and I do not hear any solutions. And I think it
is quite time we start looking at reform at Homeland. I will
yield the balance of my time to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Mr. Cuffari, in April 2022--I want
to get back to something--the nonpartisan watchdog Project on
Government Oversight, and this was mentioned by another Member,
broke a disturbing story that your office sought to censor
findings of sexual harassment and misconduct at DHS. According
to the draft report that we have obtained in the committee,
28,000 DHS employees were surveyed, and more than 10,000 of the
28,000 reported experiencing sexual harassment and misconduct
in the workplace, yet the report was shelved. Mr. Cuffari, did
your report on the morale of CBP, which we have been
discussing, consider the effects of sexual harassment on
employees?
Mr. Cuffari. I am sorry, Ranking Member. What is the
question?
Mr. Garcia. Did you report on the morale of CBP or ICE
employees, considered the effect of sexual harassment and
misconduct? I think the answer to that is actually no, but
would you agree that sexual harassment or misconduct are one
factor that could actually impact morale?
Mr. Cuffari. It could be a factor, certainly.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. And yet it was not considered in
that report, and so I just want to make that note. I also with
the remainder of my time, just want to note that
--thank you, Mr. Chairman, I will discuss it later.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Sessions?
Mr. Sessions. Chairman, thank you very much. Dr. Cuffari,
welcome to the committee. I think it is interesting that our
friends, rather than asking pertinent questions about what your
ideas have been in writing, have been simply to attack you.
I have been to the border, top to bottom, for a number of
years and I went back and saw firsthand the piles of equipment
that still sit there waiting for the wall to be built. This is
not a question to you, but it is my understanding that was
there to help the Border Patrol agents so that they were not
overrun as they are being done now. It would allow them
operational control of the border. That would mean that they
could then follow the political will. If we went from one
President to another, we would effectively understand, I do not
know about 100 percent, but a higher percentage of people who
were coming in, could control drug usage, could control people
who might come to this country who were wanted or would be seen
as wanting to harm our country.
And these piles are still there. Requiring the Border
Patrol, as when I was there with our young Chairman, Chairman
Comer, down in Yuma, where we were in a bus, there were 90 or
so people from Cuba, men. One Border Patrol agent, one female
Border Patrol agent whose job was to hustle and get her job
done, and that was not to catch people that were running away.
That was to hurry up and take them to processing because her
boss or her boss' boss was being held accountable for how long
it took them to hustle to do their job, to take these people in
rather than protecting our border. I am concerned that there is
a staffing issue problem--we have spoken about it--you have
today with understanding how we protect this country.
Seemingly, you are being attacked about your oversight after
things have occurred rather than your ideas.
We know the border is in trouble. We know that we have a
problem with fentanyl, got-aways, drugs, people come to this
country losing children--the government actually taking control
of children and then losing them--them being let loose on the
streets of Texas, Arizona, California. People in California
seem to be happy with it. People in Arizona, I will let them
speak for themselves. But in Texas, it is causing a huge
problem, so much so that our Governor is transporting them
where they want to go, Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago,
and now they are being attacked for doing what these people
wanted.
I want you to know this Congress views, in the Majority,
that you are doing your job, that you are being stretched to a
political limit about reporting what is happening versus trying
to toe the line of what this Department wants to do, the
Department of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service.
A few minutes ago, literally they said you did not do your job
in reporting to them. Have you ever offered to come and meet
with the Minority, which was then the Majority? Were you ever
asked to come meet with them?
Mr. Cuffari. I volunteered and I met with several Members
of this Committee, who are now Minority Members.
Mr. Sessions. Well, I would say to my friend, Congressman
Lynch, that if he feels like he is not getting what he needs
from his vast service, which I am a friend of Stephen and I
appreciate him, I would encourage him to do that with this
Subcommittee, to write the same letter, to get an answer
because I view that this Department is failing to protect this
country, which is its core mission. Why it was established was
not to let anybody come into this country, encourage them,
waive them through, and then lose them from within the masses
of millions that are coming. I am concerned about rule of law.
I am concerned about the deaths. I am concerned about even mid-
sized cities receiving people who have come from a marketing
organization of a cartel to distribute drugs all over this
country. They are openly allowing this, and the Democratic
Party is right there with this Administration to allow it to
happen.
I want to thank you for taking time to be with us. I find
you refreshing, but I also want you to know when our friends
that are on the other side, the Democrat Members of this
Committee, wish to correspond, I would encourage them to come,
and we will get them the same answer rather than an answer that
they do not like. Thank you very much. I yield back my time,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Goldman?
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did I just hear you
say that you offered to come and sit with members of the
Majority in the last Congress?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Goldman. You did?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. And did you ever do that?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. With who?
Mr. Cuffari. Mr. Moskowitz. Ms. Porter.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Moskowitz was not in Congress last
Congress.
Mr. Cuffari. I am talking about this Congress.
Mr. Goldman. I said last Congress. You said last Congress.
He asked you last Congress did you ever meet with the Majority,
Chairman Thompson, Chairman Maloney, anyone?
Mr. Cuffari. I did meet with Chairman Thompson, did not
meet with Chairwoman Maloney.
Mr. Goldman. OK. On August 1, 2022, former Chairwoman
Maloney and former Chairman Mr. Thompson from the Homeland
Security Committee requested that you provide all
communications and documents related to your office's decision
not to pursue missing Secret Service text messages related to
the January 6 insurrection. Did you ever provide that
information to those committee chairmen?
Mr. Cuffari. I did in an August 23, 2022 letter to both
Chairwoman Maloney and to Chairman Thompson.
Mr. Goldman. You wrote a letter. Did you provide all the
communications and documents related to your decision?
Mr. Cuffari. I provided information that was requested and
not particular documents.
Mr. Goldman. OK. Well, let the record show that you did not
actually provide the requested information. Were your Deputy
Inspector General and your Chief of Staff requested to have
transcribed interviews last Congress as well?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. And did you allow them to undergo these
transcribed interviews?
Mr. Cuffari. Because of ongoing investigations, I did not
permit them to be interviewed by this body.
Mr. Goldman. So you just blanketly refused to permit them,
even though they could, of course, come in here and say that
they cannot answer specific questions related to ongoing
investigations?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Goldman. OK. You know, I find it remarkable that we are
having this hearing with someone with a very clear vendetta and
politicized approach to the job of an independent inspector
general. If the point of your report and the point of this
hearing is, as my colleague from Texas just said, because we
have a problem at the border, we can all agree, and if the
morale is down because there are not enough agents and officers
at the border, we can all agree.
The sad reality is that my colleagues on the Majority have
no interest in any meaningful immigration reform. They would
prefer to hold a hearing like this, and we have many of them in
the Homeland Security Committee where they can talk about the
problems. They can accuse the Biden Administration, make false
allegations about all of their terrible policies, and yet they
do not want to actually do anything. Would you agree we need
more immigration judges to decide asylum cases, Mr. Cuffari?
Mr. Cuffari. That would be a decision that would rest with
the Justice Department who has----
Mr. Goldman. That is not my question. Do you think it would
help things at the border if we had more immigration judges to
decide asylum claims faster?
Mr. Cuffari. More people will certainly help across the
entire network.
Mr. Goldman. That is right. It gets tiresome to continue to
have these conversations. There is a tremendous migration issue
in Central America. There are 2.4 million Venezuelans in
Colombia. This is not particular to the United States. This is
a problem that congressional effort and oversight and
legislation needs to correct, yet we are not doing that. And
when you hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk
about all the problems with fentanyl and with got-aways and
with smuggling, you know what they do not ever talk about? They
do not ever talk about the tremendous exportation of American-
made guns to Mexican cartels that give them the power and
authority to control the fentanyl trafficking into this
country.
My colleague from Texas just listed a whole litany of
things that are the problems we are having at the border, and
never mentioned guns. H.R. 2, Mr. Perry, was a immigration
border security bill. It does not mention guns. It does not
mention gun trafficking. It does not mention guns going from
America to Mexico. If you want to talk about immigration reform
and you want a fix at the border, come talk to us. Let us be
real about how we can actually fix the border. I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Biggs?
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Dr. Cuffari for
being here. You know, I do think it is interesting that the
last gentleman was asking you about asylum and immigration
courts, but that is not in your purview, right? That is DOJ.
That is not DHS, right?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. So that was odd, I thought, but it was
pretty consistent because I thought the Ranking Member, who is
sitting in there today, rather dubious, his own credibility. It
is kind of dubious because he basically questioned this
document, your document, your report, but in so doing, he spent
a good portion of his time lobbying the Biden border policies.
When you start lobbying the Biden border policies--I do not
care what the pre-42 surge was, we have gone back down to the
typical Biden border crisis numbers. That is where we sit
today, and that is about a fivefold increase over what Jeh
Johnson said was a crisis on the border. If you see 1,000 a
day, he says ``that is a crisis.'' Here you got about 5,000 a
day, the gentleman from Long Beach says, whoa, we have got this
thing back under control. Well, you do not. You just simply do
not.
But I will say this. Your report is consistent with my on-
the-ground experience and getting down to the border many, many
times. I have taken the Chairman down many times. I have been
down there. I go down there. You just go down there. I do not
take anybody with me. I will park my car. I will start walking
along the border, see how long it takes for a Border Patrol
agent to come. When they finally get there, I ask them how
things are going. They tell me it is not going good. I say,
well, what do your colleagues feel. Well, they feel like they
have been abandoned by this Administration. The other thing I
will say is, you had survey responses from 16 percent of the
entire force, is that right?
Mr. Cuffari. Sixteen percent of the 57,000 employees in
DHS, primarily ICE and CBP, who we surveyed.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. Well, in my studies, a large in-study, was
typically, we thought anything over 350 to 500 was a large in-
study. Nine thousand would be pretty persuasive. He compared it
to a Twitter survey. The only difference is you had a limited
universe, and if you are going to make a claim, you might say
selection bias because only the people that cared enough to
respond responded, but you had 9,000, 16 percent, respond.
Well, let us take a look here just a little bit. Can you
discuss what steps your office takes when an auditor
investigation is opened?
Mr. Cuffari. We notify the Department through a transmittal
memo of opening of a project, an audit, or an inspection. We
let them know that we will be looking for certain documents,
for some communication. And we set what is called an entrance
conference with the Department's Liaison Office and the
component's Liaison Office to begin our audit or inspection
work.
Mr. Biggs. And when you request documents or information,
what is the typical response time for an agency?
Mr. Cuffari. Normally, it is about 30 days to respond back
to us.
Mr. Biggs. The DHS, are they responsive typically within 30
days?
Mr. Cuffari. They have been on certain occasions.
Mr. Biggs. What is their typical responsive time now?
Mr. Cuffari. There is one project that is 140 days that we
have made our request and have not got any information.
Mr. Biggs. So, did they give you a rationale for their
five-month delay?
Mr. Cuffari. Not in that particular case, but they have in
others.
Mr. Biggs. Is a rationale for a delay that they give to
you, are those allowed under the Inspector General Act?
Mr. Cuffari. The only exception to not providing the IG,
that I am aware of in the IG Act, is the Secretary of the
Department would have to make a determination that, for
national security or not to compromise an ongoing
investigation. The Department secretary would then have to make
that determination.
Mr. Biggs. Has Secretary Mayorkas made that determination
and communicated that to you?
Mr. Cuffari. He would also have to communicate that to this
Oversight Committee as well.
Mr. Biggs. Has he communicated that to you?
Mr. Cuffari. No, sir.
Mr. Biggs. He has not communicated that to us as far as I
know, so he is not complying with the requirements of the
Inspector General Act. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Cuffari. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Biggs. Well, my time has expired, and I told you it
goes by fast, but, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Congressman Ivey?
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Cuffari. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Raskin was asking you about text messages
with respect to January 6. I had some questions about some
messaging, I believe it was Signal, that was used, I think, by
you and some of your colleagues beginning around December 13,
2020, and this is based on an affidavit that you filed
yesterday in a case that is pending. Do you recall filing the
affidavit?
Mr. Cuffari. I do.
Mr. Ivey. OK. And in the affidavit, you talked about how
there was a time where you made a switch and others to using
Signal. Do you recall that?
Mr. Cuffari. I recall at the direction of DHS, Signal was
placed on our government cellphones as a result of the
SolarWinds compromise of the Department's communication.
Mr. Ivey. OK. And who was it specifically that directed the
use of Signal?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe it was the Chief Information Officer
for the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Ivey. OK. And so, during that time period, you used
Signal until early 2021 according to your affidavit.
Mr. Cuffari. I physically used Signal on one occasion in a
two-week period of time.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Well, I am not sure you said that in your
affidavit, but there came a time where you stopped using it in
early 2021, according to your affidavit?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right. And Signal, you may know, is an
application where, in some instances, it can automatically
delete the communications that are exchanged on it.
Mr. Cuffari. Actually, I do not know that.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Well, let me ask you this. As the
Inspector General unit, you are familiar with the Federal
Records Act, right?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. All right. And so, you know there is an
obligation to preserve official government documents. Is that
correct?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right. And electronic messaging falls under
that category. Isn't that right?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Now, according to your affidavit, whatever
those messages were, were all deleted. Is that correct?
Mr. Cuffari. No, that is incorrect.
Mr. Ivey. OK. They are not preserved?
Mr. Cuffari. No. What I am saying is that the one instance
that I did use Signal, it was an oral communication telephone
call with the members of the Department of Homeland Security. I
believe it was their Breach Response Team. That is the one and
only instance that I ever used Signal.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Well, did your organization, did your
Department respond that none of the messages on Signal were
preserved in the filing yesterday from the U.S. Attorney's
Office?
Mr. Cuffari. I do not believe there were messages. There
was an oral communication, not text messages or anything to my
knowledge, at least in my case. I only used it once, as I
described.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Well, let me read this to you:
``However, until that time, the Signal messaging application
was not approved for use on DHS devices. However, I was one of
the small number of users authorized to install the application
on my OIG-issued cellphone for the limited purpose of
discussing via SecureME,'' through a response to the above-
described apparent breach of DHS computer networks. So, that is
the messaging you are talking about?
Mr. Cuffari. That is the oral communication, not a message.
I just want to be clear with the Committee.
Mr. Ivey. OK. And then in the next paragraph down, you
said, ``No more than a few weeks after installing the Signal
application, I deleted Signal from my OIG-issued cellphone
because I no longer had use for it.'' That is correct?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. OK. So, any messages that are unavailable were
not based on you deleting anything. It is just, they were not
preserved in some way?
Mr. Cuffari. No, what I am saying, just to be clear,
Congressman, I did not use Signal to do messaging. I used it to
do a telephone call at the request of DHS.
Mr. Ivey. All right. And nothing was done to preserve
anything with respect to those telephone calls?
Mr. Cuffari. Unless we had a title three or some other
electronic intercept of my oral communications, I do not
believe there would be a message that would be preserved.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Let me ask you this question. With
respect to the January 6 documentation from the Secret Service,
all right, and there was a 14-month delay before you notified
Congress of that issue with respect to the deletion of the
Secret Service text?
Mr. Cuffari. Just to be clear, I answered that question
previously, and it is not 14 months. We learned that DHS
deleted all the text messages from the Secret Service phones.
We learned that in February 2022.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Now we have Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cuffari, as often is
the case, I am left with correcting, clarifying the record in
these hearings. Comprehensive immigration reform, as decried by
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is generally
known and perceived rightly so as amnesty for breaking
America's laws. Therefore that, they lament the fact that we
are not interested in allowing people that come across our
border, illegally bringing fentanyl, engaged in human
trafficking, gang activity, we are not interested in providing
amnesty for their lawlessness. So, no, there is not going to be
comprehensive immigration reform because that is what it
includes. Just let the record reflect that.
Regarding my colleague who complained about the rape of his
constituent and the fact that it seemed like the person that
was deported had more rights than she did, I would just remind
my colleague on the other side of the aisle that they support
that. They supported that in all the cities that they run
across the country and at the Southern border. They support
that lawlessness. And so, it is rich for him to come in and
complain on her behalf when he and his Party have been aiding
and abetting it for years upon years.
And Mr. Goldman says that we do not want to talk about
guns. We are happy to talk about Fast and Furious, where his
Party took guns across the border to Mexican cartels that were
used to kill Americans trying to protect this border, but they
did not want to talk about it. Eric Holder did not want to talk
about it, was held in contempt, and they still do not want to
talk about it. And it is rich for Mr. Goldman to talk about you
promoting falsehoods while he sat at the front and center of
impeachment of a President based entirely on falsehood, which
he was well aware of at the time and is well aware of right
now. I know you are laughing it up over there, aren't you? You
are laughing it up because you are full of perfidy, lies and
more lies and more lies.
Mr. Cuffari, it has been alleged or averred that more
people would make it better, more Border Patrol agents, Mr.
Goldman said more judges, more would make it better. Here is
what also would make it better, I think. If less people were
allowed to cross the border illegally, would that make it
better?
Mr. Cuffari. That certainly would help, yes.
Mr. Perry. If there were less people crossing illegally,
would we need more judges to deal with those less people
crossing illegally?
Mr. Cuffari. You would need more judges to process people
who were claiming asylum.
Mr. Perry. Right, but they are crossing illegally and
claiming asylum based on their illegal crossing. The point is,
yes, we can hire as many as we want to, but as long as you are
going to let more and more and more unstoppable people coming
across the border illegally, you are never going to have
enough. The solution is not to hire more people. The solution
is to stop the people from coming across illegally. That is the
solution.
To get you to say that the solution is actually to hire
more people belies the fact that people are coming across
illegally because of the policies of my friends on the other
side of the aisle, and no other reason, for no other reason.
Was the border ever manageable before without hiring more
people? Let me ask you that question. Was it ever manageable
before without hiring more people?
Mr. Cuffari. According to my personal experience, it was
manageable starting in 1994.
Mr. Perry. You did a survey, 9,300 and change, 16 percent
of the total population surveyed, much more than most of the
polls that this operation runs to determine public opinion
about who is going to vote for what, and you are being
criticized here today for the survey. And some Border Patrol
agents said that local management would transport migrants out
of the facility before a visit and return them after the visit
ended. Why would they do that? Why would that happen?
Mr. Cuffari. I cannot answer that, sir. That is----
Mr. Perry. I do not know. Hazard a guess?
Mr. Cuffari. Let me say, in my experience, I did not see
that happen.
Mr. Perry. Well, how would you see it happen? Like, how
would you see it happen? If they move them before you got there
and moved them back after you left, how would you see it
happen?
Mr. Cuffari. We also do unannounced inspections when they
do not know that we are coming to a particular detention.
Mr. Perry. Right. But still, you do not know that, right,
but these are Border Patrol agents saying it. Are Border Patrol
agents signing up for overseeing meal delivery, restocking
snacks and hygiene products? Is that why people want to secure
the border? Is that the job that they are looking for when they
sign up and say, I want to be a Border Patrol agent, I want to
replenish the snack supply for people coming across illegally?
Is that like the No. 1 request on their list of job
assignments?
Mr. Cuffari. That is the frustration that they described.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield the balance.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Frost?
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Cuffari, the Office of
Personnel Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is a
tool for Federal Agency employees to provide feedback on how
engaged they are in their work. When people are engaged at
work, they are more effective at their jobs. They perform the
work more efficiently, and part of a principal's job is keeping
their team engaged. In other words, the Federal Employee
Viewpoint Surveys can reveal what leadership techniques are
working for agency executives and which ones are not.
In fact, Mr. Cuffari, you regularly tout your office's
Federal Employee Viewpoint FEVS score. Since you have taken
over as Inspector General in May 2022, in a letter to this
Committee, you highlighted portions of your office's survey
data from 2020 and 2021 that apparently show improvement in
employee engagement. And in an email you sent to all your staff
in December 2022 that I have here, you again highlighted
improvements in your Agency's 2022 survey data.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
an email between Inspector General Cuffari and his office
lauding the importance of Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey
scores.
Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
Mr. Frost. Thank you. Mr. Cuffari, do you agree that the
Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data are important indicators
for how an agency is performing?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Frost. That is right. And in the past, you have said
that they document progress. However, in the most recent survey
data shows that a majority of the people in your office do not
believe that their senior leadership maintains high standards
of honesty and integrity, 66 percent of your employees. Mr.
Cuffari, are you a senior leader?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Frost. Mr. Cuffari, are you aware that nearly half of
the employees in the Office of Inspection and Evaluations fear
retaliation if they disclose suspected violation of laws,
rules, or regulation?
Mr. Cuffari. You are asking if I am aware of it?
Mr. Frost. Are you aware of that? Are you aware of the fact
that 40 percent compared to 43 percent who don't?
Mr. Cuffari. No, sir.
Mr. Frost. Yes, that is a reality through the survey that
you tout. Mr. Cuffari, do you know about the fact that less
than half of your staff in the Office of Counsel feel like they
can safely disclose suspected wrongdoing?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Frost. You are aware of that. Only 45 percent feel like
they can disclose that. I find this incredibly alarming,
especially when coupled with the fact that you have run away
from any efforts to conduct oversight in your office using
taxpayer money, $1.4 million, to contract a law firm, to run
away from accountability on your part.
And, you know, I have seen weak leaders run from
accountability before. In my home state of Florida, right now,
Governor Ron DeSantis is saddling taxpayers with billions in
legal fees to defend his unlawful policies. With his
intimidation, his removal of dissenting officials, he is taking
major losses on the backs of taxpayers because private sector
officials called out his disastrous agenda. And the Florida
legislature has approved a whole new budget to pay for all of
his legal losses, but he does not want to answer for that.
And I admit at this point many of us realize that DeSantis
gets an F in accountability. However, inspectors general are
meant to serve as a safe haven for whistleblowers. How is a
whistleblower supposed to trust your office when members of
your own staff do not even feel safe to report wrongdoing
themselves? I yield to Mr. Ivey.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Cuffari, I am sorry. I had one question left
or a couple of questions left. This is with respect to text
messages with respect to your government-issued iPhone.
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. Did you delete text messages from your
government-issued iPhone?
Mr. Cuffari. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Well, when was that?
Mr. Cuffari. It is my normal practice to delete text
messages.
Mr. Ivey. So, you delete them on an ongoing basis?
Mr. Cuffari. That is correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Are they stored anywhere? Not sure?
Mr. Cuffari. I am not sure.
Mr. Ivey. OK. Well, is it safe to say, based on that at the
time you deleted them, you did not know if they were stored in
an alternative place? Is that fair?
Mr. Cuffari. Correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right.
Mr. Cuffari. It is also fair to note that I do not use my
government cellphone to conduct official business.
Mr. Ivey. All right. So, your testimony today is that these
text messages that you have deleted, or at least some of them,
had no Federal information or any information that would be
implicated under the Federal Records Act?
Mr. Cuffari. Under the Federal Records Act, that is
correct.
Mr. Ivey. OK. And so, they have no connection to official
business at all?
Mr. Cuffari. Nothing that would be considered a Federal
record.
Mr. Ivey. Well, are you using your Federal phone for
personal purposes then?
Mr. Cuffari. No, sir.
Mr. Ivey. All right. Then what is the purpose for using
your government-issued phone?
Mr. Cuffari. To conduct business.
Mr. Ivey. But not Federal business related to your
Department?
Mr. Cuffari. Not Federal business considering that they are
records. It is a clearly defined statute that places
requirements on what a Federal record actually is.
Mr. Ivey. All right. So, just a final question. So, you
have made a conscious decision with the documents or the
messages you deleted that the Federal records laws did not
apply to the messages you deleted?
Mr. Cuffari. The messages that I deleted, I did not
consider those to be Federal records, and, therefore, I deleted
them. That is correct
Mr. Ivey. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. Ms. Mace?
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did not know we were
going to be debating 2024 Presidential candidates this morning,
but welcome to Congress.
Mr. Cuffari. Thank you.
Ms. Mace. In 2019, there were just under 17,000 border
agents handling an average of 71,000 monthly encounters. As of
2022, border agents decreased to 16,654, but average monthly
encounters rose to around 184,000 encounters. In that time, it
is no coincidence, there was an over 300 percent increase in
known got-aways. Border agent morale is low, border agent
retention is low, and this Administration's ability to follow
the rule of law is simply in the gutter.
I am very proud of South Carolina. At FLETC, we train
Border Patrol agents. I have been to one of their graduations.
I know that they put a lot on the line. They work hard, and so
the purpose of this hearing today is to talk a little bit about
that. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one agent said,
``Under Biden, things are the worst they have ever been by far.
Agents are calling in all the time. You always hear, 'It
doesn't matter. What is the point?' Agents are afraid of ending
up on the news for doing their job or getting in trouble for
just doing their job, and there is no morale.''
Mr. Cuffari, yes or no, is this the same type of sentiment
you found when visiting the Southwest border from our Border
Patrol agents?
Mr. Cuffari. Border Patrol agents have expressed similar
comments to me and to my staff.
Ms. Mace. Do you think it is the worst it has ever been for
their morale?
Mr. Cuffari. It has been significantly increased since I
started with my Federal civil service in 1993.
Ms. Mace. OK. My next question, do you find agents have
become apathetic as their concerns that workplace issues are
not being addressed? Are they sort of apathetic when you talk
to them?
Mr. Cuffari. They express frustration. I must say that the
Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents do a great job every single day of the year, and they
are just frustrated.
Ms. Mace. They work very hard, don't they?
Mr. Cuffari. They do.
Ms. Mace. When you speak with Border Patrol agents, do they
blame Agency leadership, do they blame the Administration, or
both? The status of the border, I mean, who do they blame for
this?
Mr. Cuffari. They express frustration with both.
Ms. Mace. All right. Mr. Cuffari, I just want to thank you
for your time today. I appreciate your work regarding the sad
state of affairs that is the Border Patrol agents' morale. I
think it is very clear and evident today. It does not take a
65-page report to realize something is wrong. It is self-
evident. It is undeniable. Thank you for answering my questions
today.
While my colleagues on the other side of the aisle knew
this was a problem, their goal has always been to push our
Border Patrol issues to the brink of unsustainability, and that
is where we are today. What we are doing along our Southern
border is completely unsustainable. It is a consistent
strategy: never let a good crisis go to waste. And
unfortunately, this plan has come at the expense of deadly
journeys for migrants, vilification of our border agents, and a
less safe country for American citizens.
Last Congress when the left had the House, they had the
Senate, they had the White House, on this Committee, I remember
having one hearing about the border, and it was about the
Northern border where we were getting less than 10,000 illegal
immigrants coming across the Northern border every year. And
today, you know, we saw even last year, the growth of illegal
immigrants coming and crossing over the Southern border daily.
It far surpasses, and I hope that Republican leadership can
hold this Administration accountable. Thank you, and I yield
back my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. LaTurner?
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it, and
thank you, Mr. Cuffari, for being here today.
America's Border Patrol agents put their lives on the line
to secure our border and halt the flow of illegal immigrants,
drugs, weapons and human trafficking from entering our country.
For far too long, under this Administration, these brave men
and women have been understaffed and without adequate resources
to do their job effectively, and that needs to change.
Between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, your recent report
found the number of Border Patrol agents guarding the Southwest
border fell slightly, while monthly encounters with illegal
aliens spiked by a staggering 450 percent. Your report also
found that Fiscal Year 2022 set the record for migrant deaths,
with more than 800 migrants dying while attempting to cross the
Southwest border. These are not just statistics. They represent
a very real crisis at the border that remains unaddressed by
the Biden Administration.
Unsurprisingly, 88 percent of ICE and CBP agents you
surveyed said their duty locations are not adequately staffed
to handle the surge of people streaming across our border. And
to further compound the problem, 24 percent of respondents said
they plan to leave their respective agencies within the
calendar year. It is a dangerous and demanding job in the first
place, and it is clear from your reporting that morale amongst
our border agents is lower than ever before. One agent
testified that due to a significant shift in immigration
policies from the prior administration, it feels like they are
trying to do their job ``with one hand tied behind their
back.''
Mr. Cuffari, amongst the agents you surveyed, which policy
changes did they say most hindered their efforts to protect our
border?
Mr. Cuffari. The unknown, lawsuits, there are just a whole
wide variety of concerns.
Mr. LaTurner. Would the current number of agents be better
able to maintain control of the Southwest border if Remain in
Mexico was still in place?
Mr. Cuffari. More individuals certainly would help stem the
flow of illegal immigration.
Mr. LaTurner. I understand that, but the Remain in Mexico
policy, if that was still in place, would that help them
maintain control of the Southwest border from your
observations?
Mr. Cuffari. I cannot speak to the policy decisions.
Mr. LaTurner. You concluded your report with three
recommendations to remedy the staffing shortage at CBP and ICE.
The Biden Administration agreed with two of them, but rejected
the first under the premise the Agency's staffing models are
already sufficient and that your report did not recognize all
the DHS initiatives to support its personnel. Do you agree with
that assessment?
Mr. Cuffari. No.
Mr. LaTurner. According to your report, between Fiscal Year
2019 and 2022, there was a 303-percent increase in known got-
aways. Is this occurring because there are no agents available
to respond?
Mr. Cuffari. According to the agents who are on the border,
yes.
Mr. LaTurner. Your report details that at one Southwest
Border station, 15 percent of got-aways in a five-day period
occurred because no agents were available to respond. How
common of an occurrence is that?
Mr. Cuffari. To my knowledge, it is a weekly occurrence.
Mr. LaTurner. What impact does the staffing shortage have
on efforts to combat human trafficking, drug smuggling, and
other illicit activities?
Mr. Cuffari. A negative impact.
Mr. LaTurner. Given the increasing demand for cybersecurity
expertise, what steps is the Department taking to recruit and
retain individuals with specialized skills in this area?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe the Department implemented a H.R.
program to provide additional funding, like an enhancement to
basic salary for those types of career fields, those jobs that
relate to that.
Mr. LaTurner. Are there any partnerships or collaborations
with educational institutions or industry to enhance
recruitment that you know of specifically?
Mr. Cuffari. Not that I am aware of, no.
Mr. LaTurner. OK. Your report also detailed CBP and ICE's
use of details and overtime as a staffing mechanism. How
efficient is this from a budget perspective, and is this an
approach that is the best use of taxpayer money?
Mr. Cuffari. It is driving a huge cost in terms of
expenditures of money to the Department.
Mr. LaTurner. My time is about to expire, but I just want
to thank you for being here today. I know you have put up with
a lot from the other side of the aisle. And the reason that I
am so pleased with you being here and the way in which you have
conducted yourself is because you have given short answers that
center on the facts and the truth as you have observed it, and
I appreciate that. You can ask any of my colleagues up here.
You know you are getting the runaround when answers are really,
really long and do not allow for you to get to all the
questions that you have. So, I appreciate you being here today,
and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cuffari. Thank you.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Ms. Porter?
Ms. Porter. Hello, Inspector General Cuffari. I want to ask
you about the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Are you
aware of a domestic intelligence program under OIA that allowed
Homeland Security individuals to interview just about anyone in
the United States to gather human intelligence?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe we have an audit into that.
Ms. Porter. You have an ongoing audit?
Mr. Cuffari. I believe.
Ms. Porter. When was it initiated?
Mr. Cuffari. We are going to have to get back to you,
ma'am.
Ms. Porter. Have you conducted any other oversight of this
program, the Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program,
specifically?
Mr. Cuffari. Not that I am aware of, no.
Ms. Porter. Are you aware of this political article from
March 6 of this year, ``DHS Has a Program Gathering Domestic
Intelligence and Virtually No One Knows About It?''
Mr. Cuffari. I am not certain that I have seen that one.
Ms. Porter. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter this into
the record.
Ms. Porter. This program gives government officials broad
discretion to interview any civilian for any reason that they
want. Does it concern you that some employees working in this
program are so worried about the legality of their actions that
they wanted legal liability insurance?
Mr. Cuffari. That would certainly be a concern.
Ms. Porter. Are you aware of the workings of this program?
Mr. Cuffari. No.
Ms. Porter. Given that it made national news multiple
times, why have you not undertaken an audit of this program in
the past?
Mr. Cuffari. As I mentioned, I am going to have to get back
to you, ma'am. About when we did or did not open an audit, I am
not certain.
Ms. Porter. As you go about that work, let me give you some
facts. There was a survey in 2020. There were 126 respondents,
so this is three years ago. Half of the respondents said they
alerted managers about their concerns that their work involved
activity that was inappropriate or illegal. Are you aware of
this survey?
Mr. Cuffari. No.
Ms. Porter. The slide deck put together by the Department
responded to this fact that half of all respondents said they
were concerned their work was inappropriate or illegal. The
slide deck said, ``There is an opportunity to work with
employees to address concerns they have about the
appropriateness or lawfulness of a work activity.'' Do you
think it is appropriate for your Agency to work with employees
about their concerns about lawfulness, or do you think that
your office should be making sure the program is actually
lawful?
Mr. Cuffari. The program that you described, it appears to
be at main DHS, so not within the Office of the Inspector
General.
Ms. Porter. Correct. But you as the Inspector General, sir,
is your job, like, not to do oversight of main DHS?
Mr. Cuffari. Oh, most certainly.
Ms. Porter. OK. So, I am asking you about a program of DHS,
and I would like to know why you have not conducted any
oversight of it at this time.
Mr. Cuffari. I thank you for making us aware of it.
Ms. Porter. You were not aware?
Mr. Cuffari. I was not.
Ms. Porter. Are you aware that this program was
interviewing incarcerated individuals without their counsel
present?
Mr. Cuffari. No, ma'am.
Ms. Porter. Is that constitutional?
Mr. Cuffari. It is unconstitutional.
Ms. Porter. So, can I have you promise that you will
conduct an investigation into this program?
Mr. Cuffari. You have my commitment that if we do not have
an ongoing audit, we will look into the matter that you are
describing.
Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, Mr. Cuffari.
Mr. Cuffari. You are welcome.
Ms. Porter. I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. OK. In closing, I would like to thank our
panelist for his important and insightful testimony. I will
yield to Ranking Member Garcia for his closing remarks.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all of
my colleagues today for their hard work and certainly to
holding our witness accountable for the long history of
partisan and improper behavior, for the mishandling of the
January 6 investigation, and for his inability to do his
critical, important job to its standards.
I want to remind the Committee that this whole hearing is
premised on a nonstatistical survey and an opinion article that
is disguised as serious oversight. The report is ``a non-
statistical survey,'' that cannot be projected to the entire
population of CBP and ICE law enforcement officers and
agents.'' This is, again, a report that would not hold muster
in any serious survey work. Without making this hearing a
lesson on statistical methods and data integrity, if you are
not willing to put in place data controls or use the
foundational basics of statistics, you are left with the
equivalent of a Twitter poll or a Yelp review.
Now, I spent some time studying statistical methods when I
did my doctoral work, and this work and this report would never
be accepted in a basic stats class. This is not about data from
the Department of Homeland Security as you claimed in response
to my earlier question. This is about the methods that you
chose to publish publicly to push a political argument. This
report indicates that you knew the fundamental problems with
the report, yet you published it anyway.
Now, our Committee relies on the work of dedicated
inspector generals to root out against waste, fraud, and abuse.
I also just want to note, and this was actually a very
important note from earlier in the hearing, that I am extremely
concerned that today, in front of our Committee, and by the
way, that oversees the Federal Records Act, that you had
admitted to deleting Federal records based upon your own
determination. That should concern the Chairman and this entire
Committee.
Now, I personally have no confidence in your ability to
hold up the mission that you are intended to do. Now, coming
here with a study that does not meet the basic standards of
data reliability by your own admission should be an
embarrassment. An inspector general who does not understand his
own duties, who resists basic congressional oversight, who is
deleting Federal records, who is under investigation, and who
has lost the faith of his workforce has no business serving.
And before I close, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent
to include in the record a letter to both the Chairman and
myself from the Project on Government Oversight dated June 6,
2023, that speaks to the continued concerns with the Inspector
General and how his inability to perform his job is preventing
independent oversight. And I also ask unanimous consent to
include into the record a letter from September 2022 from
concerned DHS staff, representing every program office at every
level, to the President detailing the IG's troubling management
of the office, and I want to quote ``his disastrous
leadership.'' With that, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. OK. So ordered.
Mr. Grothman. I think we have kind of a lack of common
sense here. As Congressman Biggs said, he has had me down on
the border probably six or seven times by himself. I have been
down there at other times. We have a situation, which,
depending on the metric, contacts at the border, got-aways at
the border, people crossing into the border, unaccompanied
minors, the number of people coming here is, say, 8 to 10 times
what it was two years ago.
So common sense will tell you what the morale is of the
Border Patrol. When you have that many more people coming
across, you obviously have a hard time doing your job. A lot of
these people are little children. When I am down there, the
Border Patrol complains about having to kind of be a babysitter
instead of doing what they signed up to be, which is a law
enforcement agency.
They uniformly, by the way, say the biggest problem is not
the lack of personnel, although they say the lack of personnel
is a big problem. The biggest problem is the policies of the
Biden Administration and that they got rid of the Remain in
Mexico policy. And no matter how many people they have down
there, as long as they have this asylum policy, a huge number
of people are going to come in here.
Another thing that frustrates them is the degree to which
the Mexican cartels run the border. Last time I was down there,
me and Congressman Biggs ran into 21 people coming here from
Mexico. The reason they came there and the Border Patrol on the
way is because the Border Patrol was going to have to process
21 people, including two kids under the age of one. And while
they were busy processing them, it opened that segment of the
border because they were understaffed to people crossing the
border with illegal drugs, which leads to over 100,000
Americans dying every year of illegal drugs because we do not
have enough people to both process people and continue to guard
the border.
I will remind the Minority that 9,000 people were surveyed
here, but you do not need 9,000 people if you are down at the
border. You talk to 10 or 20 or 30 Border Patrol agents, you
all get the same thing. They are woefully understaffed. And the
Biden Administration, their policy when they got rid of Stay in
Mexico, was apparently they do not care how many people are
coming here, and that results in low morale because they signed
up to guard our border, and they are not allowed to guard our
border when you have over 100,000 people coming here.
And over time, the arrogance of the people coming here just
keeps getting worse. I am struck by Border Patrol telling me
people complaining that they have got concert tickets to go
somewhere next week and come on, Border Patrol, let's go, let's
go, let's go. And it is probably true, but that is who we have
coming across. It is so automatic.
So, in any event, I hope in the near budget we get more
Border Patrol agents down there so you cannot just send a few
families across, tie up the Border Patrol, and then people
coming across with drugs that are killing Americans. I also
hope somebody in the Biden Administration cares about the fact
that getting rid of the Stay in Mexico policy has made it so
difficult for these guys to do their jobs, but in any event, I
thank you for being here.
With that and without objection, all Members will have five
legislative days within which to submit materials and submit
additional written questions for the witness, which will be
forwarded to the witness for their response.
Mr. Grothman. If there is no further business, without
objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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