[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

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on June 6, 2023.....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

 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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