[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                        EXAMINING DHS'S FAILURE TO PREPARE FOR 
                             THE TERMINATION OF TITLE 42

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

                                HEARING

                              BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                            BORDER SECURITY
                            AND ENFORCEMENT

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              JUNE 6, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-15

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
                                     

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

                               __________
                               
                               
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
53-978 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                               
                               
                               
                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

                 Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas             Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, 
Clay Higgins, Louisiana                  Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi           Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Dan Bishop, North Carolina           Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida           Eric Swalwell, California
August Pfluger, Texas                J. Luis Correa, California
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York        Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Tony Gonzales, Texas                 Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Nick LaLota, New York                Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Mike Ezell, Mississippi              Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Anthony D'Esposito, New York         Robert Garcia, California
Laurel M. Lee, Florida               Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Morgan Luttrell, Texas               Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Dale W. Strong, Alabama              Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma              Dina Titus, Nevada
Elijah Crane, Arizona
                      Stephen Siao, Staff Director
                  Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
                       Natalie Nixon, Chief Clerk
                     Sean Jones, Deputy Chief Clerk
                                 
                                 ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT

                   Clay Higgins, Louisiana, Chairman
Michael Guest, Mississippi           J. Luis Correa, California, 
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia          Ranking Member
Tony Gonzales, Texas                 Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Morgan Luttrell, Texas               Robert Garcia, California
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma              Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee (ex     Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi 
    officio)                             (ex officio)
                Natasha Eby, Subcommittee Staff Director
       Brieana Marticorena, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
                  Halle Sarkisian, Subcommittee Clerk
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Clay Higgins, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Louisiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Border 
  Security and Enforcement:
  Oral Statement.................................................     1
  Prepared Statement.............................................     2
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
  Border Security and Enforcement:
  Oral Statement.................................................     3
  Prepared Statement.............................................     7
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on 
  Homeland Security:
  Prepared Statement.............................................     9

                               Witnesses

Mr. Blas Nunez-Neto, Assistant Secretary for Border and 
  Immigration Policy, Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, U.S. 
  Department of Homeland Security:
  Oral Statement.................................................    10
  Prepared Statement.............................................    11
Mr. Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman, Acting Deputy Commissioner, 
  Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland 
  Security:
  Oral Statement.................................................    18
  Prepared Statement.............................................    20

                             For the Record

The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
  Border Security and Enforcement:
  Article........................................................     4

                                Appendix

Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green for Blas Nunez-Neto........    43
Questions From Honorable Josh Breechen for Blas Nunez-Neto.......    43
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green for Benjamine ``Carry'' 
  Huffman........................................................    44
Questions From Honorable Josh Breechen for Benjamine ``Carry'' 
  Huffman........................................................    44

 
   EXAMINING DHS'S FAILURE TO PREPARE FOR THE TERMINATION OF TITLE 42

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, June 6, 2023

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                    Committee on Homeland Security,
           Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:14 p.m., in 
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Clay Higgins 
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Higgins, Guest, Greene, Luttrell, 
Brecheen, Correa, Thanedar, Garcia, and Ramirez.
    Also present: Representatives Pfluger, Crane, Clarke, and 
Green.
    Chairman Higgins. I thank my colleagues for joining us 
today. Welcome to the Subcommittee on Border Security and 
Enforcement hearing on Title 42 and the preparations leading up 
to Title 42.
    The purpose of today's hearing is to examine the Department 
of Homeland Security's--what we perceive as a failure to 
prepare for the termination of Title 42. We are going to 
discuss that today.
    I welcome our witnesses and I very much appreciate their 
professionalism and taking their time to be with us today. 
However, I am very disappointed that the Department of Homeland 
Security declined our request for a third witness, that being 
someone from senior chain with ICE, Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, and we are going to discuss why we believe that 
particular witness was withheld.
    I am also concerned that the witnesses' testimony, written 
testimony, was not made available to this committee until late 
in the evening yesterday, rather late at night, well after 
normal business hours, despite the deadline for written 
testimony being last Friday. We are going to inquire about that 
during the course of today's hearing, because what we seek, the 
truth, on this committee, requires transparency and cooperative 
effort. When we have a deadline for written testimony, that is 
when we expect to receive the written testimony. I suspect that 
our panelists provided that testimony, but it was slow rolled 
by the Department. We will see. We will dig into that today.
    So, despite what Secretary Mayorkas and other officials at 
DHS are advising the American public regarding the numbers 
being down, what we have come to observe is rather a shell game 
in the way numbers are actually documented and reported. The 
numbers of human beings crossing into America without 
appropriate documentation are indeed still at the record levels 
that we saw prior to the end of Title 42. But the 
classification of those human beings and the way they are 
brought into the country has been very cleverly changed by the 
administration, and we seek clarity on that today. We will ask 
questions extensively from both sides of the aisle, again 
seeking truth. There is no benefit to any of us to conceal the 
actual numbers and the truth regarding immigration, both legal 
and illegal.
    So to reclassify illegal entry as those that have entered 
by a legal pathway and then tell the American people the 
numbers are way down, we have this thing under control, this is 
misleading by design, and we are going to dig into that today.
    The CBP One app is being used as a type of asylum 
application very broadly, allowing those who register with it 
to move to the front of the line at ports of entry, be 
processed quickly into the United States as an asylum seeker 
without the normal asylum process and vetting. These migrants 
would have attempted to enter the United States between ports 
of entry and would have been considered illegal aliens and 
intercepted or encountered by Border Patrol between the ports 
of entry, but they are being pushed back. If they make it 
through the NGO's in Central America and Mexico, where many, 
many are being intercepted and quite effectively redirected 
through the ports of entry using a CBP One app. The ones that 
make it to the border are being turned around. Steady increase 
in what referred to as voluntary return. They are being sent 
back deeper into Mexico where they are received by NGO's, and 
they are assisted to fill out the CBP One app and then they are 
being bussed to the ports of entry and they are entering in 
that manner through what the administration is calling a legal 
pathway. So then they tell America that the numbers of illegal 
migrants are down. It is a shell game. We are going to expose 
it today. We are going to do so respectfully, but quite 
aggressively.
    I appreciate the opportunity to have presented this opening 
statement.
    I yield the balance of my time.
    [The statement of Chairman Higgins follows:]
                   Statement of Chairman Clay Higgins
    Good afternoon and welcome to the Subcommittee on Border Security 
and Enforcement hearing on Title 42. The purpose of today's hearing is 
to examine the Department of Homeland Security's failure to prepare for 
the termination of Title 42. I would like to welcome our witnesses from 
the Department of Homeland Security for being here today. While I 
appreciate the Department for making both these witnesses available for 
today's hearing, I am incredibly disappointed that the Department did 
not fulfill the committee's request for a third witness from 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
    Title 42 was a highly effective tool used to expel illegal aliens 
on public health grounds stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. While my 
colleagues and I knew the emergency authority would not be in effect 
indefinitely, the Biden administration had plenty of time to prepare 
for its ending, enforce existing immigration laws, and implement 
tougher restrictions to combat the continuing monumental increase of 
aliens presenting at the Southern Border.
    Days before the Biden administration's catastrophic end to Title 
42, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents encountered more 
than 10,000 illegal aliens for at least three consecutive days--a 
historic record! In addition, front-line Border Patrol agents saw a 
record number of known gotaways, as more and more aliens attempted to 
cross the U.S. and Mexico border and evade detection, including an 
increase in the apprehensions of individuals on the terrorist 
watchlist.
    While it is true that the number of alien apprehensions between 
ports of entry have fallen since Title 42 expired, per U.S. Border 
Patrol Chief Ortiz, that number is expected to rise again. As media 
reporting suggests, there are more than 25,000 aliens in shelters and 
makeshift encampments living in Mexico. Alarmingly, an estimated total 
of 657,000 individuals are either living, traveling, or intending to 
travel from other countries in the Western Hemisphere and are on track 
to reach the Southwest Border any day. Moreover, CBP is funneling 
aliens to ports of entry as evidenced by the rise in CBP's Office of 
Field Operations Nation-wide inadmissible numbers, which were 82,288 in 
February 2023--in comparison to the Trump administration pre-COVID, 
where the inadmissible number was at 24,269 in February 2020.
    Mere days after the termination of Title 42, the administration 
proudly proclaimed that its policies were highly effective in 
curtailing illegal immigration for the first part of 2023 by creating 
arguably illegal parole programs. What the administration does not want 
to publicly acknowledge is that most aliens claiming asylum will lose 
their claims in U.S. immigration courts. Thanks in large part to the 
Biden administration's de-prioritization of interior enforcement, many, 
if not the majority, of these aliens will not be removed or deported 
from the United States, despite breaking U.S. immigration law and being 
ordered removed by courts of law. The administration undoubtedly has 
the necessary tools available to deter and repel aliens coming to our 
borders and it outright refuses to utilize them, setting the United 
States up for an infiltration of illegal aliens into American 
communities.
    By failing to sufficiently prepare for the end of Title 42, the 
administration has announced to the world, and most significantly, our 
adversaries, that the United States is more vulnerable than ever 
before, as is evident by the increase of gotaways and those on the 
terrorist watchlists. Instead of accepting responsibility for their 
failure to secure the border, the Biden administration would rather 
play a dangerous game with American's sovereignty and safety. The 
administration's refusal to adequately respond to the border crisis 
will no longer be tolerated in a Republican-controlled Majority--enough 
is enough.
    With that, I yield back the balance of my time and look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses.

    Chairman Higgins. I recognize for his opening statement my 
friend and colleague, Ranking Member Correa.
    Mr. Correa. Chairman Higgins, first of all, let me thank 
you very much for holding this most important hearing. What we 
want to do is get down to the facts and make sure we know what 
is going on at the border.
    As policy makers on both sides of the aisle, we have to 
recognize the challenges we have as a Nation. It is important 
to start by looking back over the last few years and what we 
have seen to look forward as to what we can expect.
    Mr. Chairman, we have dealt with COVID-19, and America 
spent trillions in fighting COVID-19, and we did pretty well. 
In fact, our economy is doing better than any other economy in 
the world today. Record unemployment, worker shortages, and 
this is happening while, sadly, the rest of the world, the rest 
of all economies are really crumbling. Even the great China 
economy is having trouble getting back on its feet.
    I would like to submit, without objection, this article 
from The Wall Street Journal, talks about ``China's fading 
recovery reveals deeper economic struggles.''
    Chairman Higgins. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
           Article Submitted by Ranking Member J. Luis Correa
       China's Fading Recovery Reveals Deeper Economic Struggles
  ballooning debt, tepid consumption and worsening relations with the 
                west to weigh on growth, economists say
By Stella Yifan Xie and Jason Douglas
May 30, 2023 12:01 am ET
    China's era of rapid growth is over. Its recovery from zero-Covid 
is stalling. And now the country is facing deep, structural problems in 
its economy.
    The outlook was better just a few months ago, after Beijing lifted 
its draconian Covid-19 controls, setting off a flurry of spending as 
people ate out and splurged on travel.
    But as the sugar high of the reopening wears off, underlying 
problems in China's economy that have been building for years are 
reasserting themselves.
    The property boom and government overinvestment that fueled growth 
for more than a decade have ended. Enormous debts are crippling 
households and local governments. Some families, worried about the 
future, are hoarding cash.
    Chinese leader Xi Jinping's crackdowns on private enterprise have 
discouraged risk-taking, while deteriorating relations with the West--
exemplified by a new campaign against international due diligence and 
consulting firms--are stifling foreign investment.
    Economists say these worsening structural problems are hobbling 
China's chances of extending the growth miracle that transformed it 
into a rival to the U.S. for global power and influence.
    Instead of expanding at 6 percent to 8 percent a year as was common 
in the past, China might soon be heading toward growth of 2 percent or 
3 percent, some economists say. An aging population and shrinking 
workforce compound its difficulties.
    China could drive less global growth this year and beyond than many 
business leaders expected, making the country less important for some 
foreign companies, and less likely to significantly surpass the U.S. as 
the world's biggest economy.
    ``The disappointing recovery today really suggests that some of the 
structural drags are already in play,'' said Frederic Neumann, chief 
Asia economist at HSBC.
    China's economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.5 percent in the 
first quarter, boosted by the end of Covid-era restrictions.
    Yet more recent signals suggest the revival is ebbing. Retail sales 
rose 0.5 percent in April compared with March. A bundle of data on 
factory output, exports and investment came in much weaker than 
economists were expecting.
    More than a fifth of Chinese youths aged 16 to 24 were unemployed 
in April. E-commerce companies Alibaba and JD.com reported lackluster 
first-quarter earnings. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, dominated by 
Chinese companies, is down 5.2 percent year to date, and the yuan has 
weakened against the U.S. dollar.
    Most economists don't expect China's problems to lead to recession, 
or derail the government's growth target of around 5 percent this year, 
which is widely seen as easily achievable given how weak the economy 
was last year.
    McDonald's and Starbucks have said they are opening hundreds of new 
restaurants in China, while retailers including Ralph Lauren are 
launching new stores.
    A boom in electric-vehicle production allowed China to surpass 
Japan as the world's largest exporter of vehicles in the first quarter. 
Beijing's industrial policies and China's manufacturing prowess mean it 
is still finding ways to succeed in some major industries.
    ``We still have confidence in the long-term growth story of 
China,'' said Phillip Wool, head of research at Rayliant Global 
Advisors, an asset manager with $17 billion under management. He said 
the country's transition to one that relies more on domestic 
consumption instead of exports will help keep it on track.
    Still, many economists are growing more worried about China's 
future.
    The big hope for this year was that Chinese consumers would step up 
spending, as the main drivers of China's past growth--investment and 
exports--languish.
    But while people are spending somewhat more after almost 3 years of 
tough Covid-19 controls, China isn't experiencing the kind of surge 
other economies enjoyed when they emerged from the pandemic.
    Consumer confidence is low. More important, some economists say, is 
that Beijing hasn't been able to meaningfully change Chinese consumers' 
long-running propensity to save rather than spend--a response to a 
threadbare social-safety net that means families must sock away more 
for medical bills and other emergencies.
    Chinese household consumption accounts for around 38 percent of 
annual gross domestic product, according to United Nations data, 
compared with 68 percent in the U.S.
    ``Consumer-led growth has always been a bit of an aspirational 
target'' for China, said Louise Loo, China lead economist in Singapore 
at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. Now, it might be even harder to 
achieve, she said, given how cautious Chinese consumers are coming out 
of the pandemic.
    Although Beijing is trying to make it easier to borrow this year, 
lending data indicate households prefer to pay down debt than take on 
new loans.
    In March, Zi Lu dipped into her dowry and paid off the remaining 
1.2 million yuan, equivalent to about $170,000, on her mortgage for an 
apartment she bought in Shanghai 2 years ago. Working for an e-commerce 
retailer, she said sales have been underwhelming this year. Lu said she 
is anxious and wants to reduce her debt burden.
    ``I'm scared of getting laid off out of the blue,'' she said.
    Also looming over the economy is its massive debt pile.
    Between 2012 and 2022, China's debt grew by $37 trillion, while the 
U.S. added nearly $25 trillion. By June 2022, debt in China reached 
about $52 trillion, dwarfing outstanding debt in all other emerging 
markets combined, according to calculations by Nicholas Borst, director 
of China research at Seafarer Capital Partners.
    As of last September, total debt as a share of GDP hit 295 percent 
in China, compared with 257 percent in the U.S., data from the Bank for 
International Settlements shows. Viewing the debt buildup as a threat 
to financial stability, Xi has made deleveraging a centerpiece of his 
economic policy since 2016, weighing on growth.
    To help deflate the country's housing bubble, regulators imposed 
strict borrowing limits for property developers from late 2020. 
Property development investment fell 5.8 percent in the first quarter 
of this year despite policy efforts to stem the pace of the slide.
    Two-thirds of local governments are now in danger of breaching 
unofficial debt thresholds set by Beijing to signify severe funding 
stress, according to S&P Global calculations. Cities across the country 
from Shenzhen to Zhengzhou have cut benefits for civil servants and 
delayed salary payments in some cases for teachers.
    These problems are deepening when China's appeal as a destination 
for foreign firms is waning, data show, as tensions rise with the U.S.-
led West.
    Foreign direct investment into China tumbled 48 percent in 2022 
compared with a year earlier, to $180 billion, according to Chinese 
data, while FDI as a share of China's GDP has slipped to less than 2 
percent, from more than double that a decade ago.
    Competition for investment with countries including India and 
Vietnam is heating up as firms seek to diversify supply chains, partly 
in response to the risk of disruption from conflict between the U.S. 
and China.
    Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce 
in China, said uncertainty over China's long-term economic prospects is 
another factor in companies' investment decisions.
    ``Naturally, it dampens the willingness to go out and invest in 
additional capacity if you are not super optimistic about the economic 
outlook,'' he said.
    Reforms to foster more productive, private-sector activity have 
stalled under Xi, who is placing greater emphasis on security than 
economic growth. Beijing has tightened regulation of sectors including 
technology, private education and real estate, leaving many business 
owners unwilling to invest more.
    In the first 4 months of this year, fixed-asset investment made by 
private firms grew 0.4 percent from a year earlier, compared with 5.5 
percent growth in the same period in 2019.
    Chinese leaders have dialed up rhetoric to reassure entrepreneurs 
and investors. Li Qiang, China's No. 2 official and new premier, said 
in March that China will open further to foreign players, and told 
Communist Party officials to treat private entrepreneurs as ``our own 
people.''
    Economists are split over whether policymakers, who have held off 
on launching large-scale stimulus as they did in 2008 and 2015, will 
resort to more aggressive stimulus now. Some, including economists from 
Citigroup, expect China's central bank to cut interest rates in the 
coming months to lift sentiment.
    Others say that Beijing's restraint stems from fear of compounding 
already-high debt levels, and that more stimulus might do little to 
trigger demand for credit anyway.
    Jeff Bowman, chief executive of Cocona, which makes temperature-
regulating materials used in apparel and bedding, said he is still 
optimistic about China. He said that during a recent 2-week business 
trip to Taiwan and China, customers who were focused on China's 
domestic market were far more upbeat than their counterparts exporting 
to the U.S. or Europe, who he said ``are hurting for sure.''
    He said that Cocona, based in Boulder, Colo., plans to set up a 
subsidiary in China to expand its business there.
    But many analysts still wonder where the growth will come from.
    ``The big question is, have we reached the point where awareness of 
the structural slowdown is becoming a near-term issue for confidence? 
Then it's a bit of a vicious cycle,'' said Michael Hirson, head of 
China research at 22V Research, a New York-based consulting firm.

    Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    What we now have is a world-wide economic crisis that has 
led to world-wide economic crisis. There has never been more 
misplaced individuals probably in the last 100, 200 years in 
this world. World War II, 60 million individuals on the move. 
Today we have confirmed it, a greater number of individuals 
moving throughout the world displaced. This chart, if I can, 
from the U.N. Refugee Agency, shows the number of displaced 
persons, those in need of international protection and asylum 
seekers just in the Americas. As you can see from this chart, 
countries around the region, in this region, are suffering the 
challenge of refugees. Mexico is dealing with the refugee 
crisis within its borders, struggling. Guatemala is struggling. 
Europe, of course, is also feeling the stress. Further south in 
Colombia, not only is it hosting 2.5 million Venezuelan 
refugees, but others as well. Of course, these refugees are 
facing terrible conditions as they move north, looking for 
safety and opportunity.
    This next picture I am going to show you is of a little 
girl struggling to continue north across the Darien Gap. She is 
separated from her mother and is being helped by another 
refugee trying to survive in that very dangerous region as they 
move north. If those refugees are willing to take that journey 
north, you know there is desperation.
    So when we look at the post-COVID-19 world, we have to look 
at the challenges as a Nation. Let me start by saying Title 42 
was a pandemic policy that was supposed to end when COVID ended 
as well. The party in charge of the House Representatives voted 
to end the COVID-19 pandemic and in doing so, voted to end or 
lift Title 42. I have to say I agree with them because Title 42 
is an issue dealing with pandemics, health issues, and not an 
immigration instrument tool.
    Looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today about 
the recent encounters at the border. I ask again that you talk 
about the numbers. As you do, you keep in mind the current 
challenges and the upcoming challenges, because this refugee 
challenge is not going away.
    I have been to Central America and those nations, their 
infrastructures are devastated, and it is going to take a lot 
to get them back on their feet.
    Also nearby, I visited all the CPB facilities that I could 
over the last few months on our Southern Border in the months 
leading up to the lifting of Title 42. I have also visited San 
Diego before and after 42. On every trip I would take, I would 
ask our officers at the border, are we prepared for May 11? Are 
we ready? They would say, yes, we are, to the best of our 
ability and based on assumptions that we have made on the 
numbers of individuals we are assuming will be here. You know 
what? They did a really good job. It wasn't just CBP, it was 
DHS, State Department, the administration, they did a good job.
    In those first few days after Title 42 ended, the 
encounters dropped at the border by more than half. In fact, if 
you look at this next chart, those are the numbers reported by 
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz showing more than a 50 percent 
drop in encounters since the ending of 42. These numbers 
continue to remain lower than what they were seeing earlier 
this spring, despite the fact that there is usually a normal 
increase at this time of the year, that is a seasonal increase.
    Let me just repeat some of the things the administration 
did. They opened up regional processing centers in which CBP 
agents told me that they were very helpful in managing the 
capacity of processing individuals at the border, the 
administration created legal pathways for Venezuelans, Cubans, 
Haitians, and Nicaraguans to enter the United States legally, 
the administration sent active-duty military personnel to help 
with the logistics and expected surges at the border. By the 
way, California sent the National Guard and Texas sent the 
National Guard as well.
    While I disagree with some of the consequences put in place 
at the border, some of the penalties in place at the border 
following the end of Title 42, they appear to be part of what 
has happened at the border today. I would say that as a body, 
as a legislative body, we have got a lot of work to do. The 
refugee crisis is not going away. It has got to be addressed 
with on a continent basis. South of the border, these are our 
neighbors, they are not going to move, they are going to be 
hanging out for a while. We have to address the challenges 
south of the border.
    I would welcome the Chairman and others to visit with me 
countries south of the border to address the root causes of 
migration, to make sure that we prepare for the long-term. We 
can fight each other, point at each other, but we are talking 
about solutions in our continent, in our backyard. Though we 
roll up our sleeves and figure it out, we are going to continue 
to bicker and fight amongst each other and nothing is going to 
get done long-term.
    So today, from our witnesses, I look forward to hearing 
your testimony. What you think has led to this--Mr. Chairman, I 
am not going to say a decline--but management of the border, 
was there a decline, what were the solutions you put in place, 
and what we can expect going forward?
    Again, I don't believe this chapter is over in this refugee 
crisis. COVID-19 is still with us, it has devastated the 
continent, the world, and we are the only game in town. Like it 
or not, we are the greatest, strongest economy in the world.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I want to thank you for my time and I 
turn over to you.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Correa follows:]

               Statement of Ranking Member J. Luis Correa
                              June 6, 2023
    It's important to start by looking back over the last few years to 
see where we've been. And we need to look at where we are and look 
forward to see what we need to prepare for.
    Chairman, we've dealt with COVID-19. America spent trillions in 
fighting COVID. And as a Nation, we have done pretty well in the 
aftermath.
    In fact, our economy is doing so well that we have a record low 
unemployment rate and worker shortages. This is happening while the 
rest of the world's economies are stumbling. Even China, the second-
largest economy in the world, is stumbling. I'd like to submit for the 
record one article talking about China and its post-COVID-19 pandemic 
woes.
    What we have now is a world-wide refugee crisis, like the world has 
never seen. There are more displaced individuals than there were in 
World War II--about 60 million then. Today, the number is much greater 
number.
    This chart from UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, shows the number of 
displaced persons, those in need of international protection and asylum 
seekers in the Americas. You can see countries across the region are 
experiencing unprecedented numbers.
    This is not America's problem, it's the world's challenge.
    Mexico is dealing with refugees within its borders. Canada has 
issues as well. Guatemala is feeling the stress of refugees. Europe is 
also feeling the stress. Further south, Columbia is hosting about 2.5 
million Venezuelan refugees. Refugees are braving terrible conditions 
to find safety and opportunity.
    I'd like to show this picture of a little girl struggling to 
continue on in the Darien Gap to show just some of the conditions 
refugees are willing to overcome to find safety.
    If they are willing to endure this, we can only imagine what home 
must be like. So, when we look at the post-COVID world, let's look at 
challenges ahead of us as a Nation.
    Let me start by saying that Title 42 was a pandemic policy 
supposedly intended to protect the public from COVID-19. The party in 
charge of House of Representatives voted to end the COVID-19 pandemic 
health emergency. Thus, my Republican colleagues voted to lift Title 
42. And let me say, I agree with them. Title 42 should not be used as 
an immigration or border management tool.
    I'm looking forward to hearing from our witnesses about recent 
encounter numbers. I ask that as you talk about the numbers, you keep 
in mind the current challenge of world-wide migration. This is not 
going away and this issue will require a long-term perspective.
    While we heard a lot of fear about what might happen post-Title 42, 
the numbers of migrants we are seeing at the border actually dropped. 
We were told just last week that there is now significant capacity 
available in Border Patrol facilities. It's clear this administration 
has taken extensive steps to prepare for the end of Title 42.
    I visited CBP facilities across the Southern Border in the months 
leading up to end of Title 42. And I visited the border in San Diego 
just days after it ended.
    On every trip I made I would ask the officers and agents ``Are we 
prepared for May 11? Are we prepared for when Title 42 ends?''
    They would say ``Yes we are prepared. But there is the great 
unknown and we continue to prepare for all possible scenarios.''
    They did the best they could, and they were ready.
    It wasn't just CBP. It was DHS, the State Department, and this 
administration more broadly. And it looks like they did a pretty good 
job.
    In those first few days after Title 42 ended, encounter numbers 
dropped by more than half. In fact, if you look at this chart, these 
are the numbers reported publicly by Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz 
showing more than a 50 percent drop in encounters since the ending of 
Title 42. That significant drop in the chart is when Title 42 ended.
    Numbers remain significantly lower than what they were seeing 
earlier this Spring, despite the fact that numbers normally increase at 
this time of year. Yet this hearing is entitled ``Examining DHS's 
Failure to Prepare for the Termination of Title 42.'' It's an 
interesting title. I'd like to recap some of the actions this 
administration took to prepare.
    The administration is opening Regional Processing Centers, which 
CBP agents have told me will be incredibly helpful in managing the 
capacity and processing individuals at the ports of entry.
    The administration created legal pathways for Venezuelans, Cubans, 
Haitians, and Nicaraguans to enter the United States legally.
    The administration sent active-duty military personnel to help with 
logistics and surged additional resources from DHS to manage increased 
encounters.
    The administration expanded access to the CBP One app and increased 
efforts to combat misinformation and stop transnational criminal 
organizations and smugglers from taking advantage of vulnerable 
migrants and those who seek to traffic drugs into the United States. 
While I disagree with some of the consequences put in place, our border 
was not overwhelmed following the end of Title 42. Again, we've seen a 
significant decrease in encounters at the border.
    There is still more we can do to improve our border security and 
reform our immigration system. We need to be prepared if numbers do 
increase in the future. Because this isn't a short-term challenge. We 
need to come up with more incentives for refugees to apply for 
admission to the United States before approaching our borders. We have 
to refocus on the economies of the world that have been devastated, 
with particular attention to our North American continent, and our 
neighbors to the south. And of course, we have to address immigration 
reform, and the demand for workers by an economically vibrant American 
economy.

    Chairman Higgins. I thank my friend, Ranking Member Correa.
    Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening 
statements may be submitted for the record.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]

        Prepared Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
                              June 6, 2023
    We are here today to discuss the Department's readiness for the end 
of Title 42. Despite this hearing's title, the administration did, in 
fact, prepare for the end of Title 42. And that preparation has been 
successful. But let's start by acknowledging that Title 42 was a 
pandemic-era policy. And that Republicans in the House voted to end the 
public health emergency, which means they voted to end Title 42.
    Under Title 42, hundreds of thousands of migrants were denied due 
process and access to the lawful asylum system. Migrants have the legal 
right to request protection under U.S. law, and I am glad to see we 
have transitioned back to regular immigration policy that allows for 
those laws to be followed. Nevertheless, terminating Title 42 was a 
complex undertaking that required significant planning.
    DHS and the Biden administration instituted a whole-of-Government 
approach more than a year-and-a-half ago to prepare for the end of 
Title 42. DHS and the administration surged resources, increased 
efficiencies, administered consequences for unlawful entry, bolstered 
capacity, disrupted criminal organizations, and collaborated with 
international and Federal partners to prepare for the end of Title 42.
    While my Republican colleagues may be disappointed with the lack of 
chaos at the border, the administration's actions led to a dramatic 
decrease in encounters with migrants at our Southwest Border following 
the end of Title 42. While the decrease in encounters is encouraging, 
we know that numbers may increase in the future.
    Our immigration system has been broken for decades and we must 
continue to work to address the problems that plague this system. This 
committee should help ensure the Department has the personnel and 
resources it needs to process migrants in an orderly and humane manner. 
Democrats have worked to ensure the Department has the resources needed 
to process migrants humanely and efficiently.
    Instead of helping the Department prepare and manage encounters on 
our Southwest Border, Republicans recently voted against authorizing 
the 1,700 CBP officers needed to increase capacity at our ports of 
entry. They also voted to cut 2,400 CBP officers and agents. And yet 
now, despite decreased encounters and the fact that they voted to end 
Title 42, they are trying to claim that the Department did not 
adequately prepare.
    I look forward to hearing from the witnesses on the state of the 
border post-Title 42, as well as the Department's extensive efforts to 
prepare for its termination.

    Chairman Higgins. I am pleased to have a distinguished 
panel of witnesses before us today on this very important topic 
and I ask that our witnesses please rise and raise your right 
hand.
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Chairman Higgins. Let the record reflect that the witnesses 
have answered in the affirmative.
    Thank you gentlemen, please be seated.
    I would like to now formally introduce our witnesses.
    Mr. Blas Nunez-Neto has been serving as the assistant 
secretary for border and immigration policy since October 1, 
2021. Mr. Nunez-Neto has nearly 20 years of homeland security 
experience and previously served as the chief operating officer 
at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
    Mr. Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman is the acting deputy 
commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where he 
oversees the daily operation of CBP's expansive mission, 
including matters related to trade, travel, and national 
security. Mr. Huffman entered duty with the U.S. Border Patrol 
on February 3, 1985 as a member of the Border Patrol Academy 
Class 173.
    I thank our witnesses for being here today, and I now 
recognize Assistant Secretary Nunez-Neto for 5 minutes to 
summarize his opening statement.

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

    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Correa, 
and distinguished Members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the 
opportunity to appear before you today.
    DHS led a comprehensive planning effort for more than 18 
months to prepare for the end of Title 42. This effort included 
record deployments of personnel, infrastructure, and resources 
to support our front line. We also developed a series of policy 
measures intended to disincentivize unlawful entries at the 
land border while incentivizing migrants to use safe, orderly, 
and lawful processes and pathways to come to the United States.
    The end of Title 42 on May 12 allowed DHS to once again 
impose consequences at the border. Unlike an expulsion under 
Title 42, removal under Title 8 carries with it a minimum 5-
year bar to reentry and the potential to be prosecuted for 
repeated re-entries. In the weeks since May 12, DHS has 
overseen a whole-of-Government effort that has reduced unlawful 
entries between our ports of entry by 70 percent. We did so 
even as Congress appropriated less than half of the $4.9 
billion that DHS requested to prepare for the end of Title 42.
    As part of these efforts, we strengthened the consequences 
for those who are apprehended crossing the border unlawfully 
through the new Lawful Pathways Rule. This rule places common-
sense conditions on asylum eligibility for migrants who do not 
use the lawful pathways and processes that we have dramatically 
expanded over the last year. Since May 12, USCIS has conducted 
a record number of credible fear interviews, more than 13,000, 
for migrants placed in expedited removal. We have repatriated 
over 38,400 single adults and families to more than 80 
countries, including over 1,400 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, 
Nicaragua, and Venezuela who were returned to Mexico under our 
Title 8 authorities. This is the first time in our bilateral 
history that the government of Mexico has allowed the 
repatriation of non-Mexican nationals at the border under our 
Title 8 authorities.
    DHS has made clear through these efforts that there are 
serious consequences for unlawful entry. However, consequences 
are by themselves not sufficient to deter migration. To be most 
effective, the consequences we enforce must be paired with 
incentives for migrants to use lawful processes. This 
administration has overseen a historic increase in access to 
lawful processes for migrants to come to the United States in a 
safe and orderly manner that takes them out of the hands of the 
drug cartels and the coyotes. These processes include 
supporter-based parole processes for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, 
Nicaragua, and Venezuela, which have significantly reduced 
unlawful entries at the border, they include a 300 percent 
increase since 2019 in temporary work visas available for 
migrants in the region, and a dramatic expansion of refugee 
resettlement in the Western Hemisphere. The recently-announced 
Safe Mobility offices in Guatemala and Colombia will also allow 
migrants to be referred to legal pathways, not just to the 
United States, but to other partner countries, including Canada 
and Spain, that are participating in this effort. We have also 
significantly expanded orderly access to our land border ports 
of entry through the CBP One mobile application, which allows 
us to process almost four times our pre-pandemic average of 
individuals at our land border ports of entry each day.
    Once again, the end result of this comprehensive effort has 
been a 70 percent decrease in unlawful entries between ports of 
entries since May 12. However, we know that the conditions in 
the hemisphere that are driving the unprecedented movement of 
people, not just to our country, but to countries throughout 
the region, are still present, and that the cartels and the 
coyotes will continue to weaponize disinformation to put 
migrants' lives at risk for profit.
    I'd like to conclude by noting that these surges in 
migration have now become a regular occurrence for more than a 
decade, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. 
Presidents of both parties have attempted to use their 
Executive authorities to address these challenges as we have. 
This, in turn, has invited litigation from both sides of the 
political spectrum and has resulted in courts across the 
country dictating border and immigration policy. It is 
abundantly clear that Executive action alone cannot solve the 
entrenched challenge of irregular migration in our region, and 
neither party can address its impact on our border by 
themselves. Until and unless the U.S. Congress comes together 
in a bipartisan way to address our broken immigration and 
asylum system, we will continue to see these surges in 
migration at our border.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today 
and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Nunez-Neto follows:]
                 Prepared Statement of Blas Nunez-Neto
                              June 6, 2023
                              introduction
    Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Correa, and distinguished Members 
of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 
today to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS or 
Department) on-going efforts to secure and manage our Nation's borders.
    I have been serving as the assistant secretary for border and 
immigration policy since March 26, 2023, having previously acted in 
this capacity since October 1, 2021. Prior to this role, I served as 
the chief operating officer at U.S. Customs and Border Protection 
(CBP), as well as the vice chair for the Secretary of Homeland 
Security's Southwest Border Taskforce.
    For more than 3 years, starting in March 2020, DHS enforced the 
public health order that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
(CDC) issued, under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, in response to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. On May 11, 2023, at 11:59PM ET, the public health 
emergency officially expired and the pandemic-era Title 42 public 
health order came to an end.
    DHS led a planning effort for more than 18 months to prepare for 
the end of the Title 42 public heath order. This effort included record 
deployments of personnel, infrastructure, and resources to support our 
front-line personnel as well as the development of a series of policy 
measures intended to disincentivize unlawful entries at the land border 
while incentivizing migrants to use safe, orderly, and lawful processes 
and pathways to come to the United States. In the weeks since May 12, 
DHS has executed on this plan by leading a whole-of-Government effort 
to ensure the safe, orderly, and humane management of the Nation's 
borders and the continued enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. We did 
so even as Congress failed to adequately fund these efforts, 
appropriating less than half of the $4.9 billion that DHS requested to 
prepare for the end of Title 42.
    The end of the Title 42 Order allowed DHS to fully return to 
processing all noncitizens under its long-standing Title 8 immigration 
authorities. DHS has strengthened the consequences for those who are 
apprehended crossing the border unlawfully, who are now subject to the 
Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule on asylum eligibility. Migrants 
who do not use the expanded lawful pathways and processes to come to 
the United States in a safe and orderly manner are subject to a 
rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility unless they meet an 
exception or are able to rebut the presumption.
    The result of this comprehensive planning effort has been a 
significant reduction in unlawful entries between ports of entry along 
our Southwest Border (SWB), which have decreased by more than 70 
percent since May 12. The plan we put forward is working. We are 
cognizant, however, that the conditions in the hemisphere that are 
driving unprecedented movements of people are still present and that 
the cartels and coyotes will continue to spread disinformation about 
any potential changes to policies at the border in order to put 
migrants' lives at risk for profit. We will remain vigilant and 
continue to execute our plan, making adjustments where needed.
    Surges in migration have been a regular occurrence for more than a 
decade under Republican and Democratic administrations. Presidents of 
both parties have attempted to use their Executive authorities to 
address these challenges--as we have. This, in turn, has invited 
litigation from both sides of the political spectrum and has resulted 
in courts across the country dictating border and immigration policy in 
ways that are contradictory and detrimental to our ability to manage 
the border. It is abundantly clear that Executive action cannot solve 
the entrenched challenge of migration in our region, and that neither 
party can address its impact on our border by itself. Until and unless 
Congress comes together in a bipartisan way to address our broken 
immigration and asylum system, we will continue to see surges in 
migration at our border.
                    contextualizing migratory flows
    There are more people displaced throughout the world today than at 
any other time since World War II. Violence, food insecurity, severe 
poverty, corruption, climate change, the fall-out of the COVID-19 
pandemic, and dire economic conditions have all contributed to a 
significant increase in irregular migration around the globe. In the 
Western Hemisphere, failing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, 
and Nicaragua, along with an on-going humanitarian crisis in Haiti, 
have driven millions of people from those countries to leave their 
homes. Moreover, violence, corruption, and the lack of economic 
opportunity--challenges that are endemic throughout the region--are 
driving many others from countries as diverse as Colombia, Ecuador, 
Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru to make the dangerous journey to our 
border.
    Transnational criminal organizations encourage and facilitate these 
migratory flows, spreading disinformation about what individuals will 
encounter along the route and at our border, so they can exploit 
migrants as part of a billion-dollar criminal enterprise. The 
increasing role that drug cartels are playing in human smuggling 
throughout the region is particularly concerning given their complete 
disregard for human life, which has led to tragedies in the United 
States, Mexico, and other countries.
    The increased migratory flows at our border are a direct result of 
global trends that have been building for many years. Historically, 
encounters along the SWB in the 1980's and 1990's consisted 
overwhelmingly of single adults from Mexico, most of whom were 
migrating for economic reasons and regularly crossed back and forth 
across the border. Until the early 2000's, annual encounters routinely 
numbered more than a million. In the early 2010's, after three decades 
of bipartisan investments in border security and strategy, encounters 
along the SWB reached modern lows, averaging fewer than 400,000 per 
year from 2011 to 2017. However, even during this period of relatively 
low encounters, DHS faced significant surges in migration by 
unaccompanied children in 2014, and family units in 2016, which 
strained our operations given the unique challenges posed by those 
demographics. Between 2017 and 2019, encounters along the SWB more than 
doubled, and--following a significant drop during the beginning of the 
COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down travel across the world and 
depressed migration--continued to increase in 2021 and 2022.
    In fiscal year 2021, encounters at the SWB reached levels not seen 
since the early 2000's, with a total of 1.7 million encounters. In 
fiscal year 2022, DHS reached a high-water mark for encounters at the 
SWB with 2.4 million total encounters. A surge in migration of 
nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) accounted 
for more than two-thirds of the increase in encounters from fiscal year 
2021 to fiscal year 2022. DHS encountered more than 626,000 CHNV 
nationals in fiscal year 2022 comprising 26 percent of total encounters 
and 35 percent of unique encounters--by far the highest proportion 
these groups had ever accounted for. This surge was largely driven by 
deteriorating conditions in these countries, as well as DHS's general 
inability to impose immigration consequences on nationals from these 
countries that were encountered at the border because of the 
requirement to implement the Title 42 public health order. Venezuela 
does not allow repatriations via charter flights, which significantly 
limits DHS's ability to remove Venezuelan nationals. Nicaragua and Cuba 
have historically placed restrictions on the number of charter flights 
that DHS can operate. DHS has, however, recently restarted removal 
flights to Cuba, conducting two individual flights on April 24 and May 
10--the first since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While 
DHS does continue to operate removal flights to Haiti, the 
deteriorating security, economic, and political situation on the ground 
there, including the security situation at the Port-au-Prince airport, 
has raised operational challenges in doing so at particular times.
    These historic challenges were exacerbated by the unpredictable 
impacts that the application of Title 42 at the SWB had on migration in 
our hemisphere. Because Title 42 expulsions had no immigration 
consequence for migrants, these expulsions did not have the same impact 
as traditional Title 8 processing. Unlike a Title 42 expulsion, a 
removal under Title 8 carries with it at least a 5-year bar to 
admission, among other legal consequences such as potential criminal 
prosecution for repeated entries. The application of Title 42 at the 
border--which DHS was required by a court order to continue to 
implement after the CDC initially determined it should have been ended 
in April 2022--may have actually increased border encounters, 
particularly for single adults expelled to Mexico. This is due to the 
significant increase in recidivism--or multiple encounters of the same 
person--observed for individuals processed under Title 42 as compared 
to those processed under Title 8 authorities. From the start of the 
pandemic and the initiation of Title 42 expulsions through December 31, 
2022, 39 percent of all Title 42 expulsions were followed by a re-
encounter of the same individual within 30 days, compared with a 30-day 
re-encounter rate of 9 percent for Title 8 repatriations. Similarly, 
the 12-month re-encounter rates were 51 percent for Title 42 expulsions 
versus 20 percent for Title 8 repatriations. Overall, in April 2023, 26 
percent of encounters at the SWB involved individuals who had at least 
one prior encounter during the previous 12 months, compared to an 
average 1-year re-encounter rate of 14 percent for fiscal year 2014-
2019.
     a whole-of-government approach to manage and secure the border
    DHS led a comprehensive all-of-Government effort to prepare for the 
end of the Title 42 public health order that lasted more than a year-
and-a-half. In the Fall of 2021, DHS began contingency planning efforts 
that included building an operational plan and conducting regular 
interagency tabletop exercises. Through the Southwest Border 
Coordination Center (SBCC), formally launched in February 2022, DHS 
leveraged its components, including CBP, U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 
U.S. Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 
in coordination with interagency partners across the Federal 
Government, to strategically position resources and accelerate 
processing efficiencies that enable DHS to better manage the 
operational environment along the SWB. DHS is also working closely with 
the Department of State (DOS) to engage partners in the region to 
streamline repatriation processes, increase removal flights, and 
address migratory flows downstream.
    In April 2022, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas 
issued the DHS Plan for Southwest Border Security and Preparedness, 
laying out a six-pillar plan to manage an increase in encounters once 
the Title 42 Order was no longer in effect. DHS updated this 
comprehensive plan in December 2022, and continues to build upon the 
impact DHS has seen as a result of these efforts, which include: (1) 
Surging resources, including personnel, transportation, medical 
support, and facilities to support border operations; (2) increasing 
CBP processing efficiency and moving with deliberate speed to mitigate 
potential overcrowding at U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) stations and to 
alleviate the burden on the surrounding border communities; (3) 
administering consequences for unlawful entry, including removal, 
detention, and prosecution; (4) bolstering the capacity of non-
governmental organizations (NGO's) to receive noncitizens after they 
have been processed by CBP and are awaiting the results of their 
immigration proceedings; as well as ensuring appropriate coordination 
with and support for State, local, and community leaders to help 
mitigate increased impacts to their communities; (5) targeting and 
disrupting the transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and 
smugglers who take advantage of and profit from vulnerable migrants, 
and who seek to traffic drugs into the United States; and (6) deterring 
irregular migration south of the border, in partnership with the DOS, 
other Federal agencies, and nations throughout the Western Hemisphere, 
to ensure responsibility sharing. This robust plan leverages a whole-
of-Government approach to prepare for and manage potential increases in 
encounters of noncitizens at the SWB.
    At our current funding level, DHS has:
   Surged personnel to reinforce the more than 24,000 USBP and 
        Office of Field Operations (OFO) personnel at the border, with 
        approximately 1,000 law enforcement officers from across the 
        DHS network, as well as other Federal agencies, thousands of 
        contract personnel, 1,500 active-duty military personnel, and 
        hundreds of volunteers from across DHS and interagency 
        partners.
   Dedicated and retrained more than 1,000 USCIS officers to 
        conduct credible fear interviews of migrants encountered at the 
        border, allowing DHS the ability to more quickly provide relief 
        to those who are eligible and expeditiously remove those who 
        are not.
   Enhanced surveillance capacity by adding 81 new autonomous 
        surveillance towers since the start of fiscal year 2022 for a 
        current total of 223. The President's fiscal year 2024 budget 
        also requests more than $500 million in border technology.
   Expanded CBP temporary holding capacity at the border by 
        nearly 50 percent, from 13,230 in January 2021 to over 19,000 
        today.
   Made available several thousand detention beds in the ICE 
        network by updating guidelines to reflect the latest CDC 
        guidance regarding congregate settings in detention facilities.
   Increased contracted medical personnel by 75 percent since 
        the start of fiscal year 2022.
   Arrested nearly 10,000 smugglers and disrupted thousands of 
        human smuggling operations, such as raiding smuggler stash 
        houses, impounding tractor trailers that are used to smuggle 
        migrants, and confiscating smugglers' information technology.
    We have also been working closely with the DOS and countries 
throughout the hemisphere--including Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, 
Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama--to expand efforts to counter human 
smuggling organizations, humanely secure borders, increase labor 
mobility, and expand protection and lawful pathways for intending 
migrants. A key part of this coordination with foreign partners has 
been working to increase our capacity to remove individuals who do not 
establish a legal basis to remain in the United States. These efforts 
have included significantly increasing the number of flights that ICE 
is able to operate to countries throughout the hemisphere--with the 
number of removal flights doubling or tripling for some countries--
while streamlining the requirements that countries place on operating 
those flights, and generally making it easier to repatriate 
individuals. As an example, we have increased the number of weekly 
flights that we can operate to countries such as Ecuador and Colombia 
from 2 and 1 in 2021, to 8 and 12 today, respectively.
    Through this planning effort and intensive international 
negotiations, DHS has repatriated--through removals, returns, and 
expulsions--record numbers of non-citizens over the past 2 years. Since 
January 2021, DHS repatriated 3.4 million individuals to 146 countries, 
including a record 1.5 million individuals in fiscal year 2022.
 new measures to effectively manage an orderly and humane immigration 
                                 system
    In addition to coordinating an all-of-Government response and 
surging personnel, infrastructure, and other resources to the border, 
DHS has taken a number of innovative policy steps that seek to change 
the calculus for intending migrants. These measures impose new 
consequences on individuals who cross the border unlawfully and do not 
qualify for an exception, while significantly expanding lawful pathways 
to incentivize noncitizens to use safe, orderly, and lawful pathways to 
come to the United States without having to put their lives in the 
hands of drug cartels and smugglers. As part of these efforts, we have 
also overseen the largest expansion in lawful pathways in decades even 
as we have set records for repatriations.
    As described above, most of the increase in encounters from fiscal 
year 2021 to fiscal year 2022 was driven by a surge in migration from 
CHNV nationals--countries for which the United States had limited 
ability to impose consequences on unlawful entry. In the fall of 2022, 
Venezuelan migrants began to take the extraordinarily dangerous path to 
our border in increasing numbers--a journey that goes through the most 
dangerous border crossing in the world, the Darien region, a jungle 
between Colombia and Panama. By early October 2022, DHS was 
encountering more than 1,100 Venezuelan migrants a day between ports of 
entry (POEs) and Panama was encountering roughly 4,000 a day exiting 
the Darien. In response to this challenge, DHS developed--in close 
coordination with the government of Mexico--an innovative approach that 
provided Venezuelans with a safe, orderly way to come to the United 
States and imposed new consequences on those who crossed unlawfully. 
Venezuelans who did not use this new process and were encountered at 
the land border would, for the first time, be returned to Mexico. As 
part of this process, U.S.-based supporters provide financial support 
for Venezuelan nationals who can be authorized to travel directly to 
the interior of the United States--after clearing national security and 
public safety vetting--to seek a discretionary grant of parole based 
after a case-by-case determination.
    The Venezuela process significantly reduced irregular migration to 
the border, and throughout the entire hemisphere. Two weeks after the 
announcement, encounters of Venezuelan nationals between POEs had 
declined to under 200 per day. This significant reduction continues 
today with a daily average of 162 the week ending June 2. Panama has 
seen a similarly dramatic decline in Venezuelans exiting the Darien, 
reflecting a paradigm shift in regional migratory flows.
    In November and December 2022, DHS began to see a surge in 
migration from nationals of Cuba and Nicaragua, with CHNV encounters 
between POEs peaking at 3,644 encounters on December 10. On January 5, 
2023, DHS announced the expansion of the Venezuela process to Cubans, 
Haitians, and Nicaraguans. Encounters of CHNV nationals between POEs at 
the SWB immediately declined, from a 7-day average of 1,231 on the day 
of the announcement on January 5, to a 7-day average of 205 2 weeks 
later. The reduction occurred even as encounters of other noncitizens 
began to rebound from their typical seasonal drop and represented a 
decline of 94 percent from the early December 10 peak; and CHNV 
encounters between POEs are even lower today, averaging 182 per day the 
week ending June 2, down 95 percent from the December peak.
    The significant decrease in unlawful entries after the 
implementation of the CHNV enforcement processes--a decrease that holds 
months later--demonstrates clearly that migrants will wait to utilize a 
safe, lawful, and orderly pathway to the United States if one is 
available, rather than putting their lives and livelihoods in the hands 
of ruthless smugglers.
    It is also true that smugglers will look for any opportunity to 
deceive migrants about U.S. law and immigration policies at the border 
in order to drive migration. We saw this phenomenon play out in the 
weeks leading up to the end of Title 42, when smugglers weaponized 
misinformation to convince migrants in Mexico that the United States 
was no longer returning Venezuelan nationals at the border and used the 
promise of heightened consequences starting on May 12 to convince 
migrants to part with their money and risk their lives to attempt to 
enter unlawfully before that date. This resulted in an increase in 
encounters of Venezuelan nationals to their highest levels since the 
implementation of the parole process in October 2022--even as 
encounters of Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans remained at 
historically low rates. Encounters of Venezuelans once again declined 
precipitously with the resumption of Title 8 processing and the 
implementation of stricter consequences for non-citizens who unlawfully 
cross the border into the United States. As noted above, after May 12 
CHNV encounters declined precipitously once again, to an average of 
fewer than 182 per day the week ending June 2.
    On May 12, 2023, after a robust regulatory process that included 
responding to more than 50,000 comments from the public, DHS and the 
Department of Justice began implementing the Circumvention of Lawful 
Pathways rule, which is designed to build on the success of the CHNV 
enforcement processes. The rule is designed to cut the transnational 
criminal organizations that prey on migrants out of the process, making 
migration safer and more orderly. Its provisions incentivize migrants 
to use the new and existing lawful processes that DHS has established 
and disincentivize dangerous border crossings by placing a common-sense 
condition on asylum eligibility for those individuals who fail to do 
so, and who do not otherwise qualify for an exception.
    Under the rule, individuals who circumvent the expanded lawful, 
safe, and orderly pathways into the United States--including the CHNV 
processes, the significant expansion in refugee and temporary work 
visas, and use of the CBP One mobile app to schedule a time and place 
to arrive at a port of entry--and also fail to seek protection in a 
country through which they traveled on their way to the United States, 
are subject to a rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility in the 
United States unless they meet specified exceptions. Individuals who 
cannot establish a valid claim to protection under the standards set 
out in the rule are subject to prompt removal under Title 8 
authorities, which carries at least a 5-year bar to admission to the 
United States and the potential to be criminally prosecuted for 
repeated unlawful entry.
    To implement the rule to the maximum extent possible, DHS has 
surged resources, including training more than 1,000 USCIS officers to 
support an unprecedented increase in credible fear interviews for those 
placed into expedited removal proceedings. This ambitious plan included 
adding more than 600 private interview spaces in CBP and ICE facilities 
to provide noncitizens in our custody who wish to consult with legal 
services providers the opportunity to do so--if legal service providers 
are available.
    Since May 12, USCIS has conducted more than 13,000 credible fear 
interviews--a record number of interviews conducted by USCIS personnel 
during a 3-week period.
    DHS has made clear through these efforts that there are 
consequences for unlawful entry. From May 12 to June 2, 2023, DHS 
repatriated over 38,400 noncitizens under Title 8 authorities, 
including single adults and families, to more than 80 countries. This 
includes over 1,400 noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and 
Venezuela who were returned to Mexico under Title 8 authorities--the 
first time in our bilateral history that the government of Mexico has 
allowed the repatriation of non-Mexican nationals at the border under 
Title 8 authorities.
    Consequences are, by themselves, not sufficient to deter migration. 
Migrants have, time and time again, shown that they are willing to 
endure unfathomable suffering for an opportunity to come to the United 
States. And our Nation has, for generations, been made stronger by 
those migrants that have come. To be effective, the consequences we 
apply must be paired with incentives for migrants to use lawful 
processes. This administration has overseen a historic increase in 
access to lawful processes for migrants to come to the United States in 
a safe, orderly, and lawful manner.
    The CHNV processes described above have allowed more than 130,000 
individuals who have U.S.-based supporters and have passed the 
requisite national security and public safety vetting, to come directly 
to the United States. We have significantly expanded the number of 
temporary work visas available for migrants in the region, especially 
in Northern Central American (NCA) countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, 
and Honduras, through the H-2A and H-2B programs. As of May 11, 2023, 
11,991 H-2B visas were issued to nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, 
Honduras, and Haiti. This is almost double the number of H-2B visas 
issued for these populations last fiscal year and a 300 percent 
increase compared to the entire fiscal year 2019.
    We have also dramatically expanded refugee resettlement in the 
Western Hemisphere, working in conjunction with the DOS. We resettled 
2,485 individuals in fiscal year 2022, a 521 percent increase over 
fiscal year 2021 and an 8-year high for the region. As of April 30, 
2023, we have already resettled 2,826 refugees from the Western 
Hemisphere--a nearly 20 percent increase over the total fiscal year 
2022 with 5 months left in the fiscal year. With the establishment of 
Safe Mobility Offices in South and Central America, we will 
significantly increase the number of individuals processed for refugee 
resettlement in the coming months and years.
    We have also significantly expanded access to our land border ports 
of entry. The CBP One mobile app, which is available to download for 
free to a mobile device, allows individuals of any nationality who are 
in Central or Northern Mexico to schedule an appointment to present at 
a POE along the SWB in a safe and orderly manner. The advance 
biographic and biometric information captured by the app allows CBP to 
significantly streamline its processes at the border, which in turn has 
allowed CBP to greatly increase its ability to process inadmissible 
individuals at land border POEs compared to its 2014-2019 pre-pandemic 
average. On June 1, CBP expanded the number of available daily 
appointments to 1,250 per day--almost 4 times our pre-pandemic average. 
These individuals have presented in a safe and orderly manner at a port 
of entry each day during their scheduled appointment time. Since its 
launch on January 18, 2023, more than 125,000 noncitizens have 
successfully scheduled an appointment to present at a designated POE 
through the CBP One app, and more than 109,000 of those appointments 
have been processed thus far at POEs along the SWB. This app, available 
in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, effectively cuts out the 
smugglers, decreases migrant exploitation, and improves safety and 
security in addition to making the process more efficient.
    We also recognize that the United States cannot address this issue 
on its own. As endorsed by the 21 countries that signed the Los Angeles 
Declaration on Migration and Protection in June last year, it is our 
collective responsibility to address the factors causing irregular 
migration throughout our hemisphere. A key pillar of these efforts 
includes DHS and DOS are continuing to deliver on our commitments by 
establishing Safe Mobility Offices in South and Central America, 
starting with Guatemala and Colombia, which formally announced their 
participation on June 1 and June 5, respectively. Safe Mobility Offices 
enable eligible individuals to begin the process of accessing 
protection and other lawful pathways to the United States or other 
partner countries including Canada and Spain.
    We have also seen governments in the region step up their 
enforcement measures since May 12. For instance, The GOM is also 
undertaking an unprecedented migration management effort on its 
Southern Border with Guatemala, and along key transit routes, and along 
our shared border. For its own sovereign reasons, the GOM continues to 
be a leader in the region when it comes to innovative and balanced 
efforts to manage migration. The government of Guatemala (GOG) has also 
taken important steps to address migratory flows. In addition to our 
work together to establish safe mobility offices, the GOG has augmented 
its border control activities by deploying military and law enforcement 
personnel on its own Southern Border. And finally, recognizing that the 
unmonitored flow through the Darien region has increasingly been 
managed by transnational criminal organizations, is dangerous for the 
migrants who use it, and contributes significantly to the volume of 
irregular migratory flows in the region, the governments of Colombia 
and Panama are, for the first time, working together to attack 
transnational criminal networks operating in the Darien. Finally, 
throughout the region, DHS and DOS are working bilaterally with 
numerous partner countries to encourage the strengthening of visa 
policies, better and more targeted screening of individuals flying into 
the hemisphere, and enhanced capture and exchange of biometric data. 
All these efforts, when taken together, represent significant strides 
forward in managing the extraordinary migration challenge that is 
facing this hemisphere.
                               conclusion
    The bottom line is that this approach is working. Since the CDC's 
Title 42 public health order ended and the Biden-Harris 
administration's comprehensive plan to manage the border went into full 
effect on May 12, 2023, encounters between POEs at the border have 
decreased by more than 70 percent compared to the 48 hours preceding 
the end of Title 42, with CBP averaging 3,400 USBP encounters in 
between POEs per day and less than 300 non-CBP One OFO encounters at 
POEs per day.
    Our message has been clear--there are safe, lawful pathways to come 
to the United States, and consequences for those who do not use them. 
Those who come lawfully will be able to stay and work in the United 
States for the time that they are authorized to be here, while those 
who come unlawfully will be subject to strengthened consequences and 
quickly removed.
    DHS is encouraged by this progress, but we recognize that the 
underlying conditions prompting historic migration across the Western 
Hemisphere remain, and smugglers will continue to weaponize 
disinformation to put migrants lives at risk for profit. DHS remains 
vigilant and will continue to deliver the strengthened consequences 
that have been put in place at the border for migrants who fail to take 
advantage of the historic increase in lawful pathways to come to the 
United States. We will continue to work with our foreign partners, 
including the GOM, to coordinate enforcement efforts and provide lawful 
pathways for migration throughout the Hemisphere.
    We have demonstrated our commitment to work innovatively within our 
statutory authorities, and using the resources made available by 
Congress, to address the challenges we are facing at our border and in 
the region--challenges that have led to repeated surges in migration 
over the past decade years under Presidents of both political parties. 
However, it is clear that there is no lasting solution to these 
challenges that does not include the U.S. Congress working on a 
bipartisan basis to update our hopelessly outdated immigration laws--
laws that have not been touched in decades, and that were created to 
deal with a dramatically different migratory challenge. The fact that 
DHS's efforts continue to be the subject of on-going litigation--from 
both sides of the political spectrum, and often on the same issue--
clearly demonstrates the need for Congressional action. Neither party 
can solve this problem on its own, and letting the courts continue to 
dictate immigration and border policy is simply untenable.
    The Department remains eager to work with this committee and other 
Congressional leaders, on a bipartisan basis, to update the United 
States' immigration framework, including by modernizing the asylum 
system. Until that happens, DHS will continue to utilize every tool 
currently at its disposal and within DHS's authorities to secure the 
border and create a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system.
    I am proud of the work that DHS and the men and women on the front 
lines have been doing to address these challenges. The best way for 
Congress to support them is by once and for all fixing our outdated, 
broken immigration system.
    I look forward to working together and to answering your questions. 
Thank you.

    Chairman Higgins. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your opening 
statement.
    I now recognize Mr. Huffman for 5 minutes to summarize his 
opening statement.

    STATEMENT OF BENJAMINE ``CARRY'' HUFFMAN, ACTING DEPUTY 
COMMISSIONER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 
                       HOMELAND SECURITY

    Mr. Huffman. Good afternoon, Chairman Higgins, Ranking 
Member Correa, and distinguished Members of the subcommittee. 
It is an honor to testify today on behalf of U.S. Customs and 
Border Protections work force and discuss our preparations for 
the termination of Title 42 Public Health Order.
    Before I cover those preparations, however, I want to take 
a moment to state how proud I am of the CBP work force and how 
time and again they rise to meet any challenge thrown their 
way. I would also be remiss if I didn't point out that last 
month, the U.S. Border Patrol celebrated their 99th anniversary 
since their establishment in May 1924. I've had the privilege 
of serving within their ranks for over 38 of those 99 years.
    CBP operates in an ever-evolving and dynamic environment, 
which is complex, demanding, and dangerous. The 64,000 men and 
women who make up CBP work in this environment under extreme 
stress, stress not only is a result of the mission itself and 
the expectations of the Nation we serve, but also acute 
personal stress. The last 3 years have been particularly 
difficult, exhaustive, and taxing while extending our work 
force to extreme limits. This period of time has required 
enormous sacrifices, the greatest of which has been the cost of 
the lives of our work force--64 line-of-duty deaths since 2020, 
of which 55 were attributed to COVID-19 and, tragically, 
another 36 employees who died by suicide. The leadership of CBP 
recognizes the stress and the well-being of our employees as a 
CBP's top priority. I am thankful for the support Congress has 
provided us for our dedicated work force.
    Whether we're talking about the Southwest Border before, 
during, or after Title 42, CBP has seen considerable 
operational demands. Today, I would like to first highlight 
some of those challenges and second, discuss how CBP prepared 
for the end of Title 42.
    First, the Southwest Border environment is immensely 
complex and can be dangerous. To that end, CBP continues to 
counter the threat of sophisticated transnational criminal 
organizations that profit from ruthless human and drug 
smuggling. When it comes to drugs, such as illicit fentanyl, 
CBP is increasing our detection capabilities and working with 
our partners to dismantle production and trafficking. These 
efforts have led to results. In April, we surpassed the amount 
of fentanyl seized during all of fiscal year 2022. Special 
multi-agency operations, such as Operation Blue Lotus and Four 
Horsemen, amplified our efforts. In just 2 months these 
operations led to the seizures of more than 5,700 pounds of 
fentanyl and 250 arrests.
    CBP is also responding to the historic flows of irregular 
migration as transnational criminal organizations take 
advantage and mislead migrants. In the course of combating 
these ruthless organizations, CBP regularly performs life-
saving rescues and provides initial emergency medical care to 
those in distress in often the extreme environments. As a 
result, CBP officers and agents have conducted nearly 3,700 
rescue operations this year alone and provided life-saving 
assistance to more than 24,000 migrants.
    Which brings me to my second point. CBP, along with our DHS 
partners, have been planning and preparing for the end of Title 
42. Our preparations align with CBP's overall strategy, 
prioritize and strengthen National and border security, enforce 
the rule of law, including human and civil rights, while 
implementing Executive branch policies, provide for the safe, 
humane processing of migrants, and ensure the continued flow of 
lawful trade and travel.
    In anticipation of increased migration flows, CBP surged 
resources to encounter migrants crossing between ports of entry 
and to safely and thoroughly conduct immigration processing. 
This is done with a persistent focus on maintaining national 
and economic security, with all of our preparations considering 
how to care for and alleviate the stress upon our most 
important asset, our work force. As we have done throughout our 
history, CBP has resumed fully using Title 8 immigration 
authorities. Title 8 provides meaningful consequences for 
unlawful border crossings, including expedited removal, a 5-
year ban on U.S. admission, and criminal prosecution.
    In the days preceding the lifting of Title 42, CBP 
encounters with non-citizens between the ports of entry reached 
historic highs, approximately 10,000 a day. In the weeks since, 
the numbers have dropped by approximately 70 percent. At our 
ports of entry we've recently been encountering over 1,250 non-
citizens a day who have made appointments through the CBP One 
app mobile application.
    In closing the border has always been a dynamic and complex 
environment, and as always, the CBP work force will be prepared 
for any challenges that may come up. CBP will continue to do 
our part enforcing the law, ensuring our work force and 
individuals in our custody are properly cared for, and being a 
trusted partner to all others in this effort.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today, and I 
do look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Huffman follows:]

           Prepared Statement of Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman
                              June 6, 2023
                              introduction
    Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Correa, and Members of the 
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the conditions 
along the Southwest Border and U.S. Customs and Border Protection's 
(CBP) critical role in securing our borders and facilitating lawful 
trade and travel. I am honored to represent the dedicated men and women 
of CBP who operate on the front lines to ensure our national and 
economic security.
    The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the March 2020 
implementation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 
(CDC) public health order, commonly referred to as Title 42,\1\ 
transformed the Southwest Border environment and significantly altered 
CBP's operations. From March 2020 until the order terminated at 11:59 
p.m. ET on May 11, 2023, CBP assisted in enforcing Title 42, which 
suspended the right to introduce into the United States certain non-
citizens arriving at the land and adjacent coastal borders to protect 
against the spread of COVID-19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ March 20, 2020, CDC Order under Sections 362 and 365 of the 
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C.  265, 268), Order Suspending 
Introduction of Certain Persons from Countries Where a Communicable 
Disease Exists. https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/CDC-Order-
Prohibiting-Introduction-of-Persons_Final_3-20-20_3-p.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Throughout the pandemic, CBP and our partners responded to high 
levels of migrant encounters, simultaneously upholding civil and human 
rights, securing our borders, and protecting the health and safety of 
surrounding communities, our personnel, and the noncitizens we 
encounter. The COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 and the resulting 
worldwide pandemic was particularly hard on the men and women of CBP. 
While many people retreated to the safety of their homes and telework, 
CBP remained on the front line directly confronting this deadly virus 
in continuance of our border security mission and keeping the Nation's 
economic engine running and viable. This was at extreme cost to the 
agency with tens of thousands of employees contracting the virus--
resulting in 55 deaths directly attributed to contracting the virus in 
the line of duty.
    While the Title 42 Order was effective in helping CBP quickly expel 
certain covered noncitizens as part of our national efforts to prevent 
the spread of the virus, the order carried no legal consequences for 
attempts at unlawfully crossing the United States border and, as a 
result, repeat encounters increased significantly.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ See U.S. Border Patrol Recidivism Rates--https://www.cbp.gov/
newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As a critical component of the Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS) planning effort, CBP made numerous preparations for the end of 
the Title 42 order. Our response focused on the application and 
enforcement of immigration authorities and regulations and was 
supported by the deployment of technology and infrastructure; increased 
levels of personnel; improved processing efficiencies and security; and 
coordination with our partners.
    Leveraging experience and expertise gained during previous 
migration surges, CBP, together with our partners, prepared a response 
plan, now implemented, to ensure we can continue to scale our 
operations and effectively respond to areas of the greatest need, 
impose consequences on those who break the law, and process noncitizens 
safely and humanely.
        current post-title 42 processing and security operations
    As anticipated, in the days leading up to the termination of the 
Title 42 Order, daily CBP encounters with noncitizens between the ports 
of entry (POEs) reached historic highs of approximately 10,000 per day. 
Since the CDC's Title 42 public health order terminated and DHS and the 
Department of Justice (DOJ) began implementing a new regulation on May 
12, 2023, CBP has experienced a significant reduction in encounters at 
the Southwest Border. Following the termination of the Title 42 Order, 
CBP has been encountering approximately 3,400 noncitizens between POEs 
per day. At the POEs, CBP has been encountering approximately 1,000 
noncitizens per day, predominately with an appointment scheduled 
through the CBP One mobile application. The level of encounters between 
the POEs represents a decrease of approximately 70 percent compared to 
the 48 hours preceding the termination of the Title 42 Order.
    Together with our partners across DHS and throughout the Federal 
Government, CBP's response has been focused on the resources and 
capabilities needed to enforce the law and regulations to mitigate 
potential increases in migration and keep our front-line personnel 
where it belongs: on the front line.
Enforcement of Immigration Authorities and Regulations
    With the termination of the CDC's Title 42 public health order, CBP 
has resumed using its full range of immigration authorities under Title 
8 of the U.S. Code to process migrants encountered at the border 
without documentation for lawful admission, as we have done throughout 
our agency's history. These authorities provide for meaningful 
consequences that include placing individuals in expedited removal or 
other immigration removal proceedings. Under Title 8, an individual who 
is removed is subject to at least a 5-year ban on admission to the 
United States and can face criminal prosecution for any subsequent 
attempt to cross the border illegally.
    Coupled with these consequences, DHS and DOJ implemented a final 
rule,\3\ ``Circumvention of Lawful Pathways,'' that establishes a 
rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility for certain noncitizens 
who fail to seek asylum or other protection in one of the countries 
through which they travel on their way to the United States, and who 
fail to take advantage of the existing and expanded lawful pathways to 
enter the United States, including the opportunity to schedule a time 
and place to present at a POE via the CBP One mobile application.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ 88 FR 31314 (published May 16, 2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Those who attempt to cross the Southwest Border without utilizing 
these processes are, with some exceptions, subject to a rebuttable 
presumption of asylum ineligibility. To maintain our border security 
posture and ensure this process is conducted fairly, efficiently, and 
safely, CBP has deployed technology, increased personnel, expanded 
facilities and transportation, improved processing efficiencies, and 
strengthened coordination with our partners.
Deployed Technology, Infrastructure, and Personnel
    Accelerating efforts to provide significant enhancements to its 
domain awareness capabilities between the POEs, CBP made substantial 
investments in advanced technologies that improve our agent and officer 
efficacy and safety, including improved communications solutions, body-
worn cameras, and additional autonomous surveillance towers. 
Additionally, CBP's large- and small-scale non-intrusive inspection 
(NII) systems are critical tools used at and in between the POEs to 
provide officers and agents with deeper insight into what is entering 
or traveling through the United States. The NII systems alert officers 
and agents to the presence of anomalies in shipments, passenger 
belongings, cargo containers, commercial trucks, rail cars, and 
privately-owned vehicles, quickly signaling to officers and agents 
where further inspection is needed.
    CBP has also closed 55 gates and gaps in the border barrier to 
date, and we are working to close an additional 74 gates and gaps along 
with life, safety, environmental, and other remediation activities at 
incomplete border barrier projects.
    Surveillance and detection technology is critical to our border 
security operations but serves only limited purpose without our 
greatest asset: our skilled and professional workforce. CBP has 
approximately 24,000 agents and officers along the Southwest Border. We 
have been hiring more personnel, especially non-uniformed support 
personnel and contract personnel to assist in data entry and facility 
operations. These personnel investments allow our law enforcement 
agents and officers to stay in the field and focus on their critical 
security mission.
Expanded Facilities and Transportation and Improved Safety
    To accommodate increases of non-citizens in CBP custody, we 
renovated and reopened the Rio Grande Valley Central Processing Center 
(CPC) in McAllen, Texas, in March 2022; opened two new soft-sided 
facilities in the El Paso and San Diego sectors in January 2023; 
recently expanded the Yuma and El Paso soft-sided facilities and 
maintained additional soft-sided facilities located in priority 
locations. These facilities include wrap-around service contracts that 
provide sanitation, food, and medical services necessary to ensure 
appropriate conditions for migrants in custody and front-line 
personnel. Higher numbers of migrant encounters require deliberate and 
coordinated actions to ensure individuals in CBP custody are held in 
safe and sanitary conditions and unaccompanied children or other 
vulnerable populations are appropriately cared for until they are 
transferred out of CBP custody.
    We are also maximizing the use of air and ground transportation 
contracts to move noncitizens from U.S. Border Patrol Sectors that are 
over capacity to other less-impacted CBP locations.
Improved Processing Efficiencies and Security
    Deployed in conjunction with expanded facilities, non-uniform 
personnel, and contracted services, CBP's investments in virtual and 
mobile processing have provided operational flexibility and streamlined 
operations to ensure the safe and humane processing of migrants and 
relieve agents of non-enforcement duties.
    For example, noncitizens are able to use the CBP One mobile 
application to schedule an appointment at one of seven Southwest Border 
POEs and present themselves for inspection to a CBP officer. The 
ability to use the app cuts out the smugglers, decreases migrant 
exploitation, and makes processing more efficient upon arrival at the 
POE. The CBP One scheduling process is available to all noncitizens who 
are located in Central and Northern Mexico.
    CBP collects biometric and biographic information and screens and 
vets all noncitizens encountered at the border against multiple public 
safety databases. Noncitizens who may pose a threat to national 
security or public safety are detained. Noncitizens who are 
provisionally released must abide by the requirements of their release, 
including contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 
for further processing once they reach their destination. CBP 
coordinates with nongovernmental organizations and local governments to 
identify locations where noncitizens can safely access services, 
transportation, or accommodations.
Coordination with Partners
    In February 2022, DHS stood up a Southwest Border Coordination 
Center (SBCC) to bring CBP together with other DHS and Federal partners 
to coordinate planning, operations, engagement, and interagency support 
in response to migration increases at the Southwest Border. CBP is the 
primary supported component of the SBCC and is also utilizing our 
operational coordination capability to provide expertise and resources 
in response to the irregular migration flows across the Southwest 
Border. This enhanced collaboration spans the entire scope of border 
security activities, including resources and capabilities related to 
infrastructure, facilities, transportation, medical care, and joint 
processing.
        maintaining border enforcement and facilitation efforts
    As part of our planning for the termination of the Title 42 public 
health order, we surged resources, technology, and personnel to manage 
challenges safely and orderly along the Southwest Border--while at the 
same time maintaining a persistent focus on our other missions to 
ensure national and economic security.
Combating Human Smuggling
    CBP's posture and response to migration events are informed by 
comprehensive analyses of information and intelligence on operations of 
smugglers and the movement of noncitizens. We are more effectively 
tracking movements of various migrant groups who may be headed toward 
the U.S. border, and more aggressively pursuing investigation and 
prosecution of transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and human 
smuggling networks responsible for illegal border crossings.
    CBP's collaborative efforts with our partners help stop cruel and 
profit-driven human smugglers and save lives at the border and beyond. 
For example, launched in 2016 as a joint effort between CBP and the 
government of Mexico (GOM), ``Se Busca Informacion,'' which translates 
to ``Information Wanted,'' identifies individuals associated with TCOs 
wanted for crimes associated with human and drug smuggling on both 
sides of the border. The ``Se Busca Informacion'' initiative promotes 
binational unity and encourages the public to anonymously report 
information about known smugglers. CBP has also taken the lead on 
Operation Sentinel, a major U.S. interagency effort supported by the 
GOM that aims to cut off access to TCO profits from human smuggling by 
denying these criminals the ability to engage in travel, trade, and 
finance in the United States.
    Migrant smugglers put vulnerable individuals and families in danger 
every single day. Smuggling organizations are abandoning migrants in 
remote and dangerous areas, leading to a dramatic rise in the number of 
rescues CBP performs. In fiscal year 2022, CBP conducted nearly 22,500 
rescues Nation-wide, which was 69 percent higher than the total number 
of rescues in all of fiscal year 2021. These humanitarian life-saving 
acts are often lost in the border debate, but these acts are clear 
examples of the bravery, selflessness, and humanity our CBP agents and 
officers display each and every day.
Interdicting Illicit Drugs
    In addition to migrant smuggling, illicit drugs are another major 
source of revenue for TCOs. CBP remains focused on our efforts to 
combat the flow of illicit drugs and disrupt TCO activity by 
collaborating and sharing information with other agencies and foreign 
partners; obtaining advance electronic information to identify and 
target suspect shipments; leveraging advanced scientific, laboratory, 
and canine capabilities; and deploying NII.
    Fentanyl and its analogs are synthetic opioids that continue to be 
some of the most dangerous illegal drugs flowing through, and damaging, 
communities across the Nation and are involved in more overdose deaths 
than any other illicit drug trafficked into the United States. CBP 
seizures of fentanyl have been escalating for several years.\4\ In 
fiscal year 2022, CBP seized approximately 14,700 pounds of fentanyl 
Nation-wide, with most of it--12,500 pounds--seized at POEs, and we 
already exceeded those amounts just 7 months into this fiscal year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Our partnerships are also invaluable to our enforcement efforts. 
For example, through Operation Blue Lotus, CBP and our ICE Homeland 
Security Investigation (HSI) partners surged our intelligence, 
analysis, and enforcement capabilities to not only target and seize 
illicit fentanyl, but also pursue investigations and take down criminal 
networks. In just 2 months, the operation resulted in 108 arrests and 
the seizure of nearly 4,800 pounds of fentanyl. Through a concurrent 
operation between the POEs, the U.S. Border Patrol seized an additional 
2,260 pounds of fentanyl.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Operation Blue Lotus ran from March 13, 2023, to May 8, 2023. 
U.S. Border Patrol's Operation Four Horsemen ran from March 6, 2023, to 
May 6, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Limiting Disruptions to Travel and Trade
    In addition to its border security mandate, one of CBP's core 
mission objectives is to enhance the Nation's economic prosperity 
through the facilitation of travel and trade. The Nation's POEs are 
vital gateways for cross-border commerce and travel--critical sectors 
that drive economic growth and opportunities for American businesses 
and consumers. The scope and importance of CBP's role in protecting the 
economic security of the United States cannot be understated. 
Collecting almost $112 billion in duties, taxes, and fees in fiscal 
year 2022, CBP remains the second-largest collector of revenue in the 
Federal Government.
    The resources, technology, and processes put in place to manage 
anticipated challenges along the Southwest Border associated with the 
termination of the Title 42 public health order were also established 
to limit disruption to the critical and lawful traffic that flows 
through our POEs and supports our economic security responsibilities.
    Commercial vehicle traffic at both the Northern and Southwest 
Border land POEs fully rebounded to levels experienced before the 
COVID-19 pandemic, and since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, 
CBP continues to process increasing numbers of arriving travelers 
without any significant delays.\6\ CBP will continue to track POE 
traffic and wait times and adjust resources as needed to ensure 
travelers and goods move safely and efficiently across the Southwest 
Border.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ As of May 12, 2023, COVID-19 travel restrictions have been 
fully terminated. See 88 FR 30033 (May 10, 2023) (terminating 
restrictions at land POEs and ferry terminals along the United States-
Canada border); 88 FR 30035 (May 10, 2023) (terminating restrictions at 
land POEs and ferry terminals the United States-Mexico border).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               conclusion
    Planning and preparedness efforts are critical to managing 
irregular migration. As we approached the end of Title 42, CBP was 
prepared to ensure we could continue to fulfill our border security 
mission. In anticipation of potential challenges, we deployed 
resources, streamlined processes, and put measures in place to prevent 
disruptions to our critical border security and facilitation 
operations.
    CBP remains committed to maintaining border security, properly 
caring for those in our custody, and keeping the American people and 
our CBP workforce safe. We remain vigilant and responsive to the full 
range of our responsibilities including interdicting illicit drugs 
crossing into the United States, preventing dangerous people and goods 
from crossing our borders, enforcing hundreds of trade laws, and 
ensuring the efficient flow of lawful trade and travel that is so 
important to our economy.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to 
your questions.

    Chairman Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Huffman.
    Members will be recognized by order of seniority for their 
5 minutes of questioning. An additional round of questioning 
may be called after all Members have been recognized.
    I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
    My colleagues and Americans watching this, the Legislative 
branch of our Government passes laws, and the Executive branch 
historically works to enforce those laws. In a broad 
perspective, the Executive branch is required to have--is a 
rulemaking whereby the laws are interpreted and the means by 
which the enforcement of those laws shall be established across 
the country. This is reasonable and understandable.
    Federal law enforcement, especially when it comes to 
something as clear as enforcement of border and immigration 
law, is much less of a gray area. The solution that has been 
suggested here, one could argue that from my colleagues across 
the aisle, you have reached a solution, but it is not a 
solution within the parameters of enforcement of existing 
Federal law as established by the U.S. Congress. And we are the 
Legislative branch.
    So there has been an interesting interpretation of 
Executive authority since January 2021 whereby our current 
administration, if it doesn't like an existing law, it uses 
Executive authority to find a way around that law. That is what 
has happened with the incoming wave upon human wave of illegal 
migrants attempting to come into our country.
    The Federal immigration laws that have been established by 
Congress have been essentially replaced by immigration policy 
that legalizes illegal entry into our country. They tell you 
the numbers of illegal entry are down because this Executive 
branch has redefined what an illegal entry is. The CBP One app 
goes down through Mexico and Central America into Colombia. 
These migrant citizens, these children of God, who endeavor to 
enter our country, but they are undocumented, which makes them 
illegal, historically, they would be intercepted at the border 
and handled appropriately. But this administration has changed 
that. They have diffused our border and essentially extended 
American operations for border control down through South 
America and Central America and Mexico and establish these so-
called legal pathways.
    Can I see the quote please? There you go. Put the quote up 
Mr.--sir, do you recognize these quotes? It is not trick stuff, 
these are your quotes. Do you acknowledge that these are your 
quotes?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I can't read that from here, unfortunately, 
but I--it looks like----
    Chairman Higgins. They are from an NPR interview recently. 
You say, you know, what we have done is really oversee a 
historic increase in lawful pathways to the United States, 
including at our ports of entry through the CBP One app. Do you 
acknowledge that? You said that?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I do.
    Chairman Higgins. Thank you.
    You went on to say, and what we are really trying to do 
here is incentivize migrants to use safe, lawful, and orderly 
pathways, that again, we have expanded dramatically over the 
last 2 years. Do you acknowledge that that is your quote?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I do. It's also in my opening remarks.
    Chairman Higgins. Yes, sir. So what we are establishing 
here is that this Executive branch has redefined what an 
illegal entry is, and you admit that exact policy agenda. So 
when you report that illegal migrants, the numbers are down, 
that is a shell game. It is like a magic trick.
    We were advised by Chief Ortiz and what I believe was his 
last confidential briefing, that there were 657,000 immigrants 
in the pipeline south of the border. It was an interesting 
number, because Chief didn't say between 600,000 and 700,000, 
he didn't say 650,000, give or take, he said 657,000. That is 
quite a precise number.
    Mr. Huffman, Mr. Nunez-Neto, I will just ask you each to--
and I will yield the balance of my time--where are those 
657,000 people headed?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So I have not seen that particular 
estimate. We do know that there are----
    Chairman Higgins. It was from the Chief. He is now retired.
    My time has expired.
    Are they headed north?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. We believe many of them are waiting for the 
lawful pathways and processes that we have established----
    Chairman Higgins. In order to come north?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto [continuing]. Not just in Mexico, but in 
other countries along hemisphere.
    Chairman Higgins. They are headed here.
    Mr. Huffman, do you agree they are headed here?
    Mr. Huffman. A lot of them are headed here, yes, sir. Some 
of them have stayed in other countries. Like we know there's 
many of the Venezuelans have stopped and stayed in Colombia. So 
there's a lot of people in movement----
    Chairman Higgins. OK.
    Mr. Huffman [continuing]. But generally this direction, 
yes, sir.
    Chairman Higgins. Thank you for your answers, gentlemen, 
for being here.
    My time has expired. I recognize Ranking Member Correa for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I am going to follow up with the Chairman's last comment, 
657,000--let's call it 700,000. Where do we get that intel to 
figure out that number? Either gentlemen, please.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So our Office of Intelligence and Analysis 
does estimate the number of people who are in the hemisphere 
and who may be moving north. The numbers I've seen don't quite 
match the 650,000, but those are all rough estimates. I think 
we can all agree that there are hundreds of thousands of 
migrants throughout the hemisphere that----
    Mr. Correa. But you do this with a partnership of others 
that work with us?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Of course, yes.
    Mr. Correa. Mr. Huffman, any thoughts on that number?
    Mr. Huffman. So, again, I don't know the exact source of 
the Chief Ortiz's number. I've known Chief Ortiz a lot of 
years, and I'm sure he's extremely confident in that number if 
he gets that number, I just don't know the source of it.
    I am confident there are a lot of people moving into the 
hemisphere, mostly headed this way. The exact number, it's hard 
to tell where they're going to stop. But yes, they are moving. 
People are moving this way. We see the news reports, we look at 
shelters that have people that are housing----
    Mr. Correa. Mr. Huffman, again, I would invite folks, if we 
could put together Codel to go visit some of these countries to 
see the devastation. You don't have to argue that point here. 
People are hungry, devastated economies, they will find a place 
to survive as that picture of that little girl showed.
    I guess if I can, I would say that Mr. Chairman is right, 
which he showed in that poster was what I would call part of 
the hope, the opportunity to maybe figure out a way to employ a 
safe legal pathway. I would say the other two legs of that 
stool are penalties, Title 8. There are severe penalties for 
trying to cross not using a legal pathway.
    The last one I want to focus on, my last 3 minutes are the 
cooperation piece. I think it is important because if we are 
going to move forward to address the issues in the hemisphere, 
specifically our Southern Border, we have to continue to work 
with our partners. You mentioned, for example, that Mexico is 
taking--for the first time ever, is taking repatriated 
individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Are 
these people that are then repatriated to Mexico? Do they stay 
in Mexico or does Mexico repatriate them back to the other 
countries?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So that is really a question for the 
government of Mexico. But these are individuals that are 
repatriated under our Title 8 authorities, which, as you know, 
it is the first time in our history Mexico is allowing that.
    Mr. Correa. So, essentially, I believe what Mexico is 
doing--and I will double check myself here, but I think they 
are providing with work visas and other opportunities to 
actually work.
    You mentioned--was it you were that I listened to this 
morning in the news that we are cooperating with Panama, 
Colombia, in other efforts across the hemisphere. I hope that 
those are humanitarian efforts to address this refugee crisis 
and begin to figure out how to get a handle on this situation 
because it is going to be with us for a number of years, in my 
opinion.
    But any thoughts on that, Mr. Huffman, Mr. Nunez-Neto?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So, if I may, I think when someone arrives 
at our border, it is far too late. We need to engage regionally 
with our partner countries in order to address these flows well 
before they reach our border. What Colombia and Panama are 
doing right now is unprecedented. It is a coordinated bi-
national operation in the Darien to try to attack the smuggling 
networks. We have been providing technical assistance. I know 
CBP has deployed personnel to assist in that, the Department of 
Defense has been active. Those are the kinds of things that we 
really need to do more of because, again, I think the more we 
can impact these flows well before our border, the better off--
--
    Mr. Correa. Mr. Huffman--excuse--my last 50 seconds, 
please.
    Mr. Huffman. Yes, thank you. Sure. From an operational 
perspective, I would say that Mexico has cooperated with us 
more recently than I've seen in my career. The help they've 
been----
    Mr. Correa. Your career is how many years?
    Mr. Huffman. 38 years, sir.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you.
    Mr. Huffman. They are increasing their enforcement efforts 
on their Southern Border as well, which is slowing the flow, 
they are redirecting folks that we have returned to Mexico and 
flying them back to their Southern Border to kind-of add an 
extra consequence and deter them from coming to come north. 
They're also helping redirect folks to our border to kind-of 
slow them down as a way as well. So that's a very positive 
outcome that we've been having recently. It's been very 
helpful. I think it's part of the reason some of the flows have 
slowed down here recently.
    Mr. Correa. I would like to, with my last 3 seconds, say I 
do hope we continue to double down on the humanitarian aspect 
of this refugee crisis.
    Mr. Chairman, I ran out of time.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentleman yields.
    The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Guest is recognized for 
5 minutes for question.
    Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, thank you 
for being here today.
    As Chairman Higgins indicated a few moments ago, roughly 2 
weeks ago, Chief Ortiz was here on Capitol Hill briefing 
Members of Congress, particularly Members of this committee, 
about events that have transpired post-Title 42. We had the 
opportunity to speak with him and Chief Ortiz said that he 
believed that the reduction that we have seen post-Title 42, he 
described it as what he believed to be a temporary reduction 
and that he expected the numbers to return at some point back 
to the baseline that we had seen over the last 2 years.
    So my first question to both of you: Do you agree with 
Chief Ortiz's assessment that the reduction that we have seen 
is more temporary in nature and that we will return to the base 
last 2 years? Or do you believe that the reduction that we have 
seen is permanent in nature?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I would say that we're encouraged by what 
we've seen the last 3 weeks. But as I mentioned, we are clear-
eyed that the factors in our hemisphere that are driving this 
historic movement of people are still there and that smugglers 
use disinformation to drive migration. So this is a fragile 
equilibrium that we have on the border and it could be upset in 
the future for sure.
    Mr. Huffman. I would agree with that statement. Also with 
Chief Ortiz's that there's still numbers there in Mexico. I 
believe they've taken kind-of a wait-and-see approach to see 
how this pans out, how do we stick to our guns with this, with 
how we're enforcing the Title 8 rules, and see how that works 
out? Time will tell.
    Mr. Guest. Then also Chairman Higgins mentioned earlier 
some conversation about the CBP One app. I know both of you 
mentioned that in your written testimony about the use of the 
CB One app. We see that news reports show that the CB One app, 
that there are roughly 1,000 immigrants a day who are able to 
apply for some sort of status within the United States using 
the CBP One app. Recent report by Fox News talks about the 
administration is seeking to expand that very quickly to 40,000 
a month.
    So my question is, is when Congress receives information, 
the public receives information from DHS about southwest land 
border encounters, those numbers in March were 191,000 and some 
change, in April were 211,000 and some change, are the 
individuals who are applying and entering the country through 
the CBP One app, are those individuals included in the figures 
that we are receiving or are those individuals somewhere else 
not included in those numbers? Because that is very important 
for us to know exactly how many people are coming across the 
border, whether you are coming across illegally and claiming 
asylum or whether you are coming in by using the CBP One app, 
presenting yourself at a port of entry, they are still being 
allowed into the country. So we are trying to get--at least I 
am and I am assuming others on this committee--we are trying to 
wrap our head around the true figure of individuals who are 
allowing to come into the country each and every month.
    So are you aware of to how those numbers are calculated 
when you are talking about the southwest land border encounter 
numbers that we routinely rely upon from CBP?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes. Thank you, sir.
    So my understanding is that when CBP issues its monthly 
reports, those numbers include encounters at ports of entry and 
it also includes encounters between ports of entry, which 
obviously would not include CBP One.
    I would also note that the Immigration and Nationality Act 
expressly authorizes individuals to present at ports of entry 
and claim asylum and they must be processed. We're actually 
under litigation right now that prevents the use of metering at 
the land border.
    So I know Chief Huffman has thoughts here, but the CBP One 
app is really just a scheduling tool to allow us to let people 
who may wish to claim asylum present at a port of entry in a 
way that is safe and orderly and doesn't tie up our ports of 
entry.
    Mr. Huffman. Yes, thank you.
    Yes, sir, those numbers that we encounter, for example, I 
have the numbers running my office every day and they'll say 
like 4,500 apprehensions yesterday. That will include probably 
3,000 to 4,000--3,000 or so encounters by the Border Patrol, 
plus it includes the ones that applied for entry or presented 
themselves for entry using that--being scheduled by the CBP One 
app.
    I want to emphasize something that's very important to us 
because concern is the CBP One--can easily get misconstrued. 
For us, it is nothing more than a scheduling tool. It allows us 
to have an orderly process at our ports of entry. Because 
without that scheduling tool, all these people that are waiting 
and seeing would all be showing up at the same time and 
clogging up and shutting down our ports and impact trade, 
impact other people that have lawful ways into the country, the 
U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, those things. So we 
use the CBP One as a scheduling tool to help us maintain that 
order at our ports because we are not allowed to use our 
metering that we used to do due to a lawsuit a number of years 
ago.
    Mr. Guest. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentlemen, yields.
    Mr. Thanedar, the gentleman from Michigan, is recognized 
for 5 minutes for questioning.
    Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you the 
gentleman, for being here.
    I feel a strong personal connection to the issues we are 
discussing here today. You see, in 1979, at the age of 24, I 
was one of those immigrants with only a name, $20 in my pocket, 
and my American dream, entering this country with no friends, 
no family, and very fearful about how I would survive in this 
new homeland.
    During summers between the academic school years, I was 
often forced to sleep in a car or sometimes homeless shelter 
funded by a faith-based non-government organization, NGO's. Now 
you know, NGO's have played a crucial role for decades in 
providing care and support for migrants, including at the U.S. 
border. In times of solitude, those NGO's could be the only aid 
an immigrant receives for weeks. Strengthening the capabilities 
of NGO's to receive individuals who are not citizens following 
their processing has been an essential aspect of Secretary 
Mayorkas' preparation for lifting of Title 42.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto my question is, can you please expand on 
those NGO's role at the border and why they remain vital to 
ensuring the treatments for the immigrants?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Yes, thank you very much for that question.
    As an immigrant myself, I think it is a sign of this 
country's strength that an immigrant like you could become a 
Member of Congress and that one like me could achieve the kind 
of role I have at DHS.
    You know, Chief Huffman and I were just in Brownsville last 
week observing first-hand how the city government in 
Brownsville and the local NGO's process migrants as they are 
released from CBP custody or from ICE custody and allow them to 
connect with family members and move onwards to their final 
destination. These are non-citizens who are issued notices to 
appear and released to have their court proceedings as the law 
provides. Those NGO's and our city and State governments on the 
border are really playing a critical role in allowing migrants 
to be able to move onward and not remain at the border.
    I know CBP obviously relies a great deal on those 
relationships locally, and I'm sure Chief Huffman has some 
thoughts there as well.
    Mr. Thanedar. Mr. Huffman after receiving my PhD in 
chemistry and a United States citizenship, I became a serial 
entrepreneur. In that time, I learned a lot about the 
importance of technological innovations in solving problems.
    Can you elaborate on the app's advantage, both for 
applicants and CBP officers? Also how would CBP expand the 
availability of this system in coming months?
    Mr. Huffman. Thank you for the opportunity to respond.
    As far as technology goes, technology is key for all 
aspects on ours, not just the CBP One, but how we do border 
security across the whole. The border now is a much more 
dynamic border than we've ever had in our history. The folks 
that want to enter this country illegally or they're 
traffickers, they can change the picture of the border with 
easy, fast, quick communication. So we have to be able to 
communicate as well, and we have to have the technology to 
respond as well too.
    The problems grow very rapidly, more rapidly than we can 
build our capacity. So the only way we actually increase our 
capacity oftentimes is with the use of innovation and 
technology. That's what we've done in a number of areas. CBP 
app is one, how we process is another way, how we transport 
information is another way. All those things combined help us 
to be a much more agile response to whatever threat we see 
facing us.
    Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Mr. Huffman.
    Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentleman yields.
    My colleague, the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms. Greene is 
recognized for questioning for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Greene. Thank you very much.
    I have enjoyed learning about the CBP One app today. It is 
a pretty nifty little app. I just wanted to point out that so 
if someone is illegally coming into our country--I call it 
illegally, because I feel like a lot of them are in our country 
illegally--they can go to this app, and all they have to do is 
download CBP One and they can come into Mexico, they can click 
on here and decide are they a traveler, a broker, carrier, 
aircraft operator, bus operator, sea pilot, commercial truck 
driver, international organization. It is really interesting, 
though, the commercial truck driver one doesn't work yet, which 
I think is a complete failure. When you click on commercial 
truck driver, it says, coming soon. You would think that to 
keep track of imports coming into our country, trucks, 
agriculture, goods, whatever is bringing into the country, that 
is a really important fact and figure to keep track of. But if 
I am an individual and I am coming into America, I can go on 
there and I can choose how I want to come in. I am a 
pedestrian, so I click pedestrian. Let me tell you how great it 
is for people that are coming into our country that are not 
American citizens. They can find a wait time that fits their 
schedule. All they have to do is go on here, and I can pick 
Calexico East, and I only have a 5-minute wait at a port of 
entry. Then I can look at this neat little graph that somehow 
tracks what time of the day is busier or less busy. But again, 
this app does not track or check trucks, commercial trucks 
coming into our country.
    Then here is what is really interesting. I find this very 
interesting. I can get a scheduled appointment and it says you 
must be in central or northern Mexico to accept and schedule an 
appointment. So if I am coming from China or Africa or whatever 
country in the world, I got to get my plane ticket to Mexico 
and then schedule my appointment so I can come into a port of 
entry. Now, here is the really interesting part, I would like 
our laws followed, but they are not followed right here on the 
CBP One app because it says that passports are optional. I 
think that is a big problem for people coming into our country 
and being told to go directly to the port of entry instead of, 
of course, going outside of the port of entries because that 
messes up the numbers, that apprehension numbers were off the 
chart and that was a real problem for the Biden administration.
    So I would like to ask you, Mr. Nunez-Neto, why can't you 
tell us how many people are coming in the United States when 
you have a handy dandy little app that you are tracking? You 
know the numbers. This is the American Government. We put a man 
on the moon. We are able to count. Why can't you tell us how 
many so-called migrants are coming into our country?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So we do update the public and Congress on 
the number of people who are processed through the CBP One 
application. I believe my testimony notes that since May 12 
we've been averaging about 1,070 individuals a day using the 
CBP One application, which again, as Chief Huffman noted, is 
just a scheduling tool that allows individuals who may wish to 
claim asylum to access the ports of entry as the Immigration 
and Nationality Act provides.
    Ms. Greene. Well, can I ask you a question? This is 
something else I am trying to understand. Now that we have an 
app to organize the illegal invasion into America so that 
everyone gets accepted, they have a time to come in, they say 
that they are seeking asylum, and then the American taxpayer 
gives them a plane ticket or a bus ticket to any town in the 
United States--gosh, the American taxpayers are nice--right 
here it says that you say the reason why people are coming to 
America today is because of violence, food insecurity, severe 
poverty, corruption, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Did you know that there are over half a million homeless people 
in the United States today? As a matter of fact, the homeless 
population rose significantly since 2019. That is for 
Americans. So we have homelessness here in America.
    Natural disasters. Talk about climate change. This is the 
fourth-largest country in the world. We have an extremely 
diverse climate, we have a wide range of natural disasters--97 
natural disasters occurred in 2021. I don't think this is very 
safe for migrants here in America. We had 97. How many are they 
having in their country? These natural disasters include 
wildfires, heat waves, droughts, flash floods, winter storms, 
cold waves, tropical cyclones, and on and on and on. But yet 
they need to come to our country because of climate change? 
That doesn't make a lot of sense.
    It is not a safe country either by the way. In America 
there were 1,313,000 violent crimes in the United States and 
that was in 2020. I can't imagine what the numbers are since 
then, since crime has come up.
    I think that you need better reasons if you are going to 
try to let a bunch of people in the United States using a handy 
dandy app where you don't track imports than climate change, 
because that is not an excuse people are buying.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
    Mr. Gonzales, my colleague from Texas, is recognized for 5 
minutes for questioning. He is not here?
    Mr. Garcia is here, though. My colleague from California, 
Mr. Garcia is here.
    Mr. Garcia. Close.
    Chairman Higgins. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad that we have 
an opportunity to speak with our witnesses today. Thank you for 
your service.
    That was an interesting conversation about the app, which I 
will get to in a minute.
    But I want to just start off by talking about Title 42. As 
a proud immigrant myself who believes in humane immigration, I 
think we all agree that a secure border is important and is 
vital. Our Nation benefits when people have an opportunity to 
come here to build better lives, as you have, sir, and like I 
have as well and other Members of the Congress. I want to 
remind my colleagues in the Majority that attempts to demonize 
immigrants and people who come here legally to seek asylum is 
un-American. Our country is a Nation of immigrants and we are 
constantly reinvigorated with immigrants, with their talents 
and with their innovation.
    I know that some people here have been openly rooting for a 
post-Title 42 crisis as a way to score political points, but 
let's be very clear, that crisis did not happen. This hearing 
is an attempt to manufacture one.
    Now, as has been stated, Border Patrol encounters are at 
the lowest point since 2020. That is a fact. Those are 
statistics that are widely accepted. They have been reviewed by 
our Departments, they have been put out as information for us 
to assess, and I want to thank you all for your work with that. 
It is also true that these numbers should be not celebrated but 
welcomed as progress in our ability to control and secure the 
border.
    I just really briefly want to just ask to get clarification 
from Mr. Blas Nunez-Neto. Would you agree and do you support 
those numbers that we are at the lowest border encounters since 
2020?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I believe if we're talking about encounters 
between ports of entry, that, yes, we are at the lowest level 
since, I believe, December 2020.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir.
    Now, I think a key reason for the conditions and why they 
have improved also is the pathways for asylum seekers that we 
have focused on. So you have worked on, the entire Department 
has been supportive of, the CBP One app, and that continues to 
improve, I think, outcomes for all and for us here on the 
country, certainly for asylum seekers. I know we had a 
difficult rollout early on, but the Department has also made 
really great progress. I want to thank all the groups involved 
in getting the One app to where it is today.
    Now, I appreciate the gentlelady from Georgia's tutorial on 
the One app and how it works. I personally appreciate the use 
of technology and its way to actually facilitate information, 
collect data, and make things simpler for all involved, 
including those that are seeking asylum, who I wish to remind 
the committee and her, have a legal right to actually claim in 
the United States of America.
    It is also important to note that the One app is actually 
allowing us to actually manage this crisis better here at home 
and at our ports of entry. I want to thank you for that work.
    I think claiming that the One app somehow is facilitating 
an invasion of the country is incredibly irresponsible. Asylum 
is a legal right in this country, and claiming asylum is, so--
and so until that changes, we need to continue to support this 
program and make it easier for folks and for us to manage 
anyone that is coming to the border or a port of entry or now, 
in many cases, going to other parts of the hemisphere and 
seeking asylum there, which I think has been a very productive 
advancement the Biden administration has done as well.
    I want to note that I support the administration's new 
efforts to create these regional processing centers in Central 
and South America, including in Guatemala and Colombia, where 
we know migrants receiving interviews with immigration 
officials, with specialists, and, if eligible, are able to be 
processed rapidly for pathways to the United States, if, of 
course, they meet our standards.
    I also want to note that I hope that we can strengthen our 
Shelter and Services program, which supports groups like 
Catholic Charities that support legal asylum in our country. I 
think it has been unfortunate that Members of this committee 
tried to actually defund this critical program that essentially 
partners with nonprofit agencies to use Federal funds, secure 
an orderly border. So I hope that that is something that we can 
continue.
    Finally, I want to remind the committee that we have a 
responsibility to provide legal status and protections to the 
people who build lives and pay taxes here, and I hope that is 
something that we can move forward on.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto, finally, what will the administration do to 
continue to expand legal pathways to protect the right of 
asylum while maintaining access to the border?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So, as we have said, we are committed to 
continuing to expand lawful pathways and processes. I think you 
mentioned these safe mobility offices, which is what we're 
calling the regional processing centers. I view that and we 
view that as really a fundamental tool to help better organize 
migration, not just to the United States, but, as I said, to 
some of our partner countries, including Canada and Spain, 
which have signed on. We are in active discussions with other 
countries to allow for referrals to their processes as well.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, sir.
    I yield back.
    Thank you for your service.
    Chairman Higgins. I thank the gentleman.
    My colleague from Texas, Mr. Luttrell has been recognized 
for 5 minutes for questions.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, 
gentlemen.
    If the numbers that Mr. Correa and Mr. Garcia are talking 
about are in fact the truth, and those numbers are dropping, 
job well done. I am a border State. I am a Texas boy. I am one 
of the landing zones for the illegal migration coming across 
the border. So if those numbers are dropping, absolutely I 
applaud that effort because that is what I need. That is what 
my base are asking me for every day. How do we control that 
situation?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto, ICE detention policy states that ICE uses 
its limited detention resources to detain non-citizens to 
secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal 
from the United States, as well as those that are subject to 
mandatory detention as outlined by the Immigration and 
Nationality Act or those that ICE determines are a flight risk 
during the custody determination process. Now, in my district I 
border Liberty County--Polk County and Liberty County. The 
population of Liberty County is roughly around 90,000. There 
are 50,000--50,000 illegal immigrants parked right on the 
border of my district and another Member's district. Now, here 
is my issue, and I want your help solving this problem, we are 
a country of immigrants, absolutely, and my colleagues on the 
other side, they shine a very good, a very meaningful light on 
people and the process and the struggle is real. I get it and 
it is very challenging. But that number of illegal immigrants 
in that small area is scuttling that county. The school 
districts are absolutely overwhelmed. They are having to bring 
in teachers that speak Spanish because none of the children 
speak English. The area that they have occupied looks like a 
Third World country.
    My question is, why isn't ICE--or why doesn't ICE move on 
that and assist our county in the removal of those undocumented 
immigrants?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So ICE's function is to obviously enforce 
our immigration laws and carry out--execute what we call final 
orders of removal. I don't know the circumstances in your 
county. I'd be happy to look into it. I will say ICE has never 
received enough funding to detain every individual we 
encounter. This has been the subject of active litigation. I 
think, as we have said repeatedly, we are a Nation of laws and 
we're a Nation of immigrants and we need to be able to enforce 
our laws while also providing avenues for immigrants who wish 
to come to be able to come.
    Mr. Luttrell. So I am glad you said that, we are a Nation 
of laws, so in that we need to enforce those laws. But that is 
obviously not happening. I don't know where the rub is between 
State, county, and local law and Federal law, since these are 
our illegal immigrants that were processed--some, not all, but 
some were processed in. How do I fix this problem, sir?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So again, without knowing the specific 
details, I'd be happy to follow up with your office. 
Individuals who are issued a notice to appear can go through 
the immigration court process, which can take many years. It is 
an unfortunate reality in this country that our immigration and 
asylum system is so broken that it does take an extraordinary 
time for people to go through that process. Individuals with 
final orders of removal should be removed at the end of that 
process. But historically it has been quite difficult, again 
under Presidents of both parties, to execute final orders of 
removal for people who are not detained.
    Mr. Luttrell. OK. To that, can you confirm for me--and this 
committee was in El Paso and down at the--I am sorry, I forgot 
what the other place that we went--but they told us that it is 
widely reported that aliens are released into the interior 
without court dates, regardless of whether or not they were 
issued at an NTA. Are those reports true? Do illegal migrants 
that come across, are they processed through without a show 
time or show place?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So historically the Border Patrol has 
issued notices to appear without court dates on them until 
frankly fairly recently.
    Mr. Luttrell. Or locations?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Right now we are issuing NTAs with court 
dates on them. In the lead up to the lifting of Title 42 we 
were also--because of the----
    Mr. Luttrell. That happened. Have illegal migrants come 
across and not been issued--because we have heard from 
leadership that that is the case, but I want to hear what you 
have to say.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. So we have paroled individuals in order to 
relieve the overcrowding in our facilities. Those individuals 
are required to report into ICE facilities and be issued NTAs 
there.
    Mr. Luttrell. How on earth are we supposed to track those 
individuals if we are just releasing them basically on their 
own recognizance? I am sorry sir, can you answer that for me?
    Chairman Higgins. Would the gentleman like to answer that 
question?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sure. Many of those individuals were placed 
into alternatives to detention program, which does include 
monitoring. So as part of that program, more than 90 percent of 
the individuals who are released on ATD do, in fact report to 
their ICE facilities.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir.
    Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentleman yields.
    The gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. Ramirez, is recognized 
for questioning.
    Ms. Ramirez. Thank you Chairman Higgins.
    I want to thank both of you for being here today.
    Similar to Congressman Thanedar, I have a similar family of 
immigrant story. Actually as I look around, I think all of us 
here have a history of family migrating here, it just depended 
on when we came.
    So I want to clarify a few things and then I want to get 
into some questions.
    First, I have heard a lot of conversation about legal 
entrance versus illegal entrance to this country. It is my 
understanding that the CBP app is a tool to do the scheduling 
so that people can enter here seeking asylum legally, correct?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. That's right. The CBP one app allows 
individuals to schedule their presentation at a port of entry. 
Our Immigration and Nationality Act expressly provides that 
people without documents can claim asylum.
    Ms. Ramirez. So Mr. Nunez-Neto, that means that if they are 
making that request, if they are filling out the app, as one of 
my colleagues has talked about, the filling out of the app, 
they show up to a port of entry and turn themselves in during 
that appointment, they are lawfully entering and seeking 
asylum. Yes or no?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Individuals--and I welcome Chief Huffman's 
views here--but individuals who are processed by CBP at the 
ports of entry will be placed into removal proceedings and 
issued a notice to appear. They, as part of that process, the 
immigration court process, have a right to claim asylum, which 
again is enshrined in the INA.
    Ms. Ramirez. If someone requests asylum because of the fear 
or the extreme circumstances that they have experienced in 
their country or maybe Mexico or maybe Guatemala or Honduras or 
Nicaragua or whatever country that they are fleeing from or in 
the process of getting up north from, they go through the 
critical fear interviews, correct?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. That is true for individuals who are placed 
into expedited removal at the border. That is a separate, more 
streamlined process that is primarily used for individuals 
encountered between ports of entry, although it can be used at 
ports of entry as well. That's right, the credible fear 
interview, which is basically a broad screen as it was designed 
by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, that 
allows, frankly, most individuals who are going through that 
interview under normal circumstances to be screened in.
    Ms. Ramirez. Got it.
    So I just want to come back to this concern. I really 
appreciate my colleagues on the other side being concerned for 
the children and the people that are crossing the border and 
the inhumane experiences that they go through. My youngest 
sister is adopted, she was 12 years old, weighed 60 pounds when 
she crossed, unaccompanied more than 16 years ago. So I 
appreciate care for people like my family. The thing that I 
don't appreciate is the idea that they come to the border, they 
are at a school, or they are attempting to seek asylum like my 
little sister was, and all of a sudden we want ICE to deport 
them immediately to Mexico or to wherever their country of 
origin is. In my opinion, having been in these countries for a 
very long time, months at a time, I personally know clearly 
what people are escaping. So I know that if Iris, my little 
sister, would have been deported immediately, if ICE would have 
came to the school and deported Iris, Iris would have died 
within a month in Guatemala at the age of 12.
    So I actually have to push back on the other side and say 
that seeking asylum is not a crime. That is what many of our 
families have done. Maybe they did it now, maybe they are doing 
it today, maybe they did it 100 years ago. So I am really 
concerned, actually, when we talk about the number of people 
that have been repatriated or deported, because I am not very 
clear yet on how many of the people that are requesting the 
critical fear interviews, in fact, are able to stay from 
immediate removal based on some of the training questions that 
I have. I will go ahead and send you some of that in advance so 
that I can get more information on that.
    I also want to mention, we have talked a lot about legal 
and illegal pathways. I do want to say that I appreciate the 
administration's commitment to identifying ways through some of 
the regional centers and other ways that asylum seekers can 
apply to be able to seek asylum here. While I don't think those 
are perfect and I don't think it solves our immigration issue 
or the cause of migration, I certainly think it is a path 
forward. I also do invite my colleagues if they want to go to 
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, my family is from the border 
there, happy to bring you with me. We can talk and walk through 
some of those roads and get to know a little bit more of the 
immigrant experience.
    Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
    My colleague from Arizona, Mr. Crane, is recognized for 5 
minutes for questions.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    I also appreciate you bringing up the quote from Mr. Nunez-
Neto.
    I want to go through that quote really quick again, Mr. 
Nunez-Neto. Here is what you said. You know, what we have 
really done here is oversee a historic increase in lawful 
pathways to the United States, including at our ports of entry, 
through CBP One application. You most certainly have given us a 
historic increase, sir. I want to go to a historic increase 
real quick. Just an example, just a couple of days ago, not a 
couple of years ago, but a couple of days ago in Arizona, where 
I am from, this is Fox News on 6/4/23, Border Patrol canine 
sniffs out $2 million in fentanyl during traffic stop in 
Arizona. Fox News. Mr. Huffman, are you aware of this story? Do 
you remember this one?
    Yes, Border Patrol canine helped agents sniff out $2 
million worth of smuggled fentanyl during a traffic stop in 
Arizona last week. The seizure happened at a checkpoint along 
I8 near Yuma. Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk 
Daniel. Daniel stated the narcotics totaled more than 192 
pounds, enough to kill 48 million people. Sir, I didn't say 48 
people, I didn't say 48,000 people, I said 48 million people. 
That is exactly the historic increase that you all have brought 
to the United States of America.
    Now, I want to go down to the second part of your quote 
where you say, and what we are really trying to do here is 
incentivize migrants to use safe, lawful, and orderly pathways 
that, again, we have expanded dramatically over the last 2 
years. I want to focus in on one word--incentives. That is 
exactly what you have done. I know why you have done it, sir, 
because that is exactly what your boss did. He was doing that 
when he was campaigning for President. I actually got a chance 
to read his very quote to Secretary Mayorkas sitting in your 
chair like a month ago. If you guys were actually serious about 
securing this border and protecting Americans, that word would 
not be incentivized. You know what it would be, sir? It would 
be deter. I will say it one more time, it would be deter. You 
guys would be trying to deter people.
    Now, I understand my colleagues over here, they are talking 
about folks trying to come here, migrants. Because one of my 
colleagues said he attributed our border crisis to global 
economic disaster, OK. I have said this in this committee 
before, this side of the aisle, we do love the fact that the 
United States of America is such a great country that people 
want to come here. As a matter of fact, we can all recognize 
that one of the great things about this country is that we do 
have a lot of immigrants here, but legal immigrants. That is 
what we want, sir. Because of the Biden open border policies, 
it is flooding people into this country and it is tying up our 
Border Patrol Agents to the tune of--this story that I just 
read you, 48 million people could have died by the fentanyl 
that just came in in Arizona 2 days ago. What do you think 
about that, sir?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Thank you for that question.
    I would note that 90 percent of the fentanyl that comes 
into the country comes through our ports of entry, not between 
our ports of entry. We have been engaged in an all of 
government----
    Mr. Crane. Hold on a second, sir. How are you able to even 
calculate that when there are so many gotaways that come 
through port of entries that you guys don't even get? How could 
you say that? The only numbers that you can calculate are based 
on----
    Mr. Correa. Will the gentlemen yield?
    Mr. Crane. Yes, go ahead.
    Mr. Correa. I was just going to say two separate issues, 
fentanyl. Earlier we had a witness, my Orange County Sheriff, 
that said a lot of the fentanyl precursors are now coming into 
the United States through our own ports of entry, then going 
south into Mexico for manufacturing. So I think it is a--Mr. 
Crane, great issue, fentanyl. Love to set up another committee 
hearing to address this issue specifically, sir.
    Mr. Crane. Mr. Correa--I am going to claim back my time. 
Are you saying that fentanyl is not coming through the gaps? Is 
that what you are saying, sir?
    Mr. Correa. I am saying, sir, that fentanyl is coming in 
from all parts.
    Mr. Crane. Yes, that is what I am saying too. So he is 
claiming that 98 percent according to experts is coming through 
the ports of entry. How can he possibly know that? Anybody in 
Border Patrol can tell you they don't have enough manpower, 
especially when a lot of our agents are busy processing people 
coming in through the country. They don't have enough manpower. 
That is why there are so many gotaways. That is why there are 
so many people on the Terror Watch List that are coming through 
the border as well.
    Mr. Correa. Mr. Crane, just to answer your question, I 
think he is talking--I am not going to put words in their 
mouth--but, from experience, that is where most of the fentanyl 
is being caught right now, at the ports of entry. I have been 
there like you have.
    Mr. Crane. Caught, that is the key, caught. That is because 
that is where most of our people are. There is not the same 
percentage of people in the gap. That is what I am telling you.
    Mr. Correa. If we doubled the number of blue uniforms at 
those ports or entry, we would catch double the amount.
    Mr. Crane. But you still aren't touching the gaps where 
there aren't people in the open desert. That is what we are 
talking about. There is video after video of people that just--
ranchers, good citizens that just go to the border, sit there 
with cameras, and watch these people come in with backpacks. I 
live in Arizona, sir. I know you live in California, right?
    Chairman Higgins. So this is engaging debate. It is the 
kind of thing that should be discussed, but the gentleman's 
time has expired.
    I recognize----
    Mr. Luttrell. Mr. Chairman, real quick. For the record, it 
was--we went to McAllen.
    Chairman Higgins. Yes, OK.
    Mr. Luttrell. I just wanted that for the record. Popped 
into my head. Sorry. Thank you.
    Chairman Higgins. Again, to 1,954 miles border and some of 
us have scouted the entire thing on several occasions.
    I recognize my friend Mr. Green from Texas for 5 minutes 
for questioning.
    Mr. Green. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
    I thank the committee for allowing me to participate as an 
interloper today.
    Mr. Huffman, I believe you indicated that the CBP is in its 
99th year of existence.
    Mr. Huffman. So CBP is actually in its 20th year existence. 
The U.S. Border Patrol, one of the legacy agencies, is in its 
99th year of existence.
    Mr. Green. Well, I want to just say thank you to all of the 
persons who do this work. I know it is not easy.
    In my old age I am starting to see both sides of things 
more and more. Just celebrated my 25th birthday for the third 
time. There are some people who live on our side of this border 
who are suffering too. Just mentioned communities, they are 
suffering too. We need to do something about that. We need to 
do something about the people who are hungry, need to be fed. 
When I was thirsty, you gave me water, when I needed shelter, 
clothing, you gave me clothing. Somewhere around Matthew 25. It 
is a difficult problem. There is no real simple solution. There 
really isn't. If the solution were really simple, it would have 
been solved. There are better minds than have been here and had 
the opportunity.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto--Is that correct? Sir, you said that the 
conditions driving the migrants still exist. Could you just 
quickly articulate some of those conditions, please?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Sure. We have seen over the last 2 years, 
at times, surges in migration from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. 
Those are countries with failing regimes and devastated 
economies that we have difficulties removing people to. That is 
still the case. We have at times seen surges in migration of 
Haitian Nationals. Haiti, a place that is in the middle of a 
humanitarian crisis. We have seen economies failing throughout 
Latin America, leading to the movement of countries to our 
border that we have not historically seen. That includes 
countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, as well as some others.
    Mr. Green. Thank you.
    I heard someone say not so very long ago that the whole 
country has become the border now, that it is not just at the 
south where you make your entry. When you think about that, we 
all have to share the burden. My Governor has been putting 
people on buses and he just sends them. I don't approve of the 
way he is doing it, but I do think that the places to migrate 
to other than just right at the border, not a bad idea. I think 
that we ought to try to work together to implement an idea. 
Why, why not call and say, we have some people here, one 
Governor to another, we have some people, can you help us? 
Federal Government steps in and says we are going to help by 
providing some additional resources.
    At some point, we will have to work together to resolve 
this. It is just not going to be resolved with simple sound 
bites. So I am hoping that we can do so now.
    I want to just say this, I find Mr. Mayorkas a decent man. 
He has a tough job, just as you have a tough job, Mr. Huffman, 
just as you do. We all have tough jobs. I found him be a good, 
decent man. He is working with a broken system that we have not 
fixed, to borrow some Texas terminology. What do you do when 
you have the system that we--we have not--we have neglected?
    So I thank you.
    I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. I thank you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentlemen yields.
    My colleague and friend from Texas, Representative Pfluger, 
is recognized for 5 minutes for questioning.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for letting me 
wave onto this committee.
    Mr. Huffman, thank you for your service.
    I will get right into it. Assistant secretary, how long 
have you been the assistant secretary for immigration?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Officially, since, I believe, April. But I 
was acting in this role since October 2021.
    Mr. Pfluger. OK. Can you tell me the number of 
apprehensions since January 2021?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I don't have the numbers right in front of 
me, but I believe the number is somewhere in the 3.5 million 
range.
    Mr. Pfluger. I don't have the document, Mr. Chairman, but 
but that sounds about 2 million short. Apprehensions on the 
Southwest Border--and I will yield to you if you can back me 
up--about 5\1/2\ million.
    Chairman Higgins. Is the gentleman referencing for the 
total number of encounters and apprehensions?
    Mr. Pfluger. Yes.
    Chairman Higgins. I would say that is--3\1/2\ million is 
low.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I'm sorry, I meant the last 2 fiscal years. 
I think if you're counting from January, that's probably a 
little bit higher.
    Mr. Pfluger. How do those compare to the 4-year period 
between 2017 and beginning of 2021?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. It is higher.
    Mr. Pfluger. Twice, three, four, five times higher?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. It is significantly higher.
    Mr. Pfluger. OK. Would you consider that a success for the 
Department?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. You know, we have seen over the last few 
years, again, as I said, these surges in migration under 
Presidents of both parties. This is not a new phenomenon, this 
is not something that is solely the purview of one party or the 
other.
    Mr. Pfluger. No, but Assistant Secretary, it is the numbers 
indicate a story out here. Would you consider that a success 
for our country?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. I don't believe that what we have seen at 
the border is a success for anybody.
    Mr. Pfluger. OK. I agree with that.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Going back more than a decade.
    Mr. Pfluger. That might be the first answer that I have 
agreed with DHS on our border in the last 3 years since I have 
been here.
    It is not a success. Title 42 is not the answer. This was a 
Band-Aid fix. It goes to the point where I meet with Mr. 
Huffman's officers, and it doesn't matter if I am in Del Rio or 
El Paso, McAllen or Laredo, Eagle Pass, or my hometown of San 
Angelo, it really doesn't matter, the thing that keeps coming 
back, every officer, every Border Patrol, Customs agent or ICE 
agent says these words, and I quote, ``there are no 
consequences''. Without consequences, there is chaos. The chaos 
that we are seeing is fentanyl, 100,000-plus deaths, 
trafficking of humans, 53 people who died in a tractor trailer 
south of San Antonio in July.
    So to your answer, I am disappointed that you don't 
actually know the number. As the assistant secretary, that 
number should be ingrained. You should know that number and you 
should be able to add it up today for the crossings, the 
apprehensions today. You should be able to have a running 
counter today. That is the problem with this administration, is 
that the tragedies that are happening to us, in my community in 
Odessa, Texas, where we had the police chief here 2 weeks ago, 
we are feeling the impact of this. Without rules, there is 
chaos.
    Would you say that after Title 42 ended and Title 8 was 
reverted to, DHS has noted that aliens may qualify for an 
exception and even if they don't use a lawful pathway, would 
you say that those--do aliens who use the alleged lawful 
pathways need a legal basis to enter? Or can anyone enter the 
United States at this point?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. Going back to my previous comments, sir, I 
would note that Title 42 did not allow us to place consequences 
at the border. We need consequences on unlawful entry in order 
to deter unlawful migration. That is why we have implemented 
the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Rule, which does place 
common-sense conditions on asylum eligibility. But we need 
Congress to act here, or there will never be a success on our 
border.
    Mr. Pfluger. You need Congress to act here?
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. We do, sir.
    Mr. Pfluger. Assistant Secretary, we passed the most 
comprehensive border security package in the history of 
Congress. We have acted. That is one of the most outrageous 
statements that I think I have ever heard.
    Mr. Nunez-Neto. We need Congress to act in a bipartisan 
manner to fix this problem. Neither party is going to solve 
this on its own.
    Mr. Pfluger. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
    I am having trouble----
    Chairman Higgins. I indulge the gentleman.
    Mr. Pfluger. We passed H.R. 2 and have acted. What this 
country needs is the political will to enforce the laws that 
are already on the books. In fact, the gentleman sitting next 
to you as Commissioner has 19,000 Border Patrol agents that are 
currently out there ready to give their lives and they are 
saying that there are no consequences because Remain in Mexico, 
MPP has not been adhered to, because the political will to 
engage with our allies and our partners and countries to the 
south of us has not been adhered to. We had policy that 
deterred, and without deterrence, we will see a massive surge.
    So I take great offense to the fact that you are telling me 
that you think Congress should act, and that that is the 
problem.
    I couldn't disagree with you more.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Higgins. The gentlemen yields.
    It has been an engaging committee hearing. We have shared 
insightful and I think well-thought-out perspectives from both 
sides. The Ranking Member and I are friends, and we will 
continue to discuss this.
    I thank the witnesses for their testimony today. I thank 
the Members for their questions.
    Members of the subcommittee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses. We would ask that the witnesses 
respond to these questions if presented to you in writing.
    Pursuant to committee rule VII(D), the hearing record will 
be held open for 10 days.
    Without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]



                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              

       Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green for Blas Nunez-Neto
    Question 1. When Title 42 ended, CBP reverted to Title 8 to process 
and remove illegal aliens from the United States who were not 
authorized to remain or who did not use a designated ``lawful pathway'' 
for entry. However, DHS notes that aliens may qualify for an exception 
if they do not utilize a ``lawful pathway.'' The exceptions are 
expansive. Currently, what percentage of those who did not use a 
``lawful pathway'' for entry have been granted an exception? Do aliens 
who use the alleged ``lawful pathways'' need a legal basis to enter, or 
can anyone wishing to enter the United States use the pathways? Those 
using parole pathways--what happens after the 2-year term ends--are 
they issued NTAs, or are they expected to present for removal on their 
own volition? Are the parole pathways expected to be implemented in 
perpetuity?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 2. Parole+ATD was struck down by a Federal judge in March 
2023. Prior to the end of Title 42, Chief of Border Patrol Raul Ortiz 
issued a policy called ``Parole with Conditions,'' which in practice 
seemingly was the same program as Parole+ATD, just under a different 
name. Is Parole+ATD still in use, despite the court order to terminate? 
What are the differences between Parole+ATD and Parole with Conditions? 
Are aliens still released under these conditions? What conditions do 
the aliens have to meet in order to be released?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 3. The administration has announced recent agreements with 
the government of Mexico, one of which being that Mexico will accept 
30,000 returns per month from the United States. Are only Cubans, 
Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans being accepted by Mexico, or are 
other nationalities being accepted, as well? What are the limitations 
of the agreement? Since the agreement's inception, how many aliens has 
Mexico accepted? Is Mexico accepting returns only from specific 
portions of the border (i.e., Southwest border), or does Mexico accept 
aliens from any portion of the United States? Are there any 
restrictions on whom Mexico will accept?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 4. ICE detention policy states that, ``ICE uses its 
limited detention resources to detain noncitizens to secure their 
presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United 
States--as well as those that are subject to mandatory detention, as 
outlined by the Immigration and Nationality Act, or those that ICE 
determines are a public safety or flight risk during the custody 
determination process.'' Does ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations 
(ERO) have enough officers to handle both a potential upcoming post-
Title 42 surge at the border and the ability to continue its interior 
enforcement operations? What plan does DHS have for ICE to track those 
who fail to show for their immigration removal proceedings? Also, it 
has been widely reported that aliens were released into the interior 
without court dates, regardless of whether they were issued a NTA. Are 
the reports true, and how does DHS expect to track those aliens without 
proper documentation?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
       Questions From Honorable Josh Breechen for Blas Nunez-Neto
    Question 1. Under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, DHS has 
closed several detention centers across the country that were 
previously used to house and keep aliens in DHS custody and prevent 
their release into the interior of the United States. Instead of 
detaining aliens, this administration decided to implement alternatives 
to detention like GPS ankle monitoring, telephonic reporting, and 
SmartLINK phone app monitoring. On May 20, 2021, then-ICE Acting 
Director Tae Johnson said, ``ICE will continue to ensure it has 
sufficient detention space to hold noncitizens as appropriate.'' Yet, 
in his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, President Biden requested 
9,000 fewer detention beds at detention facilities--a reduction from 
34,000 to 25,000.
    Is this memo accurate?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 2. Will CPB have the flexibility to conduct a DNA test if 
CBP agents are suspicious of an adult alien?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 3. Would you agree that this policy change will encourage 
more children to be trafficked into the country with complete 
strangers?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
 Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green for Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman
    Question 1. Regarding the parole process for Cubans, Haitians, 
Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), the CHNV program was created due 
to a large amount of those aliens presenting at the border. What is the 
process for screening individuals for parole when they arrive at air 
ports of entry? Have any been denied parole at the port of entry? Have 
any sponsor applicants within the United States been denied sponsorship 
of those arriving under CHNV and on what grounds were they denied?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 2. It was noted that CBP has closed gates and plugged gaps 
in the wall to prevent illegal aliens from entering between points of 
entry. However, it has been reported that Border Patrol agents are 
shuffling in aliens through an area used by authorized personnel called 
Gate 42. Why is Border Patrol escorting aliens through personnel gates, 
such as Gate 42?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 3. The committee has been told that 90 percent of the 
drugs crossing our border enter through ports of entry, while also 
being told that the amount caught is roughly between 5-10 percent being 
trafficked into the United States. Please clarify what percentage of 
illicit substances are interdicted at our ports of entry. Has Border 
Patrol seen an increase of fentanyl seizures between ports of entry? In 
total, what is the estimated percentage of fentanyl being trafficked 
across the border between ports of entry?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 4. In his testimony, Mr. Huffman stated that in addition 
to the approximately 24,000 agents and officers along the Southwest 
Border, CBP has also been hiring non-uniformed personnel and contract 
personnel to assist in processing and facility operations. How many 
non-uniformed personnel have been hired specifically for processing 
along the Southwest Border? How many contract personnel have been hired 
for the same reason? Where are the majority of these extra personnel 
being sent? How much do the extra non-uniform personnel cost?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 5. Once family units (FAMUs) are released into the United 
States, are all family members tracked/accounted for individually, or 
is only the head of household tracked? What does the vetting process 
look like for family units? How is it determined that the family units 
are indeed related?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 6. There have been reports of NGO's bussing processed 
migrants into the interior of the United States--as many as three 
chartered busloads in just a few hours. How does CBP keep track of 
every individual on the bus? Which specific NGO's does CBP work with to 
arrange travel for the aliens and how is the decision made when 
choosing an NGO?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
 Questions From Honorable Josh Breechen for Benjamine ``Carry'' Huffman
    Question 1a. Under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, DHS has 
closed several detention centers across the country that were 
previously used to house and keep aliens in DHS custody and prevent 
their release into the interior of the United States. Instead of 
detaining aliens, this administration decided to implement alternatives 
to detention like GPS ankle monitoring, telephonic reporting, and 
SmartLINK phone app monitoring. On May 20, 2021, then-ICE Acting 
Director Tae Johnson said, ``ICE will continue to ensure it has 
sufficient detention space to hold noncitizens as appropriate.'' Yet in 
his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, President Biden requested 9,000 
fewer detention beds at detention facilities--a reduction from 34,000 
to 25,000.
    Why would the administration claim a lack of resources as 
justification for implementing alternatives to detention policies, yet 
simultaneously request fewer detention beds? Shouldn't this 
administration be requesting more beds, not less?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 1b. I was made aware of a CPB memo dated May 19, 2023, 
which states that this administration voluntarily directed Border 
Patrol to terminate all DNA testing last Wednesday, on May 31.
    Last fiscal year there were over 560,000 apprehensions at the 
Southern Border of aliens in a family unit. If we were to use GAO's 8 
percent of familial claims being fraudulent, this would mean that over 
44,000 of those kids apprehended were not traveling with their 
families.
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.

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